New Super Mario Bros. Wii 2D platformer announced with 4-player co-op
Nintendo announced New Super Mario Bros. Wii at the E3 2009 Nintendo Press Conference!
New Super Mario Bros. Wii is an all-new console take on the DS hit New Super Mario Bros. The biggest addition however is that it supports four-players simultaneously! Players can join in on the fun at any point and then cooperate and compete to gather coins and defeat enemies in classic side-scrolling Mario style!
The four playable characters is an odd mix as it includes Mario, Luigi and two different colored Toads (Blue and Yellow) and as the players move about the screen the camera will pan-out to accomodate them. In addition to entering pipes to access new areas, the levels are filled with secrets and hidden parts of stages just as you’d expect from a Mario title. You’ll even see new Mario power-ups like the Propeller Suit and Penguin Mario!
When the players reach the end of the stage its a race for the flagpole as the first player to grab it will receive a point bonus. Players are then ranked on their performance during the level.
With the multiplayer mode, the newest installment of the most popular video game franchise is designed to bring yet another type of family entertainment into living rooms and engage groups of friends in fast-paced Super Mario Bros. fun.
See New Super Mario Bros. Wii being played on-stage in this video from Nintendo’s E3 2009 press conference.
Additionally, New Super Mario Bros. Wii may contain a cool new Beginner’s Mode that allows players to watch the game being played like a movie! They then could start or stop playing from any point, allowing them to easily see later portions of the game that they couldn’t pass. However this hasn’t been confirmed and player’s would not be able to save or unlock things this way. Which would still maintain the challenge for hardcore players. This was mentioned by Miyamoto in a Q&A as reported by Kotaku.
Key Features of New Super Mario Bros. Wii include:
*New Super Mario Bros. Wii offers a combination of cooperation and competition. Players can pick each other up to save them from danger or toss them into it.
* Mario, Luigi and two Toads are all playable characters, while many others from the Mushroom Kingdom make appearances throughout the game. Players can even ride different Yoshi characters and use their tongues to swallow enemies – or their fellow players.
* In some areas, players use the motion abilities of the Wii Remote controller. The first player to reach a seesaw might make it tilt to help his or her character reach a higher platform – and then tilt it incorrectly just to mess with other players.
* New items include the Propeller Suit, which will shoot players high into the sky with just a shake of the Wii Remote and Mario’s new ability to transform into Penguin Mario.
* At the end of each stage during the simultaneous multiplayer mode, players are ranked based on their score, the coins collected and the number of enemies defeated.
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