Oh and to be clear, I know I'm against the review a bit, only because of what is said and reasons he counted off, I personally believe 8.9 is an excellent score. However the written word I take a few issues with.

Honestly I'd love for it to have online, when the question was brought up to Miyamoto I was hoping for a yes and he turned it down talking about maxing out the console (is some horrible mistranslation lol) My own issues stem from Craig Harris first calling the game quite possibly the best 2D Mario game, then in the same breath setting up scenarios for the game to count off.

Which is why I've brought up the argument that it possibly couldn't even work, especially how the game is designed right now, to make it work like the only other online 2D platformers (LBP and Splosion man) you'll have to change up the gameplay a lot and then it wouldn't be the same "best 2D Mario ever"

Understand? Counting off for shit you make up is one thing, then not thinking about how it might not work is another, and finally realizing how making what you want in the game change the gameplay to accommodate that feature and detract from what is really good about the game.

In this case apparently it's the best 2D Mario game ever, multiplayer is hard as it is with a group of skilled Mario players in the same room, put that online with no way to communicate would destroy what shred of coordination there is to be had. Then if you wanted to accommodate for that and make it easy to play multiplayer online you'd have to change the gameplay up and design the entire game around it (or at least have totally different levels for online like in Splosion man), much like LBP and Splosion man.

Why do you guys act as if you would be forced to play online with strangers if it came with the feature? If you don't like online then don't play it but for the rest of us that have busy lives and friends that live a good distance away a multiplayer centric game pretty much requires online. You should be asking developers for more content not sitting back happy because features standard in games today are missing and your "personally" ok with that.

As for people saying platformers can't be done online, LBP and Splosion Man say hi. Anyone thats played splosion man can tell you the game requires immense co-ordination especially with 4 players yet the game can be played without the smallest hickup over xbl.

2D Mario in it's best is a 9.5 when it comes to gameplay? O_o

Meh. Sure, Ninny played it safe with this - but what else do you expect? It's a side-scrolling updated throwback to the days of 8-bit. As much of an HD junkie as I am, I still have had a blast playing it.

I'd give it a 9.5, seriously. And it will sell truckloads.

good score, even though i knew it wouldn't have online, i still believe its a missing opportunity.

Online is not standard yet. There are tons of games without online gameplay that have no critisism like this (Bioshock, Super Mario Galaxy, Fallout 3, Rock Band, Wii Sports Resort, etc.) And frankly, those games don't need online. It makes me happy that they focused on single-player or local multiplayer instead of taking dev time to get the game on a network.

Craig Harris is probably one of those critics that is dissapointed with Nintendo's offering of online games, and so he rubs this into his review. He has this impression that Nintendo skimped on online (as well as having two identical toads w/ different colors) so they could bring this game before Christmas. He may be right. Without this game the Wii would be in a real bind at the end of the year.

Still, I think Nintendo decided from the start that it wouldn't be worth it to take the 4-5 extra months of dev time to build this game into a network when only 35% of the Wii user base is connected to the internet and only 4 million of those have Wii Speak (which would be required for a game like this).

so telling you about it beforehand means they can get away with it?

So can I announce a game, and then say, "hey guys, instead of using an artist, we are using clipart, because it's different, and matches up with the idea that this game is different"? Then, could you honestly say that we made the right decision? To an extent, you can say, "yes, if it matches the gameplay in a strong way". To which I will reply, "online multiplayer suits NSMBWii in a strong way, and it's occlusion takes away from that strength".

Drawing comparison to Metroid Prime is the worst thing you could possibly do, because it illustrates how far you are willing to bend logic in order to satisfy your point. Metroid is not a multiplayer game. In fact, everything about the game is geared towards single-player. You are in space, alone, surrounded by not anything similar to you. Multiplayer doesn't fit the game in any possible way.

Did anyone watch the video? He spends more time bashing the game than complementing - in fact, every good point is countered with something they did "wrong." It's kind of strange listening to this with the cheerful music in the background. He sounds pretty disappointed for a game worth 8.9.

I don't think online is necessary for a game like this. This isn't Brawl (which definitely needs better online, btw). Sure, it would have been nothing but a plus, however...

I think games like Modern Warfare aren't shit on enough for local multiplayer. Where's the split screen campaign? The split screen (edit)online multiplayer? Why not dock points for stuff like this, since Halo showed it can clearly be done? To me, this is far more important than tacking online in a 2D Mario game, yet I don't see reviewers docking points for it.

Online....that can be good but for it to work well in Mario you probably need levels designed for being played online. Just see how frustrating offline multiplayer can be and imagine how it would be playing online.

So since it didn't get that great a score this game will definitively be a multi million seller game.

Atleast a 10+ million.

just look at Wii fit and Mario Kart Wii.