Here’s a warning that I hope will prevent a lot of frustration: Unless you are a serious console gamer with skills honed over years of play, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is probably not the game you think it is.

Despite the adorable, world-famous Mario and Luigi, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is nothing close to a casual party game. Despite its cartoony presentation, it will drive many children into a tantrum or a sulk.

Instead it is an extremely demanding, well-honed test of reflexes and coordination. Like the arcade and hard-core console games of the 1980s and ’90s New Super Mario Bros. Wii does not coddle the player. Like those games of yore it is best played alone in intense concentration. It can feel diabolical and punishing at times. Much of the game requires meticulous practice. As you complete each segment, you will feel as if you have truly earned your bragging rights.

Whether this all sounds like fun is a matter of personal perspective. If you bought a Wii over the last few years to play casually with family and friends, New Super Mario Bros. is not the game for you. If, however, you are an old-school Nintendo fan who laments that the company has spent so much time and money chasing soccer moms and grandparents with so many recent concessions to accessibility, New Super Mario Bros. is just what you’ve been waiting for.

The Super Mario Bros. recipe remains one of the simplest possible: rescue the princess by traversing ever more challenging two-dimensional levels. Jump at the wrong time, land in the wrong place, move in the wrong direction or touch the wrong thing, and you die. If you die, you start over. If you die too many times, you start over even further back.

This is how it has always been, and so it apparently shall remain. Yet New Super Mario Bros. Wii is far more difficult than the most recent major Mario title, Super Mario Galaxy (2007). Many of the same children and parents who enjoyed Super Mario Galaxy will be crushed into submission by New Super Mario Bros. Wii as they lose over and over again.

In that sense the new game feels trapped uncomfortably among Nintendo’s past, present and future. Nintendo clearly wants this game to appease grumbling longtime fans who resent the company’s move toward the mainstream. And for some it will do so.

At the same time, however, the Wii has been marketed quite brilliantly as casual living room entertainment for groups of friends who aren’t necessarily longtime gamers. And so New Super Mario Bros. includes the ability for up to four players to control separate characters simultaneously in the game, a first for the series.

The problem is that the multiplayer mode is nearly a complete disaster for nonexperts who might actually want to get through each level. With each person who joins the action, the game becomes even more difficult.

That is because the various player-controlled characters, including the brothers themselves, bounce off one another to their doom, push one another off ledges and shove one another into killer monsters. It can be very difficult for players (like the people I invited to my home to play) to keep track of their characters on the screen. In a game that requires precise control and punishes the slightest mistake with death, the multiplayer mode generates exponential confusion.

Even worse, the one concession the game makes to newer players does not even work in multiplayer. Perhaps the best addition to the new game is a feature that guides players past a level if they have died on it repeatedly. But inexplicably, it only works in solo play.

So New Super Mario Bros. Wii offers multiplayer support, but the actual design of the game encourages most people to play by themselves. That is not what Nintendo is supposed to be all about these days.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/arts/television/16mario.html?_r=1

so there you have it nintendo is too casual for hardcores but too hardcore for casuals

"Many of the same children and parents who enjoyed Super Mario Galaxy will be crushed into submission by New Super Mario Bros. Wii as they lose over and over again."

Haha! Nintendo absolutely cannot win, lol.

Oh well, trudge on and continue to walk to the beat of your own drum. The Nintendo core AND the casuals will continue to follow. Wait until the next Wii sports comes out. This guy will be drooling all over Nintendo again, so it's all good.

I hope that's true. Often "too hardcore for the casual" is still too easy for the veteran. I'm really hoping this mario game kicks my ass.

cant wait for this game...

My four year old couldn't get past the first goomba. I returned the game and got Dora saves the snow princess.

I would be glad if it is truly this hard.

Too hardcore for the casual but not hardcore enough for the hardcore?

I picked up my copy but am waiting for a friend to come over and play it with me, so I haven't actually started playing it yet. The extra challenge poised by multiplayer really has me exited. I've been waiting for a multiplayer Mario title for a long time so I can't wait to get this game cracked open and played!

Poor Nintendo are totally d0med.

For veterans the core game isn't that hard but I did see the super guide brick pop up twice (meaning I lost 8 times in a row on two levels) and some of the star coins are an absolute bitch to get..

Edit: But that's what makes the game so great, the multiplayer. If one player is finding a section of level difficult, another player can pick them up and carry them or they can hit the A button when they're in trouble and just get inside a bubble. There's also Super Guide, it allows you to pick up the control at any time and when the level is finished, you can either replay it yourself or skip it entirely with no penalty.