New Super Mario Bros. Wii Press Conference Impressions

New Super Mario Bros. is heading to the Wii, and Nintendo gave us a brief demo at its E3 2009 press conference.

Mario's been around for more than 20 years and has featured upward of 200 million games sold worldwide. Back in 2006, Nintendo returned to where it all started, Super Mario Bros, with a remixed version for the DS. New Super Mario Bros was released to critical acclaim, and since then Nintendo fans have been waiting for a sequel.

During this morning's press conference, Nintendo's executive vice president for marketing, Cammie Dunaway, announced that a sequel would be coming this year--not to the DS, but rather to its home-console sibling, the Wii. Although Mario has featured in two and three dimensions before, this time around Shigeru Miyamoto decided to take him into the "fourth dimension" with four-player competitive and cooperative multiplayer.

Product manager Bill Trinen introduced New Super Mario Bros Wii to the audience at Club Nokia in Los Angeles. Developed in Nintendo's Kyoto studio, New Super Mario Bros Wii will let you play with up to four friends with characters that include Mario, Luigi, a blue toad, and a yellow toad. Four helpers including Dunaway grabbed a Wii Remote and played through a typical Super Mario Bros stage during the demo. The level features brown dirt underfoot, green rolling grass, and the quirky cylindrical hills of the Mushroom Kingdom that Mario fans are more than familiar with. How you play the game is completely up to you. Friendly play is a viable option, and for fans of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, all-out battle against your coplayers is also possible.

In the side-scrolling platformer, you can pick up and carry players and choose whether to protect them from attack or throw them at an enemy, presumably injuring them in the process. When players lose a life, they return within a bubble, and you can choose to burst the bubble to let them back in or let them bounce around helplessly. New SMB Wii features Mario regulars such as warp pipes, hidden areas, and coins. In the demo, the four players went underground to a typical coin room and raced to collect the most coins.

The camera automatically zooms out to show all players, but you can be left behind if you're too slow, which might cost you a life. A new propeller suit, collected with a P icon from a question-mark box, lets you perform a high jump and drift slowly back down to the ground. At the end of each level, a scoreboard shows how each player fared, with overall scores and extra stats. New Super Mario Bros Wii will be coming this holiday season and will be playable on the E3 expo floor, so be sure to check back for a more in-depth preview later on.

34 Comments

  • stewie1000

    Posted Sep 3, 2009 7:11 am GMT

  • stewie1000

    Posted Sep 3, 2009 7:11 am GMT

    awesome i cant wait till dis im the ULTIMATE MARIO fan

  • bluesteel13

    Posted Aug 23, 2009 1:26 pm GMT

    Looking forward to this expecially the multiplayer.

  • Hockenberry

    Posted Jul 5, 2009 7:09 pm GMT

    I dont like how everyone makes a big deal about multiplayer and co-op nowadays, but the game actually does look good. It is nice to see Nintendo releasing a good game for once lol. But yeah this looks really good but can someone tell me, is this a remake from the first one or does it have a new story line? My friends and I were wondering. Thanks!

  • SQUALL20XX

    Posted Jun 9, 2009 1:31 pm GMT

    4 players is really funny

  • SSBFan12

    Posted Jun 6, 2009 5:55 pm GMT

    This game is going to be really fun but I wish it had Wifi that would make it ten times more fun.

  • lightning_kf

    Posted Jun 4, 2009 7:42 pm GMT

    mhder

    Basically what he's trying to say is:
    GOOD GAMES.....TAKE "TIME" TO MAKE.

    Unless you want these beloved mascots to become unfavorable shovelware that people hate on the Wii. Let the lazy 3rd-party developers throw out crappy games for quick bucks and leave the 1st-party big names alone. Hell I'm upset that a new Kirby hasn't been announced, but it would be worth it if HAL takes the time to make one to look spectacular. Good games are NOT rushed.

    God gamers nowadays. Want so much in short time then complain when it's crap.

  • GuilSSJ

    Posted Jun 4, 2009 10:23 am GMT

    I loved it

  • DarkNeoBahamut

    Posted Jun 3, 2009 1:51 pm GMT

    great

  • PSFreak1

    Posted Jun 3, 2009 7:37 am GMT

    cool

  • chocolate1325

    Posted Jun 3, 2009 6:31 am GMT

    I am a bit in the middle over the 4 players at once. It does offer a new set of ideas and it could be really funa dn it seems to target the casual audience and hardcore.

  • pakhair

    Posted Jun 3, 2009 6:31 am GMT

    I m interested..........

  • Junior_AIN

    Posted Jun 2, 2009 6:37 pm GMT

    I'll say it again. Wii, no. DS, yes. Then we have a deal. Stop making this and go make a new F-Zero for a change.

  • sick_dope_rad

    Posted Jun 2, 2009 4:45 pm GMT

    Sounds pretty awesome.

  • wiiwiieddie

    Posted Jun 2, 2009 4:30 pm GMT

    I hope the levels arnt the same as the ds

  • nintendo-naut

    Posted Jun 2, 2009 4:20 pm GMT

    Ah. So awesome.

  • DiscGuru101

    Posted Jun 2, 2009 4:04 pm GMT

    Thank God they returned to 2D/3D. Thank you Nintendo, this looks awesome.

  • mhder

    Posted Jun 2, 2009 3:00 pm GMT

    To all the people whining about star fox etc: Nintendo tends to make games when the have an idea for it. They don't make games for the sake of making it. If they did, games would end up like ~ like ~ those movie games. You force a game out of a theme and it turns out to be crap. If nobody has a new or innovative idea for Star fox or fzero, they won't force a game out of the franchise just for the sake of it like companies do with movie titles. By waiting for the right idea to come along, they ensure that they get a half decent title. If you've seen any Miyamoto interviews, you heard him say they propose game ideas etc BUT never do they say- we want to make a mario ??? -> now brainstorm ideas and make it work. They go from ideas to the title, not from the title down to the ideas. And after all these years, I think it's a formula that works more often than not.

  • gmax Site Greeter

    Posted Jun 2, 2009 2:18 pm GMT

    Even more Mario...

  • npramsey

    Posted Jun 2, 2009 1:58 pm GMT

    @ Sharvie: Nintendo has gone off the deep end doing new things. They virtually abandoned their old market, and fans. Its nice to see them making new games instead of peripherals and lifestyle software. Other platforms are relying on sequels lately too, and I'm quite content with that.