New Super Mario Bros Wii is a 2D Mario game that is likely to be another demonstration of Nintendo’s ability to make great platform games. I played a few stages with Zach and was impressed by what I saw.

Anybody who has played the Nintendo DS iteration of New Super Mario Bros will be instantly familiar with the new Wii game. The art style very closely mimics the DS game except everything is now in a much higher resolution. Visually, the game looks very nice and has some great rotating effects that would be impossible to pull off on the DS or Super Nintendo.

The game is played holding the Wii remote NES style. Shaking the remote lets you perform a spin jump. If you hold down the 1 button and shake the remote while next to another player you can pick them up and either carry them around or throw them somewhere.

Many of the familiar stage types are back such as a desert and ice world. The desert level I played was filled with your common bottomless pit. The twist was that from these pits erupted geysers of sand that Mario and Luigi could walk on for a short amount of time. In this stage, because the sand platforms were very thin, Zach and I were constantly knocking into one another and just barely kept ourselves from falling to our death.

The most enjoyable stage I played was a level filled with clouds and rotating blocks. First of all, the blocks were obviously patterned after the ones that were featured in Super Mario Bros 3 because of the screws in each corner of the block. The blocks came in all different shapes and sizes and made jumping around safely a difficult task. This level along with the others I played were much more challenging than most of those featured in New Super Mario Bros. on DS. Also, the clouds in the level would sometimes obscure your surrounding but shaking the Wii Remote would make them dissipate.

Another level I played was an ice stage which included a new power-up that turned Mario into a penguin. As a penguin, Mario could slide down hills on his belly and smash through bricks as he went. Penguin Mario could also shoot balls of ice that could freeze enemies. Once an enemy was frozen you could use them as platforms to get to previously unreachable areas.

Speaking of power-ups, I know that the fire flower is back and that Yoshis will be available to use in some stages. There also was the return of a feature that originally appeared in Yoshi’s Island. There are certain areas that are obscured until you walk into them at which point you can then see what was previously hidden.

Overall, this game is looking like a great successor to the DS original.