After playing Wii Sports I am sure I do not need to tell you how exciting it was to think about future games like The BIGS, or Brunswick Pro Bowling, and maybe some day Fight Night and Virtual Tennis coming to the Nintendo Wii platform. To each have their own game, where the developers could take the basic concepts from Wii Sports and then go above and beyond to higher degree of immersion with each individual sport. Unfortunately Brunswick Pro Bowling does not go to much higher.

This is a pretty comprehensive bowling game. You have the quick play option where you and three other people can basically just bowl ten frames. Or you have the career mode. In career mode there are entrance fees and minimum score levels which you must maintain. You can purchase upgrades, different clothes and what not. The graphics look pretty good, but I will be interested to compare them to the PSP and PS2 version of the game. The game play is pretty close to the bowling game in Wii Sports with some small changes. One of those changes is how you position where you will release the ball. In Wii Sports this was done with the directional pad which made it very easy to pick up. In Brunswick Pro Bowling you need to hold down the B button and rotate your Wiimote clockwise to move right and counter clockwise to move left. This is quite cumbersome at first but after a while you do get the hang of it. The other problem is that it is very hard to make minor adjustments to what path you want the ball to take. Adjusting the angle of the roll as well as the approach and throwing the ball are for the most part the same as Wii Sports. The game uses real life looking humans instead of cartoon characters, and these humans actually have legs unlike the Wii Characters.

Aside from the career mode, and the human looking characters there is not much different from Brunswick Pro Bowling to the Bowling in Wii Sports. Bowling fans will definitely get their monies worth. But for the average gamer who just wants to bowl with some friends, Wii Sports is definitely the obvious choice only because you probably already have it and Brunswick Bowling is not substantially different in functionality. Had this game featured online play that would have completely changed my perceptions of this game. The idea of getting to go bowling with a friend or relative who lives far away would be really appealing. Imagine sitting there talking like you were at a real life bowling alley, you take your turn, he takes his turn. Celebrating great frames and engaging in some friend trash talk between the two of you. The only difference would probably be the lack of a cute waitress to bring you your favorite refreshments and snacks.

But the facts are that Brunswick Pro Bowling did not include online play. That being said until you can find it for under $20 it is pretty hard to recommend the game if you already own its equivalent. If you do not have Wii Sports for whatever reason I would definitely recommend renting this game and or buying it for some good fun.

When I first noticed news bites and other bits of information about Planet Puzzle League I thought to myself Oh alright another puzzle game for the Nintendo DS. Then I started hearing some great reviews so I got really excited when GameFly finally got this game in the mail to me.

One thing I liked right away was there was a menu option to erase all the previous data. Instead of trying to grow an additional arm with five more fingers so that I could press and hold whole bunch of buttons while I turned on the Nintendo DS to get rid of previously saved data. The user only needs to find the menu option only a couple of layers in and all those old game files are gone. This is a much better solution to the problem then trying to hold down five buttons while turning on the Nintendo DS.

The game concept is pretty simple. The player needs to match at least three of a matching block type in order for them to disappear there by allowing you to rearrange other blocks in sets of three or more. Now most of you are probably thinking, OK another Tetris game. You are close but Planet Puzzle League is a little different. The lines of blocks come from the bottom and build their way up. The player can only slide the blocks sideways to make matching sets of three. As time progresses more lines of blocks work their way upwards. You need to match them up to keep the screen as clean as long as you can. There are different games types, one of them piles garbage non colored block types and you have to make matches to finally convert the garbage to useable block types.

The game does utilize Nintendo WiFi which makes playing multiplayer with friends across the world possible. This does add a great deal of replay value to the game. And the game has some daily play options

At the end of the day Planet Puzzle League is just another puzzle game for the Nintendo DS. If you have Puzzle Quest, Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, or especially Tetris DS you may not really find Planet Puzzle League any more fun then the others. If you are looking to add a puzzle game or another puzzle game to your DS collection definitely give this game a look over I think you find that it is just as good as the rest.

The Paper Mario & RPG series has now been running for several years, starting at the original Mario RPG on the Super Nintendo back over 10 years ago. Things have changed quite a lot since the series began, in fact this latest outing scoots off the main vein of the series by following the usual Wii standard of making games more accessible, this may upset Mario RPG purists as Super Paper Mario dumps the traditional turn based combat that was created by Square, makers of Final Fantasy for Mario RPG, and instead goes back to roots and uses the classic real time Mario formula found in the original NES games. This definitely makes the game appeal to gamers that usually would not like the heavy text and menus of the RPG games, it makes the whole game much easier to get into and much quicker to play through.

The Gamecube Paper Mario allowed you to move across the Y axis, giving areas richer backgrounds

Paper Mario has 8 chapters each divided into 4 sub worlds just like Super Mario Bros 1, observant players will see many other tips of the hat to other Nintendo games. I won’t spoil the moments by listing them here, but it is typical of the games humor and style to see art from Super Mario 1 or obscure lines of dialog. The talking in the game is kept pretty light, besides the odd piece of advice the game could be played through without enjoying any of the games dialog and just skipping through into the action. This just adds to the game’s accessibility without taking away too much from the RPG elements, there is plenty of dialog if you want to talk to some of the wondering NPCs, this also opens up a few side quests that’ll make the game easier if you want to spend the time doing them.

The Wii Paper Mario does feature widescreen support

Throughout the game you’ll find clean and sharp graphics, once you advance far enough in the story you’ll see some really nice and stylish shifts from 2D to 3D. in the end though it’s nothing that’s really ahead of 1000 Year door for the Gamecube but since 2D art has it’s own timeless quality it’s not really a letdown. The sound is also exactly what you’d expect from a high profile Mario game, with several remixed songs as well as some new tunes, it all follows the same good quality and high standard of all the other Mario games before it.

Like I mentioned before the gameplay has gone through some streamlining, you’ll need no experience of the previous games to get any head start on the story or the game mechanics. Paper Mario includes a handful of playable characters that you’ll unlock throughout the game, as well as a dozen Pixls who will grant you a special move as long as they are equipped. This is pretty standard stuff and the unlocking of new Pixls and characters allows new areas to be reached thanks to your new abilities.

Flipping to 3D adds depth, but there isn’t a lot going on in this dimention

The Wii has been needing some large games to build interest from the hard core gaming community, and while Super Paper Mario definitely isn’t a pickup and play mini game collection, it also isn’t as hard core as some may hope. Without getting involved in the pit of 100 trials, the side quests and the card collecting, I was able to sail through the game in about 15 hours with no real difficulty. Even people with very little gaming experience may find themselves solving puzzles and beating the various creatures without dieing a single time, but the ride is fun while it lasts.

* Screenshots thanks to www.gamespot.com 

The Pokémon series has had constant success since it was first released in Japan over 10 years ago in its four color glory on the classic Gameboy, with wikipedia boasting that the series has sold over 155 million units as of the end of 06 (before the US release of Diamond and Pearl). This is a pretty phenomenal achievement for a game that is viewed as a child’s game outside of Japan, even viewed alongside Mario’s whopping 193 million units shipped.

The Pokémon series has touched on many genres, but it’s always been an RPG at heart and the latest Diamond and Pearl games are no exception, the plot is really no more advanced from where the series originated so many years ago. You start you off as a kid in a small town, with no Pokémon or back history, you stumble onto a Pokémon or a Professor in the first 5 minutes of game play and set about becoming the top Pokémon trainer. Along the journey you’ll come across an evil gang, various other trainers and finish by defeating the gang and beating the Elite 4. Like I said this structure has never changed and as far as plot goes it’s like playing the same game over and over.

Pokémon Blue for the Nintendo Gameboy

The graphics in Pokémon are not going to win any awards, the main game view is pretty enough, the pseudo 3d effect of buildings looks good and everything moves along nicely. Sadly the Battles haven’t been given any real ‘animation’ the Pokémon themselves are great sprites, but the graphical effects of the battles are not that much more advanced than the old D&D games when you’ll just see a few frames of animation of a skeleton taking a swipe at you. I’m not saying the graphics are bad, but I still look forward to the day when the battles become a little more like the arena in the Pokémon battle games that appear on the consoles.

The little tunes you find while walking around and getting into battles are catchy and memorable, a lot of been enhanced from the classic games and are still great to listen to. Each Pokémon has a unique cry, the amusing thing about this is that the originals 150 Gameboy Pokémon still have their grainy distorted sounds like they were coming out of the GB speaker. I’m sure this is on purpose, but much like the graphics, I want a little more, A few samples from the TV series would be great, I’d love to hear my star Pokémon scream "SCYTHER!!!" as she runs into battle.

Pokémon Crystal for the Nintendo Gameboy Color

All of this sounds terribly negative, and those of you who haven’t played the game before must be wondering why this game is so popular if nothings changed in 10 years and things look outdated for the DS. I’d love to be able to summarize this in just a few words, but the series doesn’t need a great story, graphics and sound to be a good game, the sheer amount of things to do keep the game interesting, the main plot is only a very small part of what the Pokémon series has to offer. Besides the battles you can involve your captured Pokémon in contests, such as beauty contests where you’ll have to use the attacks your Pokémon has learnt to dazzle the audience and draw their attention. There are many things to collect in the game, besides the Pokémon themselves (of which there is now 493), you can collect stickers for your Pokéballs, new phrases to say, ribbons, furniture, Pokémon accessories and I’m probably forgetting about even more. Collecting all of any of these things is no easy task (epically the Pokémon themselves) so you could spend an inordinate amount of time just doing these crazy little tasks.

After all is said and done it all comes down to getting the best team of Pokémon and making them tough, this is where the complexity of the game really shows. If your Pokémon doesn’t know a move that you’ll like to teach it, you can collect one of the many TMs and use it on the Pokémon, or perhaps you can breed your Pokémon with one that does know the move, then train the offspring! Although the game features 467 different moves each of your Pokémon can only know 4 at any one time this can require a hell of a lot of planning if you plan on making a winning team. To raise your star Pokémon’s stats you can feed it poffins, to get these you have to plant and pick berries, then put them in a berry mixer, but you can only feed it so many, so even more planning is needed here. Even once you have a tough high level Pokémon with all the right moves, he’s not going to be successful without a full team backing him/her/it up. Only 6 Pokémon can be with you at one time and a good mix of Pokémon can make or break your whole team. Each move can be one of 17 types, so can the Pokémon, there’s a very elaborate rock-paper-sissors game at play here, so unless you have a good mix you’ll quickly fall to a more dynamic team.

Pokémon Emerald for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance

Finally one thing the new game does bring in is multi player, you can walk around together in the tunnels beneath the world and visit each others secret bases and play a capture the flag based game, this is only available locally DS to DS. The most important feature available here is the ability to trade and battle over Nintendo Wi-Fi, allowing you to upload your Pokémon onto the servers and await someone to trade with you. Using this you can easily trade with people all over the world, so there’s usually someone with what you are looking for. The battles however aren’t online, you’ll download someone’s uploaded team and then fight the team offline and upload the records. It would be nice to be able to battle over Wi-Fi in real time, but this a mode like this is more than welcome and offers a great challenge.

I’ve clocked 60-70 hours of game play so far, and I’m not about to stop yet, with so much left to do this is something that’s very easy to come back to and with Pokémon coming out for the Wii there’s even more reason to build up a good team. I’d recommend this to anyone who’s a fan of the previous games, or collection & RPGs in general, with the low price of DS games compared to the major consoles it really offers a lot of hours of enjoyment to your dollar

* Screenshots thanks to www.gamespot.com

Pokémon Pearl for the Nintendo DS

So I am finally getting around to writing a review of Super Swing Golf for the Nintendo Wii.  There is really not a great deal to say about this game.  But let me summarize the rest of the review.  It is a golf game, you play on the Nintendo Wii.  You hold the Wiimote and swing the Wiimote like you would a golf club.  Actually that is pretty much the whole review.  Hardcore golf fans or Tiger Woods series fans need not play this game.  Parents if you are trying to get your children interested in the game of golf should rent this, it may do the trick.

So if you are still reading means one of two things.  Either you have children who might enjoy this game, or you a raving Nintendo Fanboy who is furious that anyone would dare speak ill of anything on the Nintendo Wii.

One of my first complaints is that the characters are not very customizable.  Being this is all cartoon art, and the developers did not very much of the 9 gigabytes of space on the DVD format I would think they would have been able to give us lots of courses and lots of different character options.  If this is your assumption then you like me would be really wrong.  You get the choice of boy or girl and a few different accessories.

My next complaint comes in the way of the tutorial.  Instead of focusing on how to teach you one aspect of the game, let you practice before moving to another feature of the game.  Super Swing Golf shows you two or three different things then after they are done explaining all these things expect you to remember how to do them all during practice.  Here again if you are use to the good job that Electronic Arts has always done with the Tiger Wood Golf series you will be sadly disappointed with Super Swing Golf.

All you heavy duty golf fans out there are going to love this.  With swinging the Wiimote you always hit the ball straight, that’s right kiss that slice or fade in your stroke good bye because in Super Swing Golf there are only straight shots.  I know all the golfers reading are asking where is this Golf Heaven and how do I get there.  The distance the ball goes is based on at what point in your swing you first press the A button and at what point in your wind up you hit the A button.  Then performs what percentage of the full swing you wanted to use and crack, off goes the perfect straight shot.

Over all Tiger Wood Golf 2007 or even Wii Sports is a much better golf game then this.  And I would highly recommend either of those games over this.  If you are the high end golf crazy definitely check out the Tiger Woods Golf game.  If you have little children and want to spark an interest in Golf with your younger children use Wii Sports golf.

Metal Slug is an SNK arcade classic.  It first appeared on the NEO GEO, and has now found new life with the Nintendo Wii.  The fluid motion of the graphic animations, and its sometime cartoon style arcade action and humor make this a remarkable game.  Metal Slug seems to borrow heavily from other famous side scrolling shooters and really reminded me called Contra.  If you are looking for a great retro shooter this is it.  As the name implies all the Metal Slug games are bundled in this package, you get Metal Slug 1 and 2, Metal Slug X, and Metal Slug 3, 4, 5, and 6.

The controls are very simple the D-pad on the Wiimote moves you around the screen while the 1 & 2 buttons jump and shoot.  You waggle the Nun chuck to throw grenades.  The motion sensing portion of the game kind of seems like it was slapped on so it could be called a Wii game.  The Wiimote has more then enough buttons to have accommodated all the functions this game would have needed without the use motion controls.  Using the D-Pad to move your character around can be a little cumbersome at times, especially when you want to fire at an angle.  I would rather have seen the developers use the Nun chuck’s analog stick for this function. 

As I am sure you can guess the only multiplayer is same console multiplayer.  But having someone else in the room to share this experience with definitely adds to the game.  The Metal Slug series is a great return to the days of side scrolling shooters where there were no cut scenes and little story behind the game.  Waves of enemies just charged and you had to hit the fire button as fast as you can and jump over certain obstacles. 

The graphics remain true to the original game, and some of the character animations really blew me away.  In Contra, when enemies are shot they simply blink and fade away.  In Metal Slug enemies that are burnt with a flame thrower scream then wave their arms and fade away.  When enemies get to close your character automatically switches from using his gun to pulling out a knife and dispatches the bad guys with a lethal slice.  You see one last arterial spray just before the nameless minion fades off to pixel hell.  There are many other examples of simple character and non playable character animations that I feel put Metal Slug above the rest of the side scrolling shooters of the nineteen nineties.

If you have fond memories of playing this game in years gone by then this is a no brainier, it is a must have.  If you have recently enjoyed Contra on XBox LIVE arcade, Nintendo Wii Virtual Console or really any platform it has ever been released on, I highly recommend giving Metal Slug Anthology a try.  If you are a younger gamer that is looking for a retro shooter I would definitely rent this.  I myself would have a hard time paying $39.99 retail price for this game.  As it honestly is mainly a collection of older games.  Be it they are great games, they still are older classics games.  You can be sure when I can find Metal Slug Anthology for $20 to $25 will be added to my collection.

So I sat down with my Wiimote, Nun Chuck, and Ice Age 2 for the Nintendo Wii.  As a big fan of the movie I was actually very excited to sit down and review this game.  Watching probably one of the funniest clips from the movie made for a great introduction.  Watching Scrat in his eternal struggle to find and hoard nuts definitely brought a smile to my face.

When I started the game I was a little disappointed that the only playable character was Scrat.  But since the whole point of the game is to gather nuts, I guess it would only make sense to have Scrat as the main character.  I think I should also take a moment to say that if you are planning on playing a game based on the movie you will be sadly disappointed.  The game is your basic platformer, you run around a level collecting different kinds of nuts, that are placed in some hard to reach places.  With all platformer games you have characters that are trying to prevent you from collecting the items that you need.  Here is where you see about the extent of violence in the game, Scrat uses his big fluffy tall to slap and sometimes knock out the opponents in the game, and later on in the game you will be able to throw pebbles at your opponents also to scare or temporarily confuse them.  As I said before this game is aimed at the younger crowd and should find approval from even the most strict of parents.  You sometimes need to collect a certain number of a specific kind of nut before you area allowed to dig and claw and squeeze your way into the next level.  The game looks like it is aimed at the age ten to teenage gamer.  Younger gamers will be able to pick up the game play mechanics but will probably need some help from some one with reading the signs in the game and teaching them the new abilities that are learned through out the game.  Unfortunately there is no multiplayer in the game, since this is a game aimed at a younger audience it would have been nice to allow multiple players to play together.  This may have curbed some fighting over game play time between siblings and friends.

The graphics are very good for a Nintendo Wii game, and the game play mechanics use the Wiimote controls extremely well.  I did not feel like the game was designed for the standard controller with two analog stick with d-pad and a mass of buttons, then just slapped on the Wii Mote functions to make this a Nintendo Wii game.  The controls are predominately the analog stick and the “C” button of the Nun Chuck, and the “A” button of the Wiimote.  There are a few motions controls that have you waving the Wiimote to climb certain walls, and perform certain attack moves.  But the control scheme is very easy to learn, very well done.  There are signs posted through out the levels that allow the user to learn of new actions that can be performed, or hints to hidden items that are near by.  Here is one area where I though the game could have been developed a little bit better.  Instead of having to read six or eight lines of text that explain some facet of the game, they could have done cut scenes that incorporated characters from the movie or some non playable character in the game to tell you or show you whatever little tip or hint was being described.  This would have allowed younger gamer some additional help in learning the game.  With the amount of content in this game, I am pretty sure there was plenty of room left on the game disk to have some more cut scenes.

Over all this is going to be one of those fun games that kids will probably play over and over again.   Parents can be completely assured that the game their children are playing is definitely age appropriate.  For younger children this may also give parents the opportunity to spend some time with them, helping the little inquisitive mind solve the puzzle or challenge that is given them in order progress through the game.  I definitely believe that most younger gamers maybe starting at age four years old and possibly up to eight years old will need some help from an older mentor to get the game play controls, and help solving the puzzles.  But gamers around the age or nine and up should be able to make their way through the game fairly easily with little assistance.  If you are planning on purchasing this game for teenager, adult, or any experienced gamer or gamers that seem to prefer action adventure or shooter games, you may be wise to rent this first and see if they like it or you may find this game sitting in the game rack collecting dust. 

My over all impression of the game is that it was done very well.  The graphics look great on the Nintendo Wii, the game play was well thought out and implemented.  Sadly there is no multiplayer, and the learning curve could have been reduced even further with a little extra effort from the developer.  Over all if you have enjoyed any of the games based on Disney or Pixar in the past you will undoubtedly enjoy this game also.
 

When you read the description of the game Lunar Knights for the Nintendo DS you kind of step back and go huh?  A story about vampires, and gunslingers, and god only knows what else?  But once you plug the game in and start play it has you hooked.  Well after you watch a three minute cut scene of typical Japanese’s anime, the endure a two minute flash conversation between two characters in the game and Lucian one of the characters you will be playing as. 

The game is very easy to play.  There is almost no learning curve as the game offers you tips and hints via your friend cat named Nero.  Along the way Nero pops out of your trench coat occasionally to bestow some helpful tips.  Otherwise the game play is pretty simple.  You slash your sword at anything that moves if something comes running or jumping toward you pull up your shield and deflect it and if there is something lying on the ground pick it up.  The one thing I would say is that the game would be easier to manage items and inventory if they had utilized the touch screen for those functions.  As it is, it is not terribly difficult but I feel it could have been done better using the touch screen.

Like Shane Bettenhausen of 1UP described this game as “it’s like Zelda, and Castlevania combined.  If you have a DS go out and buy it…”, and continued on using some foul language while encouraging people to buy the game.  I completely agree with this assessment of the game, and I have to say if you enjoy the Zelda games, and the Castlevania games, this is a definite buy.  I am going to steer people away from renting for the simple fact that the game does have quite a bit of game play to it and unless you can really sit down and bang out some good long four to five hour sessions on Lunar Knights, I think it will be pretty hard to get it done quick enough to pay for a rental.  Now if your rental service allows you to purchase games at a reduced price such as Gamefly’s Keep it, or Games N Flix’s Buy it.  Then I would say rent it, because there is a really good chance that a couple of days after you start playing it you will be ready to lay down the money to buy it from them, and that way you are getting a good deal on it.

So my advice to you is give this game a try, start it up go to the fridge get a pop or something to drink.  Because it is a Kojima game by the time you get back you should have gotten through the flash cut scene that goes on for about three minutes.  Then you just have to hit the “A” button a bunch of times so you can get through some dialog scenes, and then you are ready to start enjoying this really great game.
 

I sat down with Cars for the Wii.  One thing you notice right away is that the graphics for this game look really nice.  In fact this game I believe sets the bar for what the first generation and second generation of Wii games should strive to achieve.  If you have seen the movie the other thing you will notice is that all the voice acting was done by the original actors and actresses of the movie, which in my mind is a really big plus.  Allot of the humor from the movie is incorporated into the game, so if you liked the movie there is a real good chance you will like the game also.  The other area where this game really excels is the game controls.  The motion sensing capabilities of the Wiimote are integrated dare I say perfectly.  In the racing aspects of the game the tilt control just feels right, I feel the button layout could have been done a little better but I suspect that this would vary from person to person.  I really wish developers would allow users to customize the controls of a game to fit how they like to play games.  If I want the brake to be the “A” button I should be able to setup my controls to do that, and if my friend wants to the brake to be the “2” button that should how he gets to play the game.  But enough of that little rant, back to the game Cars.  As I was saying the motion controls are integrated extremely well racing, but some of the mini games I think tried to force the motion controls a little bit.  In the cow tipping mini games I felt like the motion controls were forced on me.  I found it hard to control the car and make it stop in a certain place while trying to sneak around.  I think using the D-Pad would have been a much better solution here to move around instead of trying to do small controller movements.  But that is a pretty small aspect of the game, and definitely should not deter you from buying or playing this game.

This is predominately a child friendly racing game.  As I said before the controls are very easy to pick up, some of the move advanced moves you will have to do some finger dancing on the controller but that is what separates the good from the great.  The other feature I think allot of younger players will enjoy is the fact that if you get to far off course or get too far behind the game simply places you back on the track and points you in the right direction.  This gives younger gamers the chance to make mistakes and learn from them, but not get completely frustrated and give on the game.  For the parents this means there is a much better chance that this game will spend more time spinning around inside the Wii itself entertaining the children instead of collecting dust in corner. 

I am very happy that the game does support multi-player, a feature that is sadly missed in some of the other games based on the children’s movies for the Nintendo Wii.  Split screen is the only option currently available, no multi player over the internet just yet.  But I guess that split screen multiplayer is better then just a single player story mode game.

Driving games like Cars but also Need for Speed Carbon, Excite Truck, Monster 4 X 4 and others are best enjoyed with the driving wheel add on.  You can check out our review of this product for more details, but the simple description is a plastic steering wheel add on that your Wiimote snaps into.  This really helps the player to get a sense of how tilt and maneuver the Wiimote, and cuts down on over compensating.  Holding the steering wheel also adds another level of immersion into the environment of the game.  While I think that the $19.99 price tag is a little high for this item I did see on GameStop’s website that a less expensive version may be coming in March.

I like to compare this game to allot of the Bugs Bunny cartoons.  Children enjoy them on one level, and adults can enjoy them on a completely different level.  Unlike games like Ice Age 2: The Meltdown and other games aimed almost specifically at children that adults will mostly like tire of very quickly or not enjoy at all, Cars is one of those games that gamers of all ages and experience levels will be able to enjoy.  Although the high end tuner, and hard core driving simulator fans will probably not find enough to hold their interest in this game for very long.  In the end it is a fun arcade racer that everyone in the family will enjoy.  I highly recommend purchasing this game, and at the very least give it a rental.

After being released for almost a week, Super Paper Mario finally found its way into my Nintendo Wii.  I picked it up over lunch, and being chained to my desk all afternoon knowing that Super Paper Mario was in my truck waiting to be played made time crawl by even slower then normal.

So I slid in the game clicked on the channel, and then … had to sit and read text on cut scenes for 25 minutes.  It seemed like there were cut scenes trying to explain the last cut scene.  Honestly Nintendo dig into that mattress and spend some of that moldy money you have and pay for some voice actors.  But that is about the end of my complaining on this review because once the game actually gets going, it is allot of fun to play.  It plays just like the old side scrolling Super Mario Brothers…well for the most part.  You go along running, and jumping, breaking blocks by jumping under them, and jumping on top of enemies.  You can even morph into a giant pixilated version of the original Mario from Super Mario Brothers and go stomping and crashing through part of the level like Rosie O’Donnell at the Buffet.  At first I found myself dying quite often due to some area of the level that was impossible to get past.  Then I remembered that I had to flip into 3D space and the answer usually became quite clear.  There are a host of old school enemies as well as a bunch of new enemies that are trying to stand in the way of Mario saving Princess Peach from a fate worst then any known death.  The controls are really well done, you hold the Wiimote sideways like a classic NES Pad.  Motion sensitive controls seem a little tacked on but not as bad as some other games I have reviewed.  One really great feature about the game is you can point the Wiimote at any item on the screen and your trusty side kick will then explain what that is and how you can interact with it.

Over all this is a great game.  In typical Nintendo fashion they have revitalized an old franchise with some simple but very creative ideas and have a great game on their system.  While I do not think that this is a must have game for the Wii, it is definitely one that most Wii owners should consider eventually getting into their library of games.  If you liked any of the Mario Brothers games you will definitely like this game.  Most gamers who enjoy platformers will also consider this a game worth buying.  If Nintendo can get just a couple more big hits like this game, their console may very well be hard to find on store shelves all the way into the next holiday season.