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.