Challenge

For those of us who cannot remember way back into the early 90’s and the days of Super Mario, and for those of us who can remember, Super Mario was actually rather challenging.  As a game oriented around a simple obstacle course, it is surprisingly difficult to complete each course, for every little obstacle that Mario touches (ie a toad, flower, fish, etc.) causes him to either become smaller, or to die and lose a life.  The New Super Mario Bros. is no different.  The game is very challenging and requires a lot of patience for those who are unfamiliar with the series.  You will die many times and fail many levels, so those of you are not used to such failure when playing video games get prepared!  The New Super Mario Bros. does only feature one difficulty level, but the main difficulty level is enough you don’t need more than one!  The game itself is hard enough.

Graphics

Seeing as it is 2009 and no longer 1990, the graphics in The New Super Mario Bros. have been upped a bit.  What this means is that Mario is now 3D and his environment is, to a certain extent, 3D.  Compared to other games on the market, and other games for the Wii, The New Super Mario Bros. does not feature any graphics worth shouting about.  However, for those of us familiar about the Super Mario Brothers games, it is not about the graphics.  The artists for The New Super Mario Bros. have clearly stayed close to home and gone with graphics that are quite similar to those of the original game, albeit a bit vamped up to please this more technologically advanced age.  However, I think it might have been nice to have upped the graphics some more and made the game a bit more interactive than it is.  True to its franchises, Nintendo has made The New Super Mario Bros. a more attractive upgrade to the original, just as they made Mario Galaxy an attractive upgrade to Mario 64, so I guess we should have expected nothing more than a simple upgrade.

Replay Value

As compared to other Mario games, The New Mario Bros. has a decent replay value.  There are multiple ways to beat the game, not to mention the fact that you do not need to beat every level in order to beat the game, which is a little bit different than the original Super Mario.  Also, The New Mario Bros. features a multiplayer campaign and multiplayer games that differ from the campaign and offer pleasing alternatives if one should beat the game.  With the addition of multiplayer and the ability to play “mini-games” different from the campaign, The New Super Mario Bros. has a decent replay value.

Narrative

The narrative for the New Super Mario Bros. is the same basically as for every Mario game; Princess Peach gets stolen, you have to save her, blah blah blah.  But the Super Mario games have never really been about narrative so I would say that narrative is almost irrelevant for this game.  I find that the game play makes up for the rather stingy narrative, and for those of us who are die hard Mario fans, none of us were expecting a fantastic storyline in the first place.

Ease of Use

The New Super Mario Bros. features controls that are very easy to use.  Basic game play involves three of four buttons at most, and like most Wii games nowadays you can tilt the controller in different ways and directions to make Mario do different things.  For those of you who have played Wii before the controls will be a breeze, and for those who haven’t the instructions are clear and you will learn in no time.

Social Playability

The introduction of multiplayer has allowed for up to four people to play The New Super Mario Bros. at a time.  This is a neat feature that makes the levels easier to beat and adds an element of competition and excitement into game play.  The added mini-games in addition to the campaign just add to the fun.  While not as interactive as say Wii Sports, The New Super Mario Bros. is a fun game to play with friends and family alike.

Overall Grade: B-

The New Super Mario Bros. is a decently entertaining game that is certainly challenging and can be extremely frustrating at times.  It is a perfect game for young children who are just beginning to play video games as the content is perfectly suitable for young kids and the controls are relatively simple.  For more hardcore gamers I doubt this game will please for long due to its lack of graphics and game features.  However, for those of us who are Mario fans and for older players who miss the old days of Super Mario, this game is a good throw back and decent entertainment for at least an hour.

Overall

The New Super Mario Bros. has decent replay value and will definitely take your child more than a weekend to beat.  The addition of multiplayer in this version makes it so that siblings and friends can all play together.  For those parents who enjoy playing with their children, The New Super Mario Bros. is a great game to get because up to four people can play in the campaign together, and in the mini-games as well.  I would recommend this game for kids who are fans of the Mario series and for younger players; I feel like older players would not be very stimulated by the game play and graphics, and as I mentioned before this game is really just a throw back to the old Super Mario days and is more a game out of nostalgia than anything.  There is next to no questionable content in this game, and its lack of true graphics depreciates its potential immersive and interactive qualities which makes any kind of addiction next to impossible.  If you have young kids and a family who likes to play together this game is a pretty good buy and should keep everyone in the family entertained until you all get bored of it.

Academic Perspective

From an academic viewpoint, this game has little to offer.  It lacks real graphics and any kind of game play that could stimulate presence, aggression, or any of the variables that academics tend to test for.  However, this game does try heavily on one’s patience.  This particular avenue of research is lacking in the gaming industry and this would be a very good game to test the effects of video games on one’s patience.  Also, players tend to fail frequently during this game, which also offers the opportunity to test for gamer’s response to failure.  Finally, this game has next to no questionable content, and the only violence that is features is bopping walking mushrooms on the head for points.  Therefore, this game would be great to use as a non-violent game in any test or research that looks for aggressive effects, or just needs a game that is non-violent.