If there's one golden rule of gaming, it's that nothing shifts consoles quite like a new Mario game - and there's nothing Nintendo need more now than to shift some more Wii U consoles. But instead of the fully-fledged, single player Mario opus many were expecting, Nintendo have decided to go a slightly different route, conjuring up a sequel of sorts to the 3DS' best selling game so far, the kind-of-2D, kind-of-3D Super Mario 3D Land, and added one thing that made us sit up and take notice - multiplayer. For someone who struggles intensely with anything involving the slightest hint of fast reactions, playing through an entire Mario game all on their lonesome sounds a bit daunting, even if they have managed to fumble their way to the credits on both of the Galaxy games. Playing with a couple of much more talented co-pilots makes everything sound a lot more fun, though - and it's a concept that's born out in practice.
Coming to the Wii U this December, Super Mario 3D World brings us more multiplayer Mario madness along the same lines as the New Super Mario Bros. series, but this time with the poor old Yellow Toad being ditched in favour of Princess Peach. In a bizarre turn up for the books, she's managed to escape the clutches of the evil Koopa-lord Bowser this time, and has now been made into the perfect starter character for the platforming-challenged - she's a little slower than average, but comes with the ability to float and glide in mid-air for a short time, making it easier to avoid holes, enemies and anything else that's intent on killing you. She's not the only character to have her own unique talents either, though - Mario, as you'd likely expect, is the "all-rounder" of the team, Luigi seemingly got all the jumping genes, and can leap higher than everyone else, while the generic Blue Toad can run fastest, presumably making the most of the momentum he gains from the weight of his giant bonce.
Seemingly, Toad also has a backside made of ice.
At Nintendo's recent Summer Showcase event in London, we got the chance to try out a selection of five levels from various points in the game for ourselves - and it's safe to say this is shaping up to be one of the must have games this Christmas. The first three levels were fairly standard Mario platforming affairs - with Goombas to dodge, moving platforms to reach, and coins to collect, as we all raced for the goal post at the end of the level. With the ability to move in three dimensions, using either the GamePad, or the standard sideways Wii Remote, Super Mario 3D World is an appealing mix of old and new school Mario games, with the multiplayer being the icing on an already appealing cake.
Within a few seconds of starting, after a quick adjustment to the controls (and having bounced on each other's heads a few times), we soon stumbled across one of the game's brand new features, in the form of the see-through pipes, which seem to work kind of like the Mushroom Kingdom equivalent of a bus ride, or the transportation tubes on Futurama. Sucking you inside as you draw near, you'll whiz round automatically with no direct control over your character until you reach a branch in the path, where you can choose either to carry on, or turn off. Once en route, you'll find all sorts of goodies (and baddies) lurking inside, such as power-ups, extra lives or this game's must-have OCD item, the green star, of which there are three hidden in each stage - but timing your journey through the tube while avoiding the fiendishly goggle-eyed black fuzzies that loop round and round is harder than you'd expect...
Timing. Everything's in the timing.
After squishing a few more enemies, collecting a few more coins, and casuing a few more accidental deaths (the run button also seems to let you pick each other up, and letting go lets you chuck them - which is a bit dangerous if you're anywhere near a cliff), we eventually came across the moustachioed mushroom muncher's newest power-up outfit, the cat suit - and like the rest of his power-up arsenal, it comes with its own unique set of moves. With their claws firmly out, Kitty-cat Mario and co. can leap at and scratch enemies without having to worry about jumping on their heads, or clamber up vertical walls with ease, with the added bonus of being able to leg it up the goal post at the end of each level for a sneaky extra life and oodles of bonus points. Presumably a direct consequence of this new transformation, we noticed that - based on the levels we played - the world of Super Mario 3D World seemed much more 'vertical' than we're generally used to, with more ledges and platforms to scale, as opposed to the comparatively flat lands that have come before.
It's not quite meow-ntain climbing, but you get the idea.
Although it's a mostly co-operative affair, Super Mario 3D World does add a smidgen of competitiveness to the multiplayer proceedings, as the game tots up everyone's points at the end, so you can all point and laugh at Peach for coming in dead last - and she can get her revenge by chucking you into the canyon below in the next level if she's so inclined. But the game's also set to feature a number levels designed to make even the most anti-social players bury the hatchet and co-operate, which require everyone to come together and work as a team if you're going to succeed. One example we played placed the four Mario pals on the back of a giant orange dinosaur, as it made its way down the Mushroom Kingdom equivalent of the Mississippi. With everyone taking equal responsibility for the control of the dino-boat, having to steer left and right by making their character lean, it was a level that required a huge amount of communication between all four players, as you decided which coin-filled path you wanted to take, and tried to sync your jumping.
As is traditional in the Mario world, we finished our stint with the game by taking on a boss fight. Pitting our Mario team against a sort of snake-like dinosaur boss who was blatantly a big Diglett fan (seeing as we never saw more than his head and giraffe-like neck), defeating him, we were assured, was simply a matter of stomping on his head three times. Unfortunately for us, his head was quite a way off the ground, and well out of the reach of our jumps. Seeing as it was three of us against one, the evil snake King decided to even the odds a bit by calling in a few similarly snake-like reinforcements, each donning their own rather fetching plate-hat - but unfortunately for him, his "help" soon proved to be his undoing. Lining up perfectly as they did, the assistant snakes only gave Mario and Co an easier route to the boss's head, as we leapt across their crockery caps and stomped our way to victory, while the quick thinking Peach in her adorable cat outfit decided to take an even easier route, and simply climbed directly up the main man's neck to bop him once or twice for good measure.
All hail snake king!
Thanks to the added dimension, things don't feel quite as chaotically claustrophobic as they do on some of the later levels of the New Super Mario Bros. series - more often than not, there's a number of different routes players can take that all converge in the same place, and it felt like there was more room for ever, even if that may well not turn out to be the case. One of the few downsides we noticed on the day was that your team now have a shared life total, with all four players drawing from the same pot of lives. That may be fine if everyone's equally experienced - but when you've got one player who's just starting out, the shared lives will make things a lot harder for the entire team, as newcomers are more likely to use more lives, which in this case will lead to a game over for the entire team, rather than just for themselves. On the plus side, slipping off the screen isn't too much of an issue here either, as rather than losing a life, as you have done on the recent Mario games, you'll simply be plonked inside a bubble as you float safely back towards the other characters. With the levels now taking place in 3D, we found it was also a little bit more awkward to line up your jumps, especially when you're aiming for an enemy's head - but we'd imagine it's something that'll come with time.
With Super Mario 3D World, Nintendo are back doing what they do best - crafting amazingly fun games to bring people together on one sofa. While it doesn't do anything drastically different to the games that have been before it, the different characters, 3D worlds and new cat power-up do enough to keep things feeling fresh. Personally, we can't wait till the game hits stores this December, and with titles like Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. and Wii Party U in the pipeline, hopefully things for the Wii U are starting to look up as we head towards Christmas.
