POSTED 19/8/12


NEW SUPER MARIO BROS 2

Nintendo
3DS

It’s official. Chivalry is, indeed, dead.

Well, more accurately it’s sold out. As everybody knows there’s one thing that’s a given when a new Mario game pops out of the wonderful minds of Mr Miyamoto and his minions: a certain fruity princess has been kidnapped. Cue Mario traipsing off after her – possibly led by, erm, ‘little Mario’ - facing all manner of outrageous peril, likely just for a cuddle and a peck on the cheek.

That’s still the go here, but this time the usually purely gallant Mario’s doing a Supergrass – he’s in it for the money! Cue the Flying Lizards covering The Beatles, because yes, the coinage is what he wants. One million of them to be more precise, although it isn’t particularly clear as to why.

So, there are several new bits and bob-ombs that result in the spurting forth of oodles of collectible golden currency, as well as three garganmongoustic mofo coins per level. Of course in Mario parlance 100 coins also means an extra go, so unless you’re a hyper-klutz you’ll soon amass more lives than Shirley MacLaine armed with a cloning machine.

Adding to proceedings are a separate quick cash grab mode worthy of The Price is Right, and two players can local head-to-head it if they both have the game and are down with what “co-operation” actually means. Meanwhile, the kinda pointless 3D just tends to fuzzy the gorgeous backgrounds to add a bit of perceived depth – Frankie say, “Leave it off!”.

Otherwise, there’s nothing that fans of 2D Mario will find jarringly unfamiliar, as all the levels are essentially remixes of ones that have gone before – and there’s nothing wrong with that. Gordon Gecko-esque aspirations or not, we want the classic Mario platforming, that’s what we want... and it’s what we get. WAHOO!

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