Genre: 2d platformer
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Like many other contemporary games, such as Jeanne D'Arc and Little King's Story, New Super Mario Bros. Wii's use of colorful yet barely-textured player models are left sorely wanting compared to the finest examples of sprite-based work the video game form has seen over its many years. This game's stage and tile work are generally attractive however, lending a crisp, almost high-definition feel.

Like has been said about the majority of the body of work from Nintendo's modern era, the best songs from this title are the remixed melodies, which hark all the way back to the Koji Kondo's halcyon days of the 1980's. The original melodies are of uneven quality, re-used a bit too often, and seem to stylistically miss the mark given the type of stage they are used to represent. The voice acting is either not as over the top as Super Mario Galaxy's, or humanity's collective ears have mutated in some way so as to be less vulnerable to the shrill peak of Charles Martinet's "Mario" voice.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii borrows elements from almost all of the previous Mario games, melds them together in a mostly Super Mario Bros. 3-esque way, and adds in Little Big Planet-inspired multiplayer as well. The maps feature the same inventive and satisfying qualities as those that have come before in previous Mario games, which at the heart of it is really all that matters. On the down-side, traversing these maps with the uncomfortable Wii remote, which is held sideways during gameplay, evokes a bit too painfully the memories of the original NES controller. A silly "waggle" mechanic for picking up items and spinning would have been better mapped to one of the controller's face buttons.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii presents the good and bad of present-day Nintendo, all in one package. On the positive side, the game is inventive, pretty, and very playable. On the negative side, the classic Nintendo charm has been replaced by almost Nickelodian-style comicness, and the company has stubbornly put out another work that requires the use of unnecessary waggle-style controls where such modes of input, frankly, detract from the overall experience rather than add to it. Taken as a whole and independently from the company's earlier 2d Mario titles, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a genial platformer, and in mostly good ways.