new super mario bros

Gamers collect 300 billion coins in New Super Mario Bros. 2

New Super Mario Bros. 2 has been available for just several months, but Nintendo today announced that gamers around the world collected more than 300 billion gold coins playing the game on the Nintendo 3DS. As of this writing, the figure now stands around 321 billion; neither Bowser (nor Scrooge McDuck, for that matter) were available for comment.

As a token of appreciation for players achieving this milestone and developing premature arthritis, Nintendo noted that anyone with the game and a Nintendo 3DS can now download a free set of three Coin Rush levels -- inspired by Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3. The free download will only be available until January 31, and then will reappear on February 1 for $2.50. … Read more

New Super Mario Bros. 2: Nintendo 3DS gets a new game that's all too familiar

Jeff: The 3DS needs all the help it can get, so a new Mario Bros. game has worked in the past, why not again now? The problem with that mentality is that after a while, even the great Mario isn't invulnerable to becoming stale. And in the case of New Super Mario Bros. 2, I'm afraid it has finally happened.

Now before you gather up the pitchforks and start heading my way, you'll be happy to hear that I still think the game is fun to play. If you own a 3DS odds are you haven't bought a game in a while, so this will most likely find its way into your portable system. That said, you may fall into the same deja-vu trance that I did while playing and begin muttering, "Haven't I done this before?"… Read more

Nintendo gets social and connected with Wii U, but leaves out price, release date at E3

LOS ANGELES--Nintendo had already unveiled the Wii U well before E3 started, but there were a lot of things going into this show that we didn't know. Nintendo's keynote spent a great deal of time detailing what the Wii U can do, what its online and app services are, and what games we can expect to see. A small amount of time was also spent on the Nintendo 3DS, but today's event was clearly dedicated to the Wii U.

What we didn't get, however, was a date and price. Not surprising, but anticlimactic all the same.… Read more

Wii U game lineup punctuated by New Super Mario Bros. U

Surprise, surprise: Nintendo will be launching a Super Mario title for Wii U.

Dubbed New Super Mario Bros. U, the game is designed to take advantage of Nintendo's social platform, Miiverse. In fact, the company says that the title will have a "real-time social window" in-game as the person is playing, and will connect with others.

Aside from that, the title appears to be the typical Mario experience, complete with users being able to jump and fly around levels. Nintendo only showed off a trailer for the title, and did not spend any time actually playing the … Read more

E3 2011: Hands-on with Wii U tablet and games

Earlier this morning Nintendo introduced the Wii U, the successor to the Wii. Think of the Wii U as a sort of DS and Wii hybrid, combining touch and motion controls, with an on-screen HD gaming experience.

We were lucky enough to get some hands-on time with a collection of Wii U game demos and time with the tablet controller; here are our impressions.

Hands on with New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Sales of the Nintendo Wii have been flagging lately, and the number of quality titles coming out for this generation's best-selling system seems to be getting thinner every month. What better to fix everything than Mario? New Super Mario Bros. sold over 19 million copies for the DS, and now the Wii sequel has arrived just in time to give a breath of life into the little white box. We've been quite bullish about this new game after multiplayer hands-on and single-player sessions earlier this year. Now, after playing the final boxed version all weekend, did it live up to our lofty expectations? Our takes are below.

Scott: Nintendo wisely chose to make its headlining release this holiday a marquee game for its most popular mascot. The surprising part was putting the whole game in 2D.

After the success of 3D Mario games, including Super Mario Galaxy, dating back to 1996, the decision to make New Super Mario Bros. Wii a 2D game could be considered baffling. But it's actually a somewhat brilliant move: for all of Galaxy's incredible visuals, it's not instantly accessible to older casual gamers. SNES-era Super Mario is, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a better-rendered, 16x9 wide-screen retro-update to the classic series that effectively ended with Super Mario World. The game's all-new levels and clever updates to the game mechanics make this an excellent sequel for the Mario ultrafans.

Much like the DS game New Super Mario Bros., Mario and much of his environment are composed of 3D graphics moving in 2D, lending a much smoother look than sprite-based retro gaming. For single-player fans, the eight-plus worlds and many secrets are actually pretty difficult, and offer plenty of value. Throwing in four-player co-op through the whole game transforms Mario into an experience more like Super Smash Bros. as players compete for power-ups in ways that are often downright mean.

Two other multiplayer modes offer different ways to play the single-player courses, and, sadly, none of the multiplayer is online. Still, the 2D arena offers some of the best multiplayer play that the Wii has ever seen, and that, combined with the mainstream family-friendly feel, could catapult New Super Mario Bros. Wii to the very top of the Wii's best-sellers' list.… Read more

New Super Mario Bros. Wii: Hard-core/casual fusion Nintendo's been looking for?

This holiday season, amid an economy that's still in the tank, game companies are stingier with their first-party release schedule. In fact, each of the Big Three (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) are only targeting one or two games for their systems before Christmas. Nintendo has one single title that's prominent for the Nintendo Wii, and that's New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

We got a chance to play one or two of the side-scrolling title's multiplayer modes a while back, but we didn't know whether Mario's home console return to 2D platforming would also feature a single-player mode that had as much going for it as old-school favorites like Super Mario World.

After last night's playthrough and a discussion with Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto (translated via Nintendo of America's Bill Trinen), the answer to that question is undoubtedly yes.

Mr. Miyamoto answered questions regarding his new game, in particular why it's a 2D game when Super Mario Galaxy achieved such great success both critically and financially as a 3D Wii title.

According to Miyamoto, who participated in a reporter's roundtable Thursday night in New York City, what makes a Mario game is being "simple to control and easy to understand." The multiplayer modes of New Super Mario Bros. Wii include both four-player competitive Smash Bros.-inspired modes such as Coin Battle, as well as hop-in four-player co-op throughout the entire single-player story mode of the game.

"We wanted the game to appeal to and be accessible to as wide an audience as possible, and because we wanted to make it multiplayer, we felt that the original concept for Mario Bros. was the one best suited to multiplayer gameplay," Miyamoto added. "Multiplayer platforming is much better suited to a 2-D environment versus a 3-D one." He was referring specifically to same-room gaming as opposed to online gaming, raising a point that we've often thought about with the Wii--namely, other than Wii Sports, that there just aren't a great number of multiplayer games for the console.… Read more

The next best thing to New Super Mario Bros. 2: Jeff and Scott uncover Bowser's Inside Story

After a long hiatus, there are suddenly a handful of memorable, worthwhile titles for the Nintendo DS: Chinatown Wars, Rhythm Heaven, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, and most recently Scribblenauts. It took Nintendo, however, to save the best for last.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story might sound, at first read, like a kid's title. It's not; in fact, it's the third in a series of unique role-playing games featuring Mario, Luigi, and the rest of Nintendo's immortal cast of Mushroom Kingdom characters. The last in the series, Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, came out for the DS back in 2005. In case you've never played before, you have to understand that it's barely a role-playing game at all: yes, Mario and Luigi level up, collect items, and go on an adventure, but battles unfold as real-time quick-reflex minigames, and much of the story unfolds with a completely absurd sense of humor. This series of games might be Nintendo's best-kept secret in its first-party lineup. We played it, and yes, we loved it. Here's why.… Read more

There's a lot you don't know about New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Last night in New York City, Nintendo treated two of our CNET editors to some lengthy hands-on demos of major upcoming titles for the Wii and DS. We'll have impressions of our time with Wii Sports Resort and other games later on, but first we wanted to talk about New Super Mario Bros. Wii.… Read more

Two new Super Mario Wii games among those announced at Nintendo E3 press conference

Now that the Nintendo E3 2009 press conference is behind us, let's take a look at some of the game announcements for the Wii. While we saw a few titles we were expecting, there were a couple that came as total surprises.

Right out of the gate, we got to see a brand-new 2D Mario Bros. game for the Wii. New Super Mario Bros. will allow for four-player co-op playing and will feature new game characters and power ups.

Wii Fit Plus, the successor to Wii Fit, will arrive in the fall and come bundled once again with a … Read more