New Super Mario Bros. Wii Reviews: Is the Multiplayer Fun, or Brutal?

Unsurprisingly, reviews of New Super Mario Bros. Wii are generally favorable. This is, of course, a new Mario game with a lot of the same old 2D platforming that put Nintendo’s iconic Italian plumber on the map. But what about the game’s multiplayer, which allows you to bring three other players in on the action? Nintendo has hyped this feature as innovative, some might call it a gimmick, but it’s certainly the freshest thing New Super Mario Bros. Wii has going for it. So how’d the multiplayer fare? Impressions from around the Web after the jump.

Giant Bomb says the multiplayer is “outrageously chaotic” and “feels like an entirely different game,” but also notes that if you’re trying to navigate the game’s tougher levels in any serious capacity, you’ll probably get frustrated. As Destructoid notes, having four players jumping about, occasionally bumping into each other and causing the screen to pan in an out, can feel like “too many cooks in the kitchen at once.” That’ll depend largely on who’s playing with you, though. The New York Times’ Seth Schiesel brought some newbies into the mix, and said the multiplayer mode was “nearly a complete disaster,” practically recommending that you play the game alone instead. But here’s a ringing endorsement from Ars Technica: “This is a game designed to be played with your wife or husband, with your sons or daughters, with your mother or your father.” You can’t say that about Modern Warfare 2.