New Super Mario Bros. U

The "U" suffix is an interesting thing to get used to, though I suppose in the long run it's not that must stranger than "64" was.

So obviously, the first game I got for the Wii U was New Super Mario Bros. U. There are only two Nintendo-made launch titles, and Nintendo Land comes with the Deluxe box (which I got.)

The New Super Mario Bros. series is something I had been clamoring for for years. When the N64 came out and demonstrated that yes, you can have a 3d game world that does not suck, most gamemakers took that to mean that we had been broken free of the shackles of 2d gaming, never to return. Nintendo seems to have realized that actually, the old-fashioned Mario games were damned fun, and just because the system is more powerful now doesn't mean that you shouldn't hold on to  your roots.

That said, I must say, Mario Bros. U does not feel like much of a step up from Mario Bros. Wii. Technically, it's nearly indistinguishable (though in HD... I think.) Even some of the music is the same. Is it a good game? Absolutely - this is a Mario Bros. platformer we're talking about.

I've only played the single-player mode of this, which means that the dual-screen functionality of the Wii U pretty much just means that if someone else wants to use the TV I can still play.

It also seems oddly easy. Mario Bros. Wii took a lot out of me to get to the end. Granted, it had been a lot longer since I had played a sidescroller when I took up that game, but in the space of a couple days, I've gotten all the way to the last area. Granted, that doesn't count getting all the star coins or whatnot.

The thing about these games is that you go in for the fantastic, unparalleled polish that Nintendo brings to its absolute core franchise. The control is tight and the design is glorious, but the depth and scope is somewhat limited.

The Wii U is meant to signal Nintendo's return to the main stage of the Video Game world, after the clunky days of the Gamecube and the (profitable) sabbatical in crazy-land that was the Wii, the Wii U actually has a number of launch titles that bring it back into the fold - like Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed (never mind that those games had already come out for the previous generation.)

It might have been a better call to come out with something a little more hardware-demanding as their first outing, but I think it's a good sign that, for example, Watch Dogs is planned for a Wii U release. This being a game that is likely to hit the AAA stage big time (and will hopefully deserve that place - Ubisoft has a pretty good record, so I'll keep up with it,) I have hopes that Nintendo will truly make its return.

I have to imagine that the new Zelda and the new Smash Bros. games will push the system a little harder. The Wii U has been out for about three months now, and it's on the vanguard of the next generation of consoles (or is it technically the current generation, technically?)

The nightmare scenario, of course, is that Nintendo will have a Dreamcast on its hands, but I'm cautiously optimistic that that will not happen, given that the PS4 is on its way (though admittedly, not for almost a year,) meaning 3rd party developers will likely start getting to work on the big titles. Nintendo can always squeeze by on its first-party titles, but I really hope I don't have to play the more mature titles on my roommate's 360 (or 720, though I don't know for a fact that he'll be getting one.)

So it's a strange grade I give Nintendo for its newest New Super Mario Bros. The game in a vacuum is blameless, save for maybe a little underwhelming in innovations (though with a formula like this, do you want to mess with it all that much?) But as the marquee launch title, I think a more ambitious game would have probably been warranted.