“I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.”
― Neil Gaiman

 

 

 

Famed Wisconsin hillbilly Neil Gaiman is right. And nothing fits the “herding cats” analogy quite like 4 player Super Mario 3D World, the successor to Nintendos bush league series “New Mario Bros.”I say that because “New Mario” and “Mario 3D” both pride themselves on a 4 player experience in a fun, albeit somewhat flawed, way. I should clarify that flawed doesn’t at all mean there isn’t fun to be had. Quite the opposite really. While playing this with the cavalcade of degenerates I consider my friends, we communicated primarily by screaming or crying out in a confused manner for some semblance of explanation or plan.

I’m a fan of fast paced and chaotic gameplay. Back in the days of Halo I loved modes where everyone had hammers, swords, or rocket launchers just for the pure madness of it. That and it had a way of really levelling the playing field. Even the best sharp shooters were fighting for first place when rockets and grenades fell like rain. Sadly those pro players typically weren’t fans of such madness and wanted to go back to SWAT mode where they would be winning by about 2 dozen points. It wasn’t until Team Fortress 2 that I was able to find like minded people and revel in chaos to my hearts content. The point I’m trying to make here is that such chaotic gameplay, like the gameplay in Super Mario 3D World, isn’t such a bad thing because it lets the skilled and unskilled play together and have a good time.

If you’ve played any of the New Mario Bros games released so far you know the score but if you haven’t here’s a crash course. It’s like the old Mario games but there are up to four people playing at the same time, and these players can all collide with one another, bounce off each others heads, pick each other up and throw them, or kill each other. You can pretty easily figure out how well the average game goes with conditions like that. Mario 3D World has the same conditions but is in the 3D environment. Added in are such further confusing power ups like a cherry that duplicates whoever touches it. But it’s not all sunshine and madness…

There’s some problems I have with Mario 3D World, and its predecessor “New Mario Bros.” Mario 3D World doesn’t feel like a console Mario game like Mario Galaxy and Mario Sunshine do. There’s some neat new stuff this time around, sure, but it just doesn’t feel that inspired or interesting. The First 4 worlds flew by without much challenge save a few levels, which made sense since the worlds didn’t have that many levels. That and there didn’t really seem to be a theme going on with the levels, I can remember small moments from levels but not specific levels or when they happened. And that really kills me. Up through Mario Galaxy 1 the games kept a mantra of making levels and worlds unique and memorable. Each level had something special about it. But they’ve been drifting away from this since then and it really becomes noticeable here. Single player though is almost painfully easy, a problem New Mario Bros had too. These problems really do bother me in the dorkiest way possible. To me it feels like the games really aren’t advancing or really taking full advantage of their possibilities to really challenge the players.

Once again while the game has these problems it’s not unplayable. Hell, quite the opposite. If you’ve got even one more person the game is a blast in a way I haven’t felt since Zelda: Four Swords. You’ll find out which of your friends are dicks and which are merely incompetent (spoiler: its all of them) but you’ll be smiling the whole time. So if you are one of the few, the proud, the WiiU owners haul your ass out to the store or over to the computer and get yourself a copy of Super Mario 3D World.

MEOW

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