The biggest feature in New Super Mario Bros. Wii is co-op play something Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to bring back to the Mario series for years.
“After that [Mario Bros.], on every Mario project we have discussed the possibility of having two players play together simultaneously,” Miyamoto said during an investors Q&A session. Super Mario Galaxy had a lite co-op mode where a second player could shoot stars. New Super Mario Bros. Wii finally realizes Miyamoto’s goal with a four player mode where Mario, Luigi, and two toads explore the Mushroom Kingdom together. You can thank the Wii’s graphical capacity for that.
It was all thanks to the graphical capacity of Wii console. If two players or more are simultaneously controlling Mario and Luigi in the same screen on a platformer game, the slower player will be left behind by the faster player, beyond the game screen. This time the screen zooms in and out accordingly, thanks to the capacity of the Wii console. The camera can zoom out as far as three times wider where you can see a very small Mario running around, and zoom in to show huge Mario and Luigi. The camera will work automatically and simultaneously, according to the position of four players. That’s how we realized a Mario game which can be played by up to four players at the same time.
Miyamoto also believes the multiplayer mode helps balance the game for different skill levels. “If there is one veteran player among four players, he or she can lead the other three and they don’t have to do much. People can enjoy a kind of play like peeking inside Bowser’s castle to see how scary it is.”
OK, who’s going to do all of the work while the other three players float in bubbles to the end of a level?
