Over the weekend I had the chance to go and check out a big event that Nintendo held at their flagship Nintendo Store in Rockefeller center for the New Super Mario Bros. Wii game. And it was quite the event! They had taken over the area in front of the store and set up a few tented areas (the weather was cold and rainy unfortunately) which had an area that was a museum that you entered via warp pipe, a DJ playing music and a demo area set up with several Wii systems, TVs and allowing four people to play the game together at once. Inside of the store on the upper level they were holding a tournament to win some cool prizes.

The first thing I checked out was the museum. It was filled with all kinds of nostalgic memorabilia from previous Mario games. There were some pretty cool things there like an old Nintendo magazine, some Super Mario Bros. Super Show VHS tapes (still in the shrink wrap!!), bed sheets and comforter, costumes and a cassette tape holder among the collection. There were also two TVs set up at the end of the museum that were playing all of the commercials from the older ones to the one for this game. All in all it was a pretty cool trip down memory lane.

After that I played a bit with the game itself. I had a chance to play it at Big Apple Comic Con so I just played a different level than before. It’s a really fun game, and I have to say that the multiplayer is probably what will make this game so popular. Players one and two play as Mario and Luigi while players three and four play different colored Toads. You see all of the enemies and friendly characters you know from previous games, albeit as jazzed up 3-D versions. The general play style will be nothing new to players of previous games, but in general is pretty easy to pick up. One cool thing is if a team-mate dies they can be resurrected by a player still living as they fly by in a bubble. Once popped, the other player can jump back into the game. This can also lead to some funny and frustrating deaths if this is done in more precarious situations.

Afterwards I decided to go and warm up by going inside and checking out the festivities there. I got to take a picture with Mario, then headed upstairs to where all of the action was. The tournament was in full swing and getting near the end by the time I had arrived to the event but it was fun to watch all of the people who were really into the game. There were definitely some good players there!

For another fun activity to do, there was a photography area set up with a giant backdrop of one of the levels where you could take your picture with various props from the mushroom kingdom. I of course had to go and do this, and I dragged my guest with me to take the photo. Of course I claimed the Mario hat and we had fun posing for a picture!

All in all Nintendo did a great job yet again holding a fun event for the New Super Mario Bros. game. You can get the game now in stores and online! You can also check out all of the images from this event on the Gaming Angels Flickr page here.