New Super Mario Bros Wii Offers a Chance To Look Back

New Super Mario Bros on the Wii releasing to the world is a great chance for us to look back and reminice about all things Mario.

Nintendo, ever the retro king, has been hyping up New Super Mario Bros Wii since E3 this year.  Now that New Super Mario Bros for the Wii has seen retail launch, it's pretty apparent that the game is worth the hype. Both MetaCritic and GameRankings pin the game at over 90%, and our own review of New Super Mario Bros Wii was an enthusiastic 9/10 (Stage Select doesn't use a fractional scoring system, so a 9/10 score is superb).

From the moment New Super Mario Bros. Wii was announced, it was clear to everyone, including Nintendo, that they had a winner on their hands. Let's look back at Nintendo's booth at the show, where they were highlighting Mario on a 2 story tall sign!  On Sunday, when Nintendo released the game, I was shocked to realize that I had yet to publish these pictures; since Mario is all about the retro, I thought it'd be worth a quick smile to give everyone a look back at the announcement of the game.

Nintendo's excitement for New Super Mario Bros. Wii was pretty easy to spot.

You may notice that all of the pictures of New Super Mario Bros Wii have people in the shots - there are no pictures that we took of just the game.  Why is that?  Fair question.  Nintendo representatives at the show insisted (annoyingly so) that any shot of any Nintendo Wii game feature not just the game, but people playing the game.  I actually had one person ask to see the contents of my camera (I refused) while shooting pictures in various parts of the booth.  

As you can see above, Nintendo had a gigantic sign annoucing the coming arrival of New Super Mario Bros Wii.  Make that several huge signs:

Now, if I could get that poster as wall art, I think I'd pay a small fortune for the privilege.  Each of these stations had four players playing Super Mario Wii simultaneously.  Every single one of them was having genuine fun.

Nintendo's great at bringing out their stars for big announcements, too.  Check out the next page for pictures of Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario for over 15 years!

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