The Symmetry of New Super Mario Bros. Wii

You'd think there'd be a difference. Mario's been doing this kind of thing for decades – running, jumping, saving the princess. You'd think he'd have some advantage, some noticeably better skillset than a pair of simple upstarts setting out on their first-ever adventure. But, no. Nintendo decided against that. Nintendo decided that, in 2009's New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the world's most famous platforming hero would be able to be matched step for step, jump for jump by a couple of nameless, personality-less Toads.

From Mario's perspective, it doesn't make a lot of sense. He should run faster. Jump higher. Something. But, from the designers' point of view, it must have been better to make all players created equal.

Realizing a Dream

When New Super Mario Bros. Wii was revealed three years ago and then shipped to stores in late 2009, it sparked a new revival for 2D side-scrolling platformers – but it was a focused one, not just a general revisit to the genre. 2006's first New Super Mario Bros. on the DS had already done that, so the Wii follow-up's larger contribution wasn't just pulling platformers back into the spotlight, but pulling platformers back into the spotlight with a new emphasis on simultaneous multiplayer play.

It was four-player Mario! A design dream that Shigeru Miyamoto had hoped to realize for decades, finally materialized in Nintendo's fifth console generation. At long last you could set out to rescue the kidnapped princess with friends alongside you, having Mario accompanied by his brother Luigi and the two new characters, Blue Toad and Yellow Toad.

Well, calling them new characters is being a bit generous. These two Toads were about as generic as could be, as Nintendo refused to give them any kind of storyline introduction or even their own names. They were simply there to serve as alternate-colored clones of the red- and green-clothed plumbers. Some fans cried foul at the time – why not use established characters like Wario and Waluigi, or the "normal" Toad, or even the Princess herself to fill those spots?

The answer was simple enough – because the designers wanted everyone to play the same.

Symmetry and Asymmetry

New Super Mario Bros. Wii was designed to offer a wholly symmetric multiplayer experience. You've heard the opposite term thrown around a lot recently. "Asymmetric" gameplay refers to games in which different players experience different things while playing at the same time, and it's a big focus for the upcoming Wii U and its new GamePad controller. "Symmetric" gameplay, then, would refer to games in which every player essentially experiences the same thing. Like New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Whether you're controlling Mario, or Luigi, or Blue or Yellow Toad, your abilities are no different than anyone else's. Everyone runs at the same speed, jumps to the same heights – it's a level playing field for all. And it works well, no doubt about it – New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a brilliantly fun multiplayer experience. It's a good time. Hopping and bopping around, picking up your buddies and tossing them into pits, "bubbling up" when you're about to die and begging your pals to come pop you out so you can keep going. Nintendo's designers picked a good direction for the game.

But it's not the only direction they could have chosen. In the wake of New Super Mario Bros. Wii's success, we got several more examples of ways that four-player simultaneous 2D side-scrolling could be handled with a bit of asymmetry tossed in. Ubisoft's Rayman Origins cloned the approach of pairing two established characters with two generic tag-alongs, but Rayman, Globox and the Teensies all had wildly different animations that made them feel more individual. Kirby's Return to Dream Land took things to the next level by giving each character a different skillset – Kirby could suck up and copy enemy powers as normal, but Meta Knight, Waddle Dee and King Dedede had wholly their own identities wielding a sword, a spear and a giant mallet, respectively.

And Donkey Kong Country Returns, while only two-player, nevertheless made Donkey and Diddy distinct from one another – which enhanced the teamwork element of playing that game with a friend, as you both had your own unique roles to play.

Going Forward

So the question becomes, is there room for a little more asymmetry in the New Super Mario Bros. series, going forward? The upcoming New Super Mario Bros. U will explore one extreme with its "Boost Mode," which will give one player the power to insert blocks into the environment through the GamePad's touch screen while the others run and jump along as normal. Rayman Origins' sequel, Rayman Legends, will similarly invite an extra, fifth player to pick up the GamePad to control the environment-altering new character, Murphy.

But those may be examples of asymmetry taken a bit too far, at least for the crowd who cried foul about the two generic Toad Bros. in 2009 – because the initial expectation for many for a multiplayer Mario design wasn't a game where someone sat off to the side dropping extra bricks into the scene, or even for four players running and jumping around with the exact same skill set. The expectation was more in line with what Kirby's Return to Dream Land delivered – a game in which established individual Mario characters used their established individual skills to each contribute something different to the action.

So you'd have Wario as an option, bulkier and more powerful than the others and unleashing his trademark shoulder-forward bull rushes from his Wario Land series. You'd have Princess Peach, floating through the air with her hovering long jumps, maybe even wielding Parry the Parasol from her standalone platformer Super Princess Peach. Maybe you'd even have Bowser stomping along and breathing fire in playable form, as he has been a time or two in the Mario role-playing games.

The opportunity is there – and, in fact, the template for how it would work was laid down around 25 years ago, way back in Super Mario Bros. 2. Even without letting the villains get into the mix, you've got an established framework for how to make the heroes feel different right there – Mario is the average everyman. Luigi jumps higher than anyone else, kicking his legs wildly in the air. Princess Peach has those floaty long jumps and Toad ("the" Toad) is stronger than the rest. So perhaps it's time for a new Super Mario Bros. 2? (Not to be confused with New Super Mario Bros. 2.)

In Conclusion

The possibilities are there. The template is there. It's just up in the air whether or not Nintendo would ever choose to take New Super Mario Bros. in an asymmetric direction, after setting the definitive symmetric standard three years ago. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was great, and no doubt this year's two new sequels in the series will prove themselves to be solid entries in the franchise as well. But there's an opportunity for Nintendo's designers to refresh this franchise further some time in the future – if they follow the example of games like Kirby's Return to Dream Land and even the old Super Mario Bros. 2, and if they can actually embrace the established diversity of the Mushroom Kingdom's many diverse characters, instead of just tossing us more generic, nameless Toads.

Lucas M. Thomas led the charge to give Blue Toad and Yellow Toad a bit more personality back at E3 '09, and to this day he still personally refers to them as Yvan and Wolley. You can tell him your own nicknames for the Toad Bros by following him on Twitter.

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Rise of the Triad Doesn’t Make Any Sense

It’s been almost two decades since Apogee’s Rise of the Triad was first released. That reaches all the way back to when nonsense ruled the first-person shooting genre, when few attempts were made to develop characters and layer themes. You loaded in, picked up a floating gun and killed absolutely everything you saw. Things bled, exploded, died, you moved on and ten seconds or less later you repeated, shooting and circle strafing until the credits.

With the reboot, Interceptor Entertainment is hoping to keep much of the original’s nonsense intact. You’ll pick up floating weapon icons that bob and rotate in place in stages. Your MP40 will have infinite ammunition and you’ll need it to cut down swarms of fast-moving enemies. You’ll use a weapon called the Excalibat – a baseball bat with a magical eye set in its center that as a secondary fire will launch a wave of explosive baseballs.

When shot enemies will be cut to pieces. Their hands and legs will snap and flip off their bodies and their heads will roll away like gruesome bowling balls. Your character will unload one-liners because dismembering an enemy wasn’t quite satisfying enough. You’ll rocket jump, uncover secret rooms, catch enemies in environmental traps and put together kill chains to drive up a score to post on leaderboards.

The game will feature a single player mode where you infiltrate an island overrun with cultists trying to destroy Los Angeles. To stop them you’ll use a drunk missile launcher to fire clusters of unpredictable spinning explosives, use a flame wall gun to ignite enemies and watch as they flail around before exploding, and pick up other strange tools of destruction. Infiltrator is still working out how all the alternate fire modes might function, but the examples given so far have especially interesting implications for multiplayer. For instance, the Split Missile launcher will fire out missile in different directions, and the alternate fire might cause them to converge on the same point and collide, which could be useful for splattering a player hiding behind a pillar.

While shooting at others online, expect the type of experience that emphasizes control of fixed weapon spawn points. Particularly powerful weapons may also be set on top of traps, so if you wait for someone to walk into the room to try and scoop up a coveted weapon, you might be able to drop the floor and watch as they’re skewered in a spike pit, or crush them under bricks, or burn them with jets of fire.

Built with Unreal Engine 3, this version of Rise of the Triad looks great so far, the perfect kind of experience for someone who just wants to sprint and shoot and not have to think about much beyond where the next enemy might attack from. Though it’s only scheduled to launch on PC, Interceptor is open to creating a console version as well if there’s interest. The only sticking point could be the user sharing features. Rise of the Tried will be completely moddable when it’s released. Interceptor is very enthusiastic about giving users the ability to generate and share content and isn’t very interested in putting together a version that doesn’t allow for that.

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