The year is 1985, and people everywhere are falling in love with Mario and Luigi as the play Super Mario Brothers on their NES console. Flash forward to 2012. Mario has been the star of several Nintendo games that tend to set the bar for the gaming industry. While Luigi has not fared as well, he did manage to snag a couple games for himself. Even with all the new titles, people still love the original Super Mario Brothers and have mastered it to a point where the game can be beaten in a matter of minutes. So what is there left to do with the game? How about making it 4 player coop and giving all the characters the famous Valve Portal Gun?
Mari0 is a scratch build of the Super Mario Brothers game that you know and love but with a lot of extra features. Not only do you get the complete Worlds 1-8 of the original game, you also get several unique Portal levels complete with companion cube. If this wasn’t enough, the game also has a fully functioning level editor and creator.
Gameplay
Setting out as Mario, you are prepared to defeat goombas, koopas, Bowser, and anything else in the Mushroom Kingdom that stands between you and Princess Peach. But this time you have a new tool to help you on your quest; the Portal Gun from Valve’s award winning title Portal. Using the keyboard to control Mario’s movement and the mouse to aim and fire the Portal Gun, you are prepared to have a great time in one of the greatest games of all times. The portal physics are spot on. Put one portal on the ground and one on a wall, then jump down and launch yourself at incredible speeds. Or you can shoot one above yourself and another below to fall endlessly (well, you can fall for 400 seconds until the timer runs out). You can also use the portals with the enemies to move them out of your way or drop them down a hole, but be careful that you don’t launch them into yourself.
With a few controllers plugged into the PC, you can also play 4 player coop. Each character is a different color and their own color portals as well. With multiple people playing, things can get crazy and enemies will be teleporting all over the screen. Lucky for you, each character has their own life count, so you don’t have to worry about one person running through all the lives.
