All this week I am going to be giving ridiculously quick hands-on impressions of all the games I see on the E3 show floor. Since I think everything is a little amazing, they will be rated, from least to most favorite: 1 (A Little Amazing!), 2 (Kind of Amazing!), 3 (Pretty Amazing!), 4 (AMAZING!), and 5 (The Most Amazing Thing I Have Ever Seen!).
I was a pretty big fan of Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis on the Nintendo DS. The little played title tasks the player with guiding little wind-up Mario toys through obstacle-filled levels using nothing but the stylus and touch screen. The twist is, the Mario toys constantly move, making the game play like an updated version of Lemmings.
The chaos continues with Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem, again, for the Nintendo DS (sorry, not the 3DS). The same type of gameplay exists in this next game in the series. This time, there are new obstacles and tools at your disposal. Most prominent in the demo: Building and demolishing metal girders that the Mario toys can walk across. Using the stylus, you can click on rivets to demolish girders and physically connect two rivets to build. You only have a limited amount of metal, so building girders becomes a game of strategy.
Other than this, there are many other obstacles and tools at your disposal, such as classic Mario enemies that can only defeated by grabbing hammers straight out of the original Donkey Kong arcade game.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem looks great, it is addictive as hell, and I really wanted to sit down and play through more of the 100+ levels the game offers. I walked away with a pretty positive impression.
Rating: 4 out of 5 (AMAZING!)
[Updated: Check out the screenshots we just added in the gallery!]
