Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis

Rating ESRB: Everyone Genre adventure Publisher Nintendo External Links Official Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis

I'm starting to wonder if Lemmings is a dead game in this day and age. I remember playing it on a floppy disk for hours when I was a kid. When people looked over my shoulder while I was working on Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 and asked what I was playing, my first response was always to ask if they had ever played Lemmings. The answer was always "No." Though Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 is leaps-and-strides away from Lemmings, the overall concept remains the same: get the single-minded beings to the goal of each stage.

In Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis, the Mario Toy Company is releasing their new set of wind-up figures. At the opening ceremony, Donkey Kong becomes jealous because the guest of honor, Pauline, favors the Mario toy over the Donkey Kong model. In an envious fit of rage, he kidnaps Pauline and heads to the top of the building, so Mario proceeds to use his Mario toys to try and rescue her.

The levels begin very simply. You slash forward to make the minis walk forward, swipe upwards to jump, and tap them to stop. It becomes a little more complicated when you have to worry about enemy toys destroying your minis, removable platforms, and retrieving each level's card, all in an effort to earn the highest score. You can collect coins to raise your score and can get a higher score by getting all of your minis to the goal in a row. At the end of each stage, you're rewarded a bronze, silver, or gold star depending on how many of your minis made it to the goal, if they made it in a row, and how quickly you completed the stage.

At the end of each floor is a DK boss stage. In these you have to shoot minis out of a cannon in order to hit Donkey Kong. You have a set amount of minis at your disposal, so once you're out, it's game over. All of the levels are pretty simple to complete - the hard part is trying to finish them with a gold star. Finding enjoyment in this game is all about thinking of the best strategy to complete the stage.

The most interesting feature is the Construction mode. There you get all the necessary tools and pieces needed to create your own puzzle. This is especially fun because you can challenge yourself to make a level so hard, that it's even difficult for you to beat. Also, you can trade these levels wirelessly with another Mario vs. DK 2 owner or online via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Unfortunately, you can't just randomly download someone's creation, so you'll have to do some work to retrieve friend codes. On the flip side, so far Nintendo has been uploading a new stage every week since the game's release.

I was extremely impressed with the production value of the game as a whole. There are a total of four short video sequences in the game, all of them equally impressive on a Metroid Prime: Hunters scale - and all for a simple puzzle game! The music is also very nostalgic as every track (except for the jazz-heavy title track) is taken from an earlier Mario or Donkey Kong game.

This game has a fairly high level of replay value once you add on the level editor in Construction Mode. You can unlock different construction kits to mess around with and if you have a friend that owns the game, you guys will have a good time challenging each other with your creative designs. Additionally, trying to get gold stars on every level is going to be a feat in itself. However, I was pretty disappointed that there was no head-to-head multiplayer. I figured it would be perfect for some kind of score attack or time trial.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis is an impressively well-put-together game with a high level of addictiveness. It really should have included some form of multiplayer, but alas, we are left with the friend-code-limited level downloading. The game left me wanting more, but since you actually have to make friends in order to find a few more challenging levels, some of you might want to start perusing those message boards for friend codes.