- [Narrator] Okay, so as my Star Trek collection
makes plain, I'm not a cheapskate.
Like the Lazy Sunday guys, I don't mind dropping a Hamilton
for a good time, but when I heard that Nintendo was charging
10 bucks for the iPhone's first official Mario game,
I was skeptical.
Is this endless runner really worth the tenner?
In short, not for me, but maybe for you.
This is the Mr. Mobile run through of Mario Run.
On its face, this is a simple game.
Aside from the trappings of the usual
save the princess, beat Bowser narrative,
you basically run and jump your way
through repainted versions of the virtual worlds
we've come to know and love.
If you enjoy games like Temple Run or Flappy Bird,
you'll probably feel right at home here.
Mario's running is automatic,
and he even jumps over small obstacles on his own,
while you pull off higher jumps and flips
with taps on the screen.
As with most Mario games,
there's a time limit on every level.
That plus the automatic running
and inability to go backwards makes
for a kind of relentlessness to the pace.
This isn't a game that's gonna help you relax in other words
but it certainly will bring back memories.
The nostalgia play here is pretty intense.
The music, sound effects and level designs
are all vintage Mario, and playing it does transport me back
through six generations of Nintendo consoles
to the excited second grader getting his first NES,
and there's more than just the single player setting.
There's a Rally mode too, which lets you compete
against the ghosts of other players.
You're not just trying to beat their time,
but their style of gameplay, which is a nice addition.
The better you play, the more virtual Toads you impress,
which plays into the next phase.
All those Toads come back to your kingdom
to help you trick it out.
Think SimCity, but simpler,
and the gameplay itself is butter smooth
on both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
There's not a stutter or stammer in sight.
Mario Run isn't gonna let you get
all your fun in at once, though.
You can't play Rally levels
without earning Rally Tickets elsewhere in the game.
You need to use in-game currency to buy kingdom upgrades
and certain characters can't be unlocked until later on.
That's all par for the course these days,
but at the risk of sounding like an old,
the nostalgia I have for classic Mario games
has a lot to do with their simplicity.
Some of Mario Run's add-ons feel
a little like padding to me
Also, keep in mind that the game won't launch on Android
until sometime in 2017, and because of Nintendo's concerns
about piracy, Mario Run needs a constant data connection
to work, a connection that's been described as chatty.
If you don't have an unlimited data plan,
this is a game you wanna play on Wi-Fi,
and that's pretty weak.
So is it worth $10?
Well, not if you don't like endless runners.
If it were me, I'd take the same 10 bucks
and buy the newest Room, maybe that SimCity I talked about
and still have a couple bucks left over
for a flight sim or a car racing game.
Now, Mario Run is a great time.
I don't wanna bury that point,
'cause it really is a fun and fairly easy game to play.
The soundtrack is on point too.
I just think the Nintendo tax is only gonna be worth it
for a true nostalgia nerd, but hey, no judgment here.
As a trekkie who would spend 80 bucks
on a Star Trek gadget that doesn't even work well,
I know something about nerdiness.
Fortunately, you don't have to dump the coins right upfront.
If you've got an iPhone or an iPad,
you can play the first three levels of Mario Run for free,
so give it a download and see if it jumps your Goomba.
If Mario Run isn't your speed,
take a walk outside with my hands on of Pokemon Go
and subscribe to Mr. Mobile on YouTube
for more mobile tech videos every week.
Till next time, thanks for watching,
and stay mobile, my friends.