Dr Mario

Dr Mario Description

Despite his fame and fortune in the world of the platform adventure, industry icon Mario has also been spotted appearing games of a less obvious nature. On this occasion we're referring to the puzzle genre and Dr Mario, a classic NES release revived as part of Nintendo's ongoing retro push for GBA. The basic premise of this old-school puzzler lies somewhere between that of Tetris and Sega's Columns. Given a series of randomly generated falling blocks, or in this case colour-coded viruses, players are charged with the task of aligning and redirecting these puzzle pieces in the hope of joining four of the same colour together. When this is achieved, the offending articles are removed from the equation, freeing up space for other pieces. And that's basically all there is to it. Keep the virus under control and you'll do just fine. Of course, things become a little more frantic in later stages, whereby the pace of play is raised and the player is afforded less time for decision making, encouraging stupid mistakes that ultimately lead to the end of the game. If the virus fills the flask, it's game over. It's a remarkably simple concept, and the process is made even more captivating with the inclusion of wireless multi-player support, affording players of Dr Mario limitless gameplay. Dr Mario is a great addition to the NES Classics catalogue.