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That Brooklyn plumber is back, and once again he's brought his brother! Mario, the world's greatest video game hero, has returned to the Mushroom Lands, only to discover that Bowser's ruthless Koopa Children have taken over, oppressing the inhabitants into supporting his reign of terror.

Being the all-round good guy and complete hero that he is, Mario (and in two-player mode, his bro Luigi) decide to set out on a quest to give each of the Koopa kids a good kicking, thus saving Mushroom World from a fate worse than travelling on British Rail on a regular basis.

Each Mushroom World is guarded by an evil Koopa child, and it's Mario's job to complete each level of the world until he reaches the Koopa Kastle. In the castle, Mario is pitted against the Koopa Kid, and once he's defeated the evil little blighter, it's time to visit the next world packed with all manner of even more terrifying hazards!

The object is to reach the end of world eight where Bowser lies in wait, ready for the one-on-one final battle with Mario himself!

A single screen version of the classic Mario Bros game is available in Super Mario Bros 3. We won't give away exactly how to get to it, but suffice to say you have to be in two-player mode to get there.

There's also rumours of Wrecking Crew being another bonus game. The first Mean Machines reader to find it and write in telling us how to do it will get a special prize!

Within the game there are plenty of mini-quests that Mario undertakes in order to gain useful items. The first is at the end of world one. The king has been turned into a dog by a Koopa minion, and the evil one has only just escaped.

Mario manages to board the fleeing minion's ship and sets about locating the boss. His magic wand is the only object capable of making the king human again!

Super Mario Bros III is simply the finest videogame I've ever played. It might not have graphics and sound anywhere near as good as many Megadrive and Super Famicom titles, but what it does have is utterly fabulous playability.

Its perfectly graded difficulty level, massive depth, constant surprises, hard-to-find secrets, mega-rewarding gameplay and supreme challenge combine together to make it horribly, horribly addictive. I mean real Government Health Warning stuff!

Once you start playing you want to keep going, just to see what surprises are around the next corner! I ended up playing it all night! And when I wasn't playing the game, I was thinking about it!

It's truly awesome stuff - the greatest game yet seen! And if you haven't got a Nintendo to play it on, you'd better start saving now...

Finally! Mario II's been propping up the Nintendo charts for many months, and now Mario III's out I confidently expect it to sell by the jumbo-jetful - and it deserves to!

Mario is a truly brilliant game, combining a massive amount of depth with totally superb playability. Featuring many devious platform traps and puzzles that rely both on brains and reflexes, Mario is simply a truly classic game.

The graphics, though quite simple, are incredibly varied and there are hundreds of excellent enemy sprites, each with their own behaviour pattern. The sound is superb too, with a special sound chip built into the cart to provide some excellent bongo drum samples!

Having completed Mario IV, I expected this to be a doddle - not a bit of it! In some aspects it's even better than the Super Famicom game, and in the playability department it makes Sega's Sonic look poor by comparison. In my view, Mario III is the game for the Nintendo and is worth every last penny!

Presentation 92%
Pretty spartan intro, but the in-game presentation is faultless.

Graphics 95%
A massive variety of brilliant sprites and backdrops await the player.

Sound 95%
Mega samples with remixed tunes and effects blagged from Mario I!

Playability 98%
Completely brilliant, hyper-addictive gameplay!

Lastability 96%
A massive game whose secrets take months to unravel!

Overall 98%
Mario is back in the greatest videogame yet seen! It's worth buying a Nintendo just to play it!