Year released: 2003 (Nintendo 64)

Number of Players: 1-4 simultaneously

Mario takes on a new sickness with some pills he recently invented, resulting in Tetris-style puzzle gameplay.

Graphics: Everything is storybook flat (think Paper Mario if you can) and poorly animated (seemingly on purpose). The pills are rendered to perfection (like characters and enemies in Yoshi's Story). Don't expect it to be colorful, but everything is vivid.

Play control: Pills fall from the top of the screen one at a time. Down on the control pad to make the one you control at that time fall faster, left and right to move it left and right, A button to make it move clockwise, B to make it move counter-clockwise.

Sound: Great composition from the NES game with better instruments (and some new music that doesn't have the same puzzle "oomph"). Sound effects straight from the original.

Challenge: Clear the viruses by matching up their colors with the colors of the pills you get (red, blue, and yellow). You almost never get THE perfect pill, thus challenge presents itself. Challenge also takes form when viruses begin to grow more numerous (as you move on to later levels), taking up precious room. Oh, yeah, if you hadn't guessed, hitting the top of the screen means game over.

Gameplay: You can gather what the gameplay is like from the above. By the way, in two player mode, you both race to clear all of the viruses. If you clear two lines of a color or different colors at once (done not only side by side, but you can drop halves of pills--you just have to play the game to get it), you drop one half of a pill for every line you cleared at that time (minimum being two). This will be crucial when playing Dr. Mario 64, since it is centered around the story mode, which pits you against a computer in every round using the same rules as a multiplayer match.

Bottom line: If you like Tetris style puzzles, especially matching colors, then Dr. Mario 64 is for you. The story mode is a welcome addition for those who rarely have a second player.

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