Dr. Mario has always been second banana in the puzzle genre behind the likes of Tetris, Puyo Puyo, and Panel de Pon. What's more, remakes of the game over the years never brought anything new to the series or were too expensive to justify buying the same game again. In fact, some say one of the better versions of Dr. Mario was included in WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! (GBA), for free!

Dr. Mario & Virus Buster, as the game is known in Japan, looks to separate itself from other Dr. Mario games by taking advantage of what the Wii has to offer. For Dr. Mario purists, the classic version of the game is included with classic controls, but it now has online multiplayer via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

The classic game remains pretty much the same as it always has, albeit with an updated look. Mario has a 3D look to him, as do the viruses under the magnifying glass. During head-to-head multiplayer, each players' Mii will also be 3D. Their Miis will be wearing the same doctor's coat as Dr. Mario, complete with stethoscope.

A new mode, Virus Buster, uses the Wii Remote pointer and supports up to four players simultaneously. This is the same Virus Buster that appeared on the Nintendo DS version of Brain Age 2, except it uses the Wii Remote pointer instead of the DS touch screen. Pills and pill pieces can be moved around independently as they fall, even after clearing combos. To make this easier for players using the pointer, the view is zoomed in closer to the playfield making the pill pieces much larger than in the classic game.

Multiple pills can enter the bottle at the same time. Multiple players can also work cooperatively to clear the bottle of viruses. Each player has an icon at the bottom of the screen with a line connected to where on the screen a player pointer cursor is. With up to four players working together it might be hard to coordinate the efforts of four people, and that could make this mode very frantic.

Dr. Mario's Virus Buster is expected to be a WiiWare launch title in North America when the service launches here later this year.