With the general consensus that Mario’s last outing in Super Mario Sunshine was hardly the most prolific in his long career, the pressure is on Miyamoto and his team to deliver the goods and release a title to put the moustachioed one well and truly back on the map.

Super Mario 128 however has more then just the future of its plump, talismanic hero resting on its shoulders, with older gamers and the Nintendo hardcore alike demanding a game that revolutionises the stale platforming genre and brings back some of the popularity that it enjoyed during the 80’s and early 90’s.

Despite teasing us with choice comments over the years actual evidence of the game has been thin on the ground, which led to the suggestion that the game would slip to become a Nintendo Revolution launch title.

Having grown up with Mario and Co, we’ve got fond memories and high hopes for the game and have followed every drip of information with the impatience of an 8-year old Pokemon fanatic. So you can imagine the excitement when a TVG reader e-mailed us with screens allegedly taken from a recent demonstration of the game in action.

Excitement quickly changed to suspicion as we recalled the “screens” we’d seen in the past, and poured over them in the hope of discovering an immediate give-away, but this proved harder then we thought…

As you can see from the screens, beyond the appearance of Luigi it’s hard to gather anything substantial from the screens and make a decision. The screens look decidedly similar to Super Mario Sunshine in style, and there does appear to be a map of sorts in one of them along with an intriguing icon in the bottom right corner.

The event certainly looks similar to other Nintendo conferences that we’ve been to in the past, but despite the seemingly authenticity we find ourselves falling back on the fact that the Internet is rife with people who have a lot of time on their hands! Still it’s always interesting to receive images like this even when they’re blatantly fake…

We’ve contacted Nintendo regarding the screens and expect a less-then-decisive “no comment” tomorrow; but until then why not let us know what you think, could these be from Mario 128 or is there an obvious sign that they’re a fake which we’ve missed – let us know what you think?