character movement advice

Hello All!,

You'll have to forgive me as I'm only a "soso", but aspiring programmer, coming from the web (PHP development mostly). But, I'm a very good on the art side, which hopefully makes up for some of my inadequacies.

I was hoping to pull from this great pool of programmer intellect help me make a decision on how I should control my player. I'm looking to make a "Super Mario" type 2.5D scroller game, where my characters are texture mapped cubes and most of the level is actual geometry.
The player can move left, right, jump, and squash opponents. What I'm hoping to get some advice about is whether I should use the physics engine to move my player character and enemies or use scripting and/or other directional movements to achieve my character movement. Or, can I use a combo of both?

If you have a suggestion.. a snippet would be fantastic! (just a shove in the right direction should help a lot) Thanks folks!

Well if you are a good artist you can always help me with:

https://sio2interactive.forumotion.net/sio2-project-f7/urgent-level-designers-3d-artists-needed-t649.htm

And learn about SIO2 in the process, and afterward use the information for your own creations... but its just a thought really

A very tempting offer.. I might have fun with the jungle level. Do I get to look at your game source to learn from?

I'm still hoping that someone might be able to suggest the best method of moving my character throughout the level. Should I move him through a directional movement? Or, would it be better to move him through a change in physic velocity?

Check tutorial09, that's a good place to start for character movements and control.