Super Mario Galaxy

Super Mario Galaxy is a portal into a universe where the most common call-out for plumbers is "there are turtles in my drains", but unfortunately the only competent plumber is stuck far away from home in a starship-cum-house wiling away his days collecting stars, coins, and Ricicles in a desperate effort to gain some respect from Princess Peach who always treats you like her personal slave and expects you to rescue her every time she gets kidnapped, which is a hobby of hers.

Its plot is about as interesting as Sunshine's was before it, except you're in space. Thankfully, due to laws of physics known only to Italian plumbers from Japan venturing out into space without a space suit does not kill Mario.

The game also succeeds in belaying any thoughts you may have had about galaxies being formed over millions of gajillions of years. They are actually formed in seconds by little star-like people when they TRANSFOOOOOORM. The game's title is actually a misnomer, as there are many galaxies in the game, not just one. This we can accept as a translation issue due to Japanese having no grammatical plural. Oddly, most galaxies reside in rooms of the house, such as the bedroom and the kitchen.

The main enemy in the game are small white rabbits, which you must collect enough of to make some kind of soup that gives you super-human powers (or maybe it's just to create more clones of yourself).

Thankfully collecting the usual power stars is interrupted by the odd interlude where you must defeat a boss about as terrifying as Barney (and possessing a similar IQ).

This may sound like a daunting game where death awaits at every corner (and it is), so you'll be happy to know that your brother Luigi helps you on your quest by travelling to galaxies, finding a star, and then getting stuck, having to send you a letter with a photograph showing you exactly where he is cowering. He apparently has not worked out how to use stars to escape galaxies and return to the starship at the centre of the universe unlike his overachieving older brother.

A new discovery in plumber-physics is the ability of Mario to change into anything ... as long as it ends with "Mario". Such as Bee Mario, Boo Mario, Spring Mario, Ice Mario, Fire Mario, and finally Flying Mario (which tries to be clever and use another lexical category for the X in X Mario). Note that Mario cannot transform into a marionette. This is because marionette only starts with Mario, it does not end with Mario.

Super Mario Galaxy is the first core Mario platformer to appear on the Nintendo Wii. Released on November 1st, 2007 in Japan, the 3D platformer has been subsequently released in North America, Europe and Australia to almost complete critical acclaim. The game's fluid physics, tight controls and imaginative game universe has seen Nintendo EAD Tokyo's project being hailed as the premier game on the Wii and the greatest platformer of all time. Being the video game icon that he is, a new Mario game equals an event.

Essentially a sequel-at-heart to 1996's Super Mario 64, Galaxy sees a return to form after Super Mario Sunshine's proven, but ultimately lesser, attempt. Here, Nintendo top designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, returns to the focuses that made the series great in the first place: innovation and playability. For these reasons Galaxy is reminiscent of the untouchable Super Mario 3 on the NES.

Building on the three-dimensional foundations of 64, Galaxy sees the player utilizing a planet's gravity in puzzles and giving Mario a range of never-before-seen suits (Bee Mario, Spring Mario,Boo Mario) in the way that map screens and the raccoon tail had refined the game previously.

In his newest adventure, Mario, once again, has to save Princess Peach — this time sending him into space where he meets a new race of characters called the Luma. They, and their mysterious leader Rosalina, help Mario by sending him to different galaxies to receive power stars. Plot has never been an important part of a Mario game and that doesn't change greatly here — however it is infinitely better than "Hey Mario, I baked you a cake. Come to the castle. -Princess"

In essence, the Luma's observatory is the map screen, the universes are the "worlds" of past games in the series, and the galaxies are the "levels", just to put the game into perspective. The galaxies are similar to the paintings in Mario 64 in that the layout of a level can be used to gain multiple stars. As more stars are collected, more galaxies are unlocked (a la 64) and as the universe's boss is beaten and the Grand Star is collected, the next universe is unlocked (a la classic Mario).

Thus, Super Mario Galaxy is a wonderful mix of new and old. The fresh and innovative combined with the proven and familiar. The graphics are incredible and the amount of planets in a galaxy always ensure the player is constantly surprised or intrigued, not to mention the part gravity plays in the game. Meanwhile there are constantly references to the past, such as music (the tune from 1-4 in Mario3 always gets my heart a-racing), enemies (seriously, when was the last time you saw Rocky Wrench?), and locations (the airships are back). Prankster comets help assure the replayability of a level by assigning a certain challenge (speed run, mirror Mario race, fast/slow enemies etc) which gives an extra kick to redoing a previous level.

The Wii-mote is also used to great effect, which is important. The pointer is used throughout the game to collect Star Bits which are scattered all over the galaxies, to feed said Star Bits to certain hungry Luma, or to select a Pull Star whose gravity Mario will attach to. A point-&-shoot element is present too, in that the player (or second player, which is where the multiplayer aspect takes place) can aim and shoot the collected Star Bits at certain enemies to stun them. As a side note, it is very satisfying to kick a stunned enemy off the planet.

What it comes down to most is that Super Mario Galaxy is simply a joy to play. Nostalgic, not direct like the old-school New Super Mario Bros on the DS so much, but more like an inside joke that you know you're in on, the feel of the game is instantly familiar to old gamers. Like the Game Over music that dates right back to Super Mario Bros and the completely black screen with "Mario x ??" lives screen that follows. But it also makes me think, I seriously hope that eight year olds still get into games like this like I used to when I was eight. When discovering new worlds and finding secrets felt exactly like discovering new worlds and finding secrets - not a "get a walkthrough; beat it quickly" experience replaced by Grand Theft Auto 3, or whatever trying-to-be-an-adult game kids talk about at lunch time these days. Maybe that's one of the things I like best about this game - that it makes me feel like a kid again.