Super Mario Galaxy

Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EAD Tokyo
Genre: Platformer
Release: November 12, 2007
Platform: Wii

Reviewer: Eric

When I first heard about Super Mario Galaxy I thought Miyamoto and Nintendo have finally lost it. The Nintendo Wii wasn’t a system for gamers; everything that’s been out so far hasn’t really justified the $250 price tag and all the awesome games we were promised this year got delayed. To me it was safe to say Super Mario Galaxy was going to be another lame game for the Wii, I’d get sick of it after a week, and my copy would then be traded in for some cash. Guess what I ate my own words after I played this game, Super Mario Galaxy is so goddamn great.

Super Mario Galaxy has the same old Mario plot, just a few things have been changed so it just doesn’t seem like Mario was thrown into space for nothing. Bowser has his eyes on the Mushroom Kingdom once again. Even though Mario has defeated him since the 8-bit era Bowser just doesn’t give up. Instead of just doing his usual grab and go method Bowser has gone as far as cutting a hole beneath the Mushroom Kingdom. After Bowser does this diabolical plan of his he takes Princes Peach to space. Of course Mario is more than willing to save Peach for the four hundredth time goes into space and must collect stars to unlock the path to Bowser.

Galaxy is a 3-D platform game done right. I haven’t played a game as good as this since Super Mario 64, the game that put 3-D platformers on the map. Mario moves and attacks without any problems and surprisingly the controls on Super Mario Galaxy are good. Where you move with the controllers is what you’ll see on the screen, the only time there is a real slow down is when you decide to make Mario go slow. Everything from fast turns to jumping on enemies feels right, I only wish Nintendo and third party developers would play Galaxy and see that not every game has to be crappy mini games, bundled in one pack for fifty dollars.

Even though the controls feel right not all the stages use them to its fullest. You only really use the Wii Mote to point and click through the menu and a few other stages let you do the same thing. There are other attacks Mario can do that use the Wii Mote well, the spin attack is done by, you guessed, shaking the Wii Mote. It would have been nice to see more stages use the Wii Mote in a bigger variety, but if this would have been done Galaxy might have just felt like the over rated Mario Party 8 for the Wii.

At first Super Mario Galaxy might seem a bit easy. This will change once you collect a few of the 120 stars that are in the game. Again this is a lot like Super Mario 64 in ways, that game was easy in the beginning but it slowly got more difficult. The developers figured you’d get better after awhile in the game, which might be an understatement since it might take a while to get use to the controls if you are new to the Wii. Even if you die a lot in Galaxy there shouldn’t be too much of a problem, find an area where you can get extra lives without breaking a sweet and try again.

The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are the systems to play if you want high definition graphics, you can’t deny it. Super Mario Galaxy though looks amazing. The choice of bright colors and epic battles (yes, Galaxy has very epic battles) you might mistaken this game for a low res game on both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. From the animations, environments and the cast of characters, Super Mario Galaxy looks and feels like a gem! There really isn’t any other game that comes close to Galaxy, Nintendo really made sure there weren’t any problems for Mario’s first platform game on the Wii and it shows.

For the most part the level designs are great. You get to climb huge towers, jump from different planets and a whole lot more. Galaxy does have one flaw that shouldn’t ruin the game completely, but it is an issue. The camera focuses on the action first, second and third. What I’m trying to say here is if you are attacking anything in this game the camera will be there. Do you get what I’m trying to say? If you are going to attack something make sure you finish the job, the camera might get a little goofy, but it doesn’t compare to any of the Sonic games that have been released since 2003.

Final Verdict
If you don’t have a Wii then you may want to consider calling your local store, nagging them to give you a date when more systems are coming in. Super Mario Galaxy is worth the purchase of the Wii, this game is amazing. If you are lucky enough to own a Wii then buy this game now, don’t question yourself, go out and spend the money! The few problems I had with this game really don’t hurt my final score, they are so minor most people might not even notice them. There really isn’t a reason why you shouldn’t own this game, with Super Mario Galaxy and a few other games out right now I can honestly say I may end up playing my Wii a bit more now.

Rating
10 out of 10


Super Mario Galaxy Trailer


#33 jakebonz wrote:
I'ts nice to finally see a great game come out for the Wii. I guess it won't be as dusty as it usually is. Should I point out that basically since the 64, only Nintendo has consistently released good games for their systems and 3rd party developers have basically released (on average) crap.

#34 Amalgamut00 wrote:
Resident Evil 4?

#35 jakebonz wrote:
That's why I said "on average"

#36 Amalgamut00 wrote:
Tales of Symphonia (my favorite GC game)

#38 Amalgamut00 wrote:
Golden Eye for the N64, Rare made it, amazing! Your turn :)

#39 jakebonz wrote:
Goldeneye was still published by Nintendo

I actually had to think for a minute, and the only completely 3rd party games I own for the Gamecube are all of the Resident Evils and Godzilla: Destory all Monsters Melee. I bought Madden for it one year because, and I'm not making this up, thought I needed to get more games for the system to get more use out of it.

I also just looked through all the Wii games released to date, and there is pretty much only ONE (Umbrella Chronicles) 3rd party exclusive game I would consider buying. Anything else is either for 8 year olds or I could just buy for another system.