Super Mario Galaxy - Wii

It’s a-me, a-Mario!! The big, red M is back with his newest platformer and you know he’ll come in with style. He’s got all his usuals: triple jumping, long jumping, wall jumping and as you can see, lots of jumps. This game is one of the best on the Wii but he’s not without his fair share of flaws.

STORY

Well, what can I say, the story sucks as usual but are you seriously going to buy this for its story. They do add a few twists but it’s the same old, same old: Bowser taking Princess Peach and Mario must rescues her blah, blah, blah. The only twists, I guess, are that instead of taking just Peach, he takes the whole castle with her in it!!!! He takes her to the centre of the universe where he plans to create his very own galaxy and rule over the universe. But do you think he’s going to succeed? Uhhhhhh….of course not. Meanwhile, Mario was blasted to a planet where he meets Rosalina, the Princess of the Cosmos. She takes you to her observatory which is your “home base”. It’s where you are blasted to galaxies from. Anyways, Rosalina tells you that you must find Power Stars so the observatory can be powered up so they can travel to where Peach is.

DESIGN

This Mario takes his game in a whole new direction. As you can guess from the title, the game takes place in space. And with that, there are different variations of gravity that manipulate how you can move. There are around 30 individual galaxies throughout the game and each has a lot of small planets in them. Some galaxies have lots of round planets that you can run all around while others are normal, flat areas. All around the galaxies there are small, little, colourful Star Bits. These are pretty much your currency but you can also shoot them at enemies to stun them. There is Launch Stars that take you from planet to planet and Sling Stars that take you to a planet that is very close. Theres is also some new power ups includong Ice Mario, which lets you walk on water by freezing it, Spring Mario which lets you jump very high. There is also some returning one like Fire Mario, Rainbow Mario and Flying Mario. Now, like most Mario games, the enemies come as no challenge. Most of them can be taken out with a jump on the head are hit with your new spin attack and booted. The bosses aren’t a challenge either. Seriously, I only found one hard boss throughout the whole game. The camera is usually one of the better things in a Mario game but in this game, it can sometimes be a little weird because of the gravity but that’s only about 5% of the time. Another new thing is co-op mode. Unfortunately, it sucks. All the other person really does is help collect Star Bits.

GAMEPLAY

OK, so the controls aren’t anything truly amazing but they are spot on. Well, most of the time. You shake the remote do the spin attack. Also, when you are ion ice or when you are Ice Mario and are on water, you shake the remote to skate. You can point at the screen to collect Star Bits more easily. If you want to use co-op mode, this is exactly what the second person has to do, point and help collect Star Bits. Of course, the nunchuk is used to control you. The only problem is when you go upside down. Controlling Mario is a little confusing because you don’t know which way to push to go towards you or away from you. Swimming can also be a little weird but that’s really the only problem. The A button jumps, the B button is used to shoot Star Bits, the Z button is used to crouch, the C button to center the camera, the + button pauses and that’s about it. The button presses are always responsive. The pointer is also a small problem; you have to be straight in front of the sensor bar, not diagonally. Now about the power ups. For Fire Mario, you shake the remote to throw a fireball. For Spring Mario, you are always jumping slightly but when you hold the A button and relaease right before you land, you jump very high. Unfortuanately for Spring Mario, jumping is extremely inprecise so it's a frustation to use. Rainbow Mario, Ice Mario and Flying Mario are all controlled by just the control stick.

PRESENTATION

It is definitely one of the best looking Wii games. As you may or may not know, the good-looking Wii games are mostly about detail, not realism and this is shown in Mario Galaxy. It still has a cartoony look but everything is detailed. There’s fur shading, details in planets, objects and characters and just about everything. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption probably still looks better but this is still very good looking. The water is also looks realistic looking.

I don’t really have much to say anymore. I’m not the biggest Mario fan but anyone will have fun with this game once they get the hang of it. Some control issues, crappy co-op and a bad story arn't exactly huge flaws but they still show. Luckily, they con't detract from the fun you will get out of play ing this game. If you have a Wii and don’t have this game, what are you waiting for?

Story- B-

Design- A-

Gameplay- A-

Presentation- A+

OVERALL

A-