Digital Dave

Eleven and a half hours later, sixty stars, countless enemies squashed while being pricked with star bits, and a badly beat up Bowser… My God, Mario is back!

Not that you didn’t know that already. Or, if you really didn’t know, you might want to read further.

This is hands down my favorite Mario from the series, and I’ve played every single one while loving every minute… Well, maybe not every minute. I could have done without the frustration through the first couple of Mario games.

But, anyway!

Yesterday, I decided to head on over to buy the new Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii. I sat down, popped in the game disc, and became entranced for the next eleven and a half hours… Hey, I haven’t bought a game for awhile, and those darn gunships looked bad ass. And I couldn’t help but wanting one more star until I got to the point of, “Ooo, 60 stars and I get to whoop up on Bowser…” *plays some more*!!!

The graphics are awesome. This game is one of the best looking games that have come out on the Wii. Go find a video of Bowser in motion. The characters look really darn impressive.

The audio is something that stood out right away. I really never paid too much attention in the past to the audio track, but this one I couldn’t help but notice. The new tracks and how they mix them up were really done well.

The control system is really easy to pick up on. If you are oriented with the N64 version of Mario, then this will be cake. In fact, this has been done much better than the N64 version. The camera controls are incredibly fluid, and the movement is really simple to pick up, even with the wonky environmental effects.

The design of this game was done phenomenally. The level designers went above and beyond the call of duty with this game, which turned out extremely well with the galaxy scenario. There are a ton of levels to crawl through, tons of secrets to find, and many mini-games to fiddle around with.

The difficulty is like any other Mario game these days. There are plenty of lives to go around. They seem to know exactly when the player is going to die several times, because they put a 1UP right before that area. They also have checkpoints that trigger right before those areas as well. So you die, pick up a 1UP, and try again. There was quite a few times where I died probably 5 – 10 times before I got through an area, typically near the end of the stage.

The story is done really well. It’s the sort of story that pulls in you in, and keeps knocking at your door just enough to keep you informed and interested, but not tediously micro-managed with story shoved down your throat.

I tried to find some things I didn’t like about the game while I was playing it. And, I just couldn’t find anything. Anybody that wants to design games should really pick this game up or play it at a friend’s house. Pay special attention to the level design, you can’t miss it.

Have fun! Now that my play time is over, I hope to get some good coding going! Until next time!