Super Mario Galaxy [Wii]

"Yeah! A new Mario game! And a real new one too, not some rehashed re-released old stuff. And it's great, as was to be expected from Nintendo. It is amazing how much original ideas they manage to put in one game.

I got the game the day it was released (pre-ordered it months ago), so I could get started on day one. The first stars were quite easy to get, too easy if you ask me. Sometimes I just started to enjoy a new level and all its new game mechanics and then suddenly it was finished already.
But later on in the game it gets a bit trickier, up to the point of being near impossible and sometimes even annoying.

The game is broken up into many separate galaxies, each with about five or six stars to collect. The variation between the galaxies is enormous, the gameplay in each one is completely different from the previous one. And you can switch between galaxies as you wish, the freedom to do what you want is complete.
This does make the game a bit "fragmented" though, I missed "coherence". In other words, sometimes it felt like a large collection of mini-games. The idea of some of the galaxies are so wonderful, that I would have like to spend more time there, to explore the world, find more stars, do more stuff.

The controls are very smooth, why is only Nintendo capable of delivering platformer controls that works so well? If you have played Mario 64 or Sunshine, you will pick this up right away.
I like the bits (pun intended) where you need to point at the screen with the remote to do things, for example the "blow the bubble" sections. I also enjoyed the Monkey Ball style "roll the ball" areas, a lot of fun. Great control ideas that are made possible by the Wii controllers.

BUT: I don't care much for the "shake the remote" controls. You must shake the controller to have Mario do his spin attack (like in Zelda). The timing of "shaking" is much harder than pressing a button. Especially in the Bowser boss battles I missed a lot of hits just because of the hard to predict timing. I always spinned just a bit too early or just a bit too late. Annoying. And trust me, you will do a lot of shaking in this game. When I had finished this game my right arm was starting to hurt, no kidding.
However, shaking the controller to do a spin attach still kind of fits the move on screen. But shaking the controller to shoot a shell? Come one, that's just awkward and stupid. Why not just shoot with B? We can shoot starbits with B, why not shells?

Apart from the shaking, I had a lot of fun with this game. It is really addictive, hard to put down. When I got home from work, I just had to switch on my Wii and continue playing. Now that I completed the last Bowser battle I feel less inclined to continue full time (doing Corruption now), but I still try to "do" a few stars each day.

Now I could finish this by telling you "if you own a Wii, go get it", but I am sure I don't have to. If you own a Wii, you already have this one and you probably completed it already too."

"I actually had to shelve this game for some time. I was looking forward to it for like a year, and then when it came out, I shelved it. When I finally put it in the Wii like.. two and a half weeks ago I still couldn't play. It appeared the batteries of my Wii-motes, all of them, had died. What are you gonna do? The machine hadn't been switched on since like.. before summer. My TV had been playing 360 games or tv shows (2007 had a great start of new series, it was amazing) all this time.

So a quick run to the store enabled me to play this game. Finally. I was confused at first about gathering StarBits (little pieces of stars falling from the sky or sticking to walls or other surfaces or coming from enemies), but when I pushed the B-button and all the StarBits launched at the screen I understood. Also, this is a Mario game, so it is explained how to use everything. I started trying some of the jumps I remembered from (mostly) Mario 64 (my all time favorite) and Sunshine (not so much a favorite) and I think they all worked. The 2-jump, the 3-jump, the backflip, the groundpound, and also the longjump. Good stuff. I'm a big fan of the longjump as it enables you to go a bit faster through some levels and can sometimes be used to jump ledges developers weren't (or were they?) thinking through.

The next bit could contain a small spoiler, but only of the opening sequence.
I won't reveal too much of the story, but as it's pretty obvious, yes, princess Peach is kidnapped once again by the impeccable evil king Bowser (and his erm son I think). In fact, the whole castle is being kidnapped. Some how, you are in space on a little planet chasing and catching a few rabbits. When you've completed this simple task you will find yourself on a spacestation. You seem to be able to breath just fine, so no worries there. Breathing is never a problem in space in this game, as well as explosions: it's all possible. Anyway, back to the spacestation. It seems to be out of order, and not all the places are lit up. It appears they're having some troubles firing up the engines because they've lost starpower. Guess who they entrust with the task to get back that starpower? Indeed: it's you. You recieve the power to fly through space, and learn the spin attack (shake the Wii-mote or nunchuck).

So ofcourse you take upon you this heroic deed, and head over to the first dome. In this dome you can aim your Wii-mote at the screen, at the blue 'pullstar' and press A. This will pull Mario towards the pullstar and the adventure can begin. Or can it? You are presented with something that looks like a galaxy. In fact, they are all separate galaxies. You pick a galaxy you want to fly to, press A, and Mario flies away from the starship, to the galaxy. If you are comparing to Mario 64, you would call this jumping into a painting in the castle.

Every galaxy is very different. You can have a zillion small planets where you do some planet hopping (don't fear getting lost in space, the only times you fall of is when one of these planets have a black hole that sucks you in), or you can have like 2 or 3 big planets. Or even one war machine you have to climb into via 3 smal UFOs. Basically it could be anything. Depending on which star you're trying to get in the galaxy, the galaxy and starting point can change, so it fits your needs to get the star (as it did with Mario 64). I was already thinking of the boring times I had completing Mario 64, with the 'collect 100 stars' or 'collect 8 red coins' missions. I really did not like these. And after some playing, it appears that SMG does not have this (although this is not the end of the review.. I will get back to this).

You start out in a galaxy with only 3 health-units, which can be upgraded to 6 health-units if you eat the right mushroom, but when you get back to 3, you won't be able to get coins and move back up to 6. I think it's good that you can only get hit 3 times, as the game is very very easy. The enemies do not get harder at all, and I do believe it is possible to complete the game and not die from a single enemy (black holes, falling of etc. Yes, but not enemies). A regular enemy can be killed usually in 2 ways. You can either spin them into dizziness, and then simply walk in to them to kick them away (which will make the enemy explode into StarBits) or jump on them (to get coins for health) - or you can shoot them unconscious with a StarBit and do one of the same things (kick or jump). Of course groundpounding works on some enemies, and other enemies need specific jumps. It's all easy to figure out, without losing to much health I might add.

The stars then.. they're pretty easy to get as well. I found them all to be so easy (I had several moments where I went "wtf, done already?") right up till the very last boss. And when I played the level that gives you the end credits (in which I only died once by the way, in the impossible tunnel of death (you'll see)), I already had like 20/25 more stars than I needed. All simple stars. The goals for the stars are simple and I'll explain to you a few of them: collect some starpieces (not at all like the red coins from Mario 64, but you are planet hopping, which could be hard considering some obstacles to a small planet with the starpieces) and recieve a star. Or defeat the boss at the end of one level to get a star. Blow up some garbage to get a star. Or just GET to the star (through some obstacle course). They're all small goals, and pretty easy as said 100 times before now.

There are some special stars in each galaxy. Just about every galaxy has a comet star, which you can only get when the comet is in orbit around that galaxy. The comet will only be there for a few... turns I guess. So when you play a different galaxy, the comet could be gone for a while before you can try getting the comet star. Every time a comet was in orbit, I made sure to try and get the star there. These stars are also easy to get, but.. could take up some tries. The Speedy Comet makes you race a dark version of yourself through that galaxy to the star. Don't worry, when you don't make it, you simply leave one life behind and you can try again. Use the longjump, it works. There is also a comet which gets you into the galaxy with only one health-unit. You die instantly when you're hit by an enemy. These are fun, because when this comet is in orbit, they usually shoot you to the end boss of a certain galaxy and you have to defeat them without being hit. I loved doing this in the ghost level. There are more comets, and I won't discuss them all. I will get back to you on one of them though.

Luigi makes his appearance in the game (he's trying to help you, gets stuck, sends you a picture and you have to remember the galaxy that was in to come rescue him and get a star he has found). You will find green stars from time to time (some you'll get from Luigi). Find 3 green stars and you can go to a planet that is orbiting around the spacestation. On this planet you can earn 3 more stars by completing the tasks. The tasks are tougher versions of tasks you should've performed by the time you get there, because they are playable for a star in some of the different domes you encounter. It could be surfing, skating or windblowingblablastuff. These are fun levels, and I guess they would remind you of the slide levels in Mario 64.

In each of the domes you have a Bowser/MiniBowser galaxy. The Minibowser galaxy usually is some obstacle course towards a big machine, or gunship you have to defeat, and the Bowser galaxies are obstacle courses as well (reminding you very much of the Bowser levels in Mario 64 - and, sorry for referring to that game so much, haha) ending in a Bowser fight. This bothered me though, because the defeating of Bowser in all these (well, only 2 or 3 I think before the final battle) levels, was exactly the same as the one before, and just as easy. At least it felt that way. Sure the final boss was a bit harder, but the final obstacle course to get to him was harder than finishing the battle with him. Also, in all the levels, the game automagically saves checkpoints. So when you die (given that you haven't lost your last life and go game over), you spawn back to life if you want to try again on a spot close to where you died. This makes it a bit easier, and for some levels Much Much less annoying. But... then again.... isn't repeating levels and being angry for falling of a ledge just before the end part of a good Mario game? I think it may be. I'm only bringing this up now, because it has a connection to the Bowser levels. Being the hardest obstacle courses in Mario 64, I had hoped the checkpoints wouldn't be there in the bowser levels.. but hey.. here they were. I died in the tunnel of doom and got spawned back almost right in front of it thank you very much.

Ah well. Finished the boss, and still 40 stars left to gather. Some comets never showed up, so I have to keep an eye out for those, and I still have just about the full dome on top of the spacestation to explore (the garden). Here, the levels get a lot harder (it felt that way in the dreadnought galaxy, if that's what it was called), so I like that. There is one star I have been trying to get for some time now, and I keep failing. It is one of the collect-100-coins stars. Yes, they exists, just not in all galaxies. Be prepared when you see a purple coin comet in orbit. 100 coins to collect. Easy in some levels (as you just planet hop through these coins), but very hard in the dreadnought thing. In there, you hop on a platform that starts moving (no going back) and you have to do the most amazing acrobatic stunts to get all the coins. One time I got to the very end, with 98 coins or something. Turns out I missed 2... but didn't see myself missing them. So I had to search for 2 coins in a level, by playing it over again. I haven't got the star yet, hehe, but I think I know where the coins are. I'm not sharing :D That's it about the coin-collecting and other comet I wanted to talk about.

I love this game, given to complete it it was pretty short, but I still have some stars to gather. Yes it's too easy, but when you reset your Wii with 99 lives to spare, it will reset them to 3 lives or something. Good. Also, 3 health-units make it a bit harder. The storybook thing in the game doesn't make sense to me at all, I found it be childish and boring. It did not feel 'Mario' to me. But at least they tried to make sense of it all :) .

For a Wii game, for a Mario game, for the graphics, the fun, the music, I'll give this one a fat nine, and a sure Go-get-it-if-you-haven't-already-award!

"