- Join Mario as he ushers in a new era of video games, defying gravity across all the planets in the galaxy
Players can run, jump, and battle enemies as they explore the many planets
Press buttons, swing the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers, and use the Wii Remote to point at and drag things on-screen
Perform mind-bending, low-gravity jumps across wild alien terrain
For 1 to 2 players
No single series has defined videogames like Mario
. This is not mere opinion but rather cold, hard fact: Donkey Kong invented the platformer, Mario Bros. made it cooperative (or competitive, depending on your personality), Super Mario Bros. perfected it, and Super Mario 64 made it work in three dimensions. Even Mario's spin-offs have been hugely influential, whether through Super Mario Kart creating the mascot racer or in Super Mario RPG introducing action and timing to turn-based role-playing games. Sure, the medium would have evolved just fine without him, but through the years he's consistently led the way to better, more polished game design. Of course, this makes for high expectations -- Mario's slightest misstep is usually treated as abject failure. Certainly he's starred in some genuinely lackluster titles, but even solid but quirky outings that would have been adored under the auspices of a less-revered franchise are often panned by critics and gamers alike.
Granted, it's not a perfectly clean break; Mario still does plenty of collecting. But those elements are far less obtrusive here than we've been conditioned to expect by 10 years of lazy mimicry. Coins simply offer extra lives (plus bragging rights), and while unlocking certain stages requires a fair number of star bits -- candy-like fragments sprinkled throughout the world -- they're abundant enough that you'll meet your requirements in the course of normal play. The previous games' red (or blue) coin collecting missions do return in the form of purple coins -- but these stages aren't required to beat the game. (As a matter of fact, you can't even play them until you defeat the final boss.)
To make collection even less of a chore, Galaxy uses the Wii Remote as a cursor that allows you to gather star bits by simply pointing at them, regardless of how far away from Mario they happen to be. In fact, Wii functionality is incorporated into Galaxy more subtly and effectively than in any action game to date, and it allows for a simplified control scheme that nevertheless offers Mario more varied control options than ever before -- an amazing accomplishment in itself. Only a few sections of the game are entirely reliant on advanced Wii functionality (using the tilt controls to steer Mario atop a rolling ball, for instance), but these are quarantined entirely within stand-alone stages and never intrude on the basic run-and-jump action.
The streamlined controls are more than simply a reaction to the overbearing interfaces common in modern platformers, too. They're born of necessity, as the worlds Mario travels through really are literal worlds, tiny planetoids scattered throughout more than a dozen different galaxies, and this lends Galaxy's platform gameplay a feel unlike any game before. How many times have you been able to take a running leap that sends you flying so far that you circle a planet's circumference a few times before landing? How often has a game let you jump into the air only to land on the surface of a different world altogether? How many times have you found yourself scurrying about a platform and dodging half a dozen hazards while ducking for power-ups and negotiating rapidly fluctuating gravity? Galaxy constantly tosses you into these situations, and it does so in a completely casual manner that makes them feel like a natural extension of its Mario 64-derived gameplay. And at times, you probably won't even realize how off-the-wall its level design actually is until you stop to consider how fresh it all feels. You've never done these things before in a videogame, but Galaxy makes even the wildest challenge feel almost second nature. Its subtle, intelligent visual design deserves much of the credit for easing players into the unfamiliar; everything you can do (and must do) is indicated by the shapes of platforms, by the placement of telltale shadows on the ground, or by NPCs pantomiming your actions. Only in the latter half of the game does the design falter -- a copy-and-paste level here, too much doodad collecting there, all topped off with a mind-bending final level that might be a bit too demanding for neophyte players who cut their teeth on Nintendogs and Brain Age.
Ref : Amazon.com
