Mario's new game is out of this world.Super Mario Galaxy begins with Mario in a bubble. In order to get him out, the player points the Wii Remote’s cursor (which is star shaped to fit with the galactic theme) at him and press the B (trigger) button. The E3 demo takes place on a series of planets and moons, each with their own gravitational field. What this means is that Mario can run to the “underside" of all the planets. It also means that there is almost no way to die by falling because you can’t “fall off" any of them. However, you can fall into pits on some planets. This makes for an interesting change to the Mario series, as almost all of the prior games have featured pits to fall into, or in the case of Mario 64, levels to fall off of.
The game’s controls are split between the nunchuk analog attachment and remote controller. Moving the control stick moves Mario, while moving the remote around points the game’s cursor at different points on the screen. What’s radically different about Super Mario Galaxy is that you are controlling both Mario and the star cursor at the same time. Most of Mario’s standard moves all seem to be in place. He can single, double, and triple jump, do back-flips, long-jumps, and wall-jumps. The A button (on the remote) makes Mario jump, while the B button triggers the cursor. Giving the remote a quick shake back and forth will cause Mario to do a spin attack, which replaces his punch/kick attacks from prior 3D Mario games. This attack can stun certain enemies (most are defeated with jumps), fire “star cannons" (more on those in a bit), break boxes, send objects flying, and do a couple other things too.
The star cursor interacts with the game world. The Wii’s remote moves the cursor around, and pressing the B button triggers it. Star Pieces, which are scattered all over the world, can be collected by pointing the star cursor at them and triggering it. Pointing the cursor at small blue stars and triggering them pulls Mario up to them, and floats him in a bubble for a few seconds. These blue stars are strung together across gaps between planets, and triggering them in order will bring Mario from one end of the chain to the other. Another way to travel between planets is star cannons. Large stars float just above the surface of the planets. When Mario steps in one and does a spin attack, the cannon will fire him to another planet. The third way shown to travel between areas are “sticky trees." When Mario runs into a sticky tree, he sticks to it. With the star cursor, the player can pull the stick tree back and sling-shot Mario across a distance.
All of the planets are totally different. They are all fairly small, and each feature different environments. For example, the starting world is a pretty traditional grassy field, but others include fire-environments, ice-environments, and mechanical worlds. One world had large pits that revealed the planet’s core. Falling into the core kills Mario. Another had a lower level entrapped under ice. The moons were very small and mostly barren, serving more as stopping points between distant planets.
The E3 demo includes three different bosses, each accessible by taking a different path through the level. On the way to each boss, Mario will learn the skills necessary to defeat it. At the end of the “sticky tree" route, Mario finds a large spider. The spider’s lair is surrounded by stick trees, which Mario must use to launch himself into the Spider’s weak spots. One another route, Mario learns that he can lead Bullet Bills into glass cages, thus shattering them. This skill is used to defeat a humongous mechanized monster at the end of the path. The third boss is reminiscent of Link fighting Gannondorf. Mario must use his spin attack to reflect a large lava-squid’s attacks back at him. The fight requires a little bit of bouncing the attack between Mario and the Boss before it hits.
It takes a little time to get used to the controls, obviously, but they work very well once you do. It was actually more difficult to get used to the fact that there is no way to fall off the worlds (and other objects like large blocks floating in space). Moving on a spherical object is slightly different than movement on flat areas.
Graphically, Super Mario Galaxy looks good. It certainly won’t wow people like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 do, but the game is crisp, with smooth graphics and lots of color. It’s a step above Super Mario Sunshine, for sure.
Super Mario Galaxy is one of the biggest games at Nintendo’s booth, and rightfully so. It’s a fresh spin on the Mario world, and not just because of its new control elements. The outer-space theme is totally new and also very cool.
Topic: IMPRESSIONS: Super Mario Galaxy (Read 4162 times)
