Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Mario tackles the final frontier with unparalleled grace.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 2

Odd as it may seem given Galaxy's de facto status as the system's flagship title, the Wii's waggle functionality never quite feels crucial to the game. The sequences that feel most earnestly designed around the system's unique user interface -- the ray-surfing and Monkey Ball levels, specifically -- are in fact the only parts of the game that manage to feel aggravating. (These, thankfully, are mostly optional, as far as the critical path goes.) In essence, Super Mario Galaxy could have been released on any other system, and it wouldn't have been much worse for the wear. In spite of all the lengths to which Nintendo has gone in attempting to demystify the apparatus and empower the wider audience, its "hardcore" games don't appear to have changed much. You may just burn an extra calorie or two by playing them, though, especially if you do supersets of Wii Fit in between stars or Triforce pieces.

Who knows? Maybe a Mario game built expressly for the Wii would be a terrible idea, though my imagination is probably several orders of magnitude less expansive than those of the people whose jobs is it to design Mario games. And that's being generous. The sad reality, though, is that if the historic pattern holds, we get one great Mario game every generation, and that's not counting the ones that Nintendo decided to skip. So in all likelihood, Galaxy is going to be it for a good while. Sure, there are at least 120 ways to pass the time till Jumpman's star will again be emergent, but it's a sobering thought nonetheless.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game loaned by (and subsequently returned to) Nintendo's outside PR agency.