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AceofAces's Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
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| [January 15, 2008 02:51:32 AM]
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2nd look
Gameplay
I did a few more levels, and was pleasantly surprised by the variety. My impression of the game before doing this was that all levels would be about moving from planetoid to planetoid. But I'm pleasantly surprised that they have levels with 1 direction for down. Feels more Mariolike.
On one level, I found a Bee suit, which allows Mario to fly around for short periods of time, and to climb on specially marked walls. This changed the nature of the gameplay, as Mario could no longer jump, and traditionally Mario games have been all about the jumping. On another, I raced a manta ray through a water track hanging in the middle of space. The controls for this were radically different from the main game, twisting the wii remote turns the manta ray in one direction or another.
Design:
I mocked it in my first post, but collecting star bits is awfully addictive. The game throws them at you like candy on halloween, but I still like collecting them, even though I don't have any real use for them yet. It's just the simple pleasure of pointing at things on the screen, and being acknowledged with a sound effect.
The game opens up new levels as you gain power stars from old levels. But you don't need to collect all the stars from an old level before you move on to new levels. This keeps things fresh, because if you're bored with one level design, you can move on to one you like, and not have your progress impeded. This adds a casual dimension to the game... play it however you want to play. The unlocking mechanism motivates you to collect that last extra star to unlock a new level, and then of course you have to test out the new level, and if it's a level you like you collect a few more stars from the level, until you're about to open up a new level, and the cycle repeats. This fury of short term rewards seems to be the main addicting factor to this game.
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| [January 14, 2008 01:18:54 PM]
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Today I'm playing Super Mario Galaxy. Nintendo produces at least one Mario/platformer game for each console it produces, and Super Mario Galaxy is it for the Wii. The overall goal is to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, who has kidnapped her for whatever reason. In order to reach Bowser and hold a final battle, there will be a lot of jumping from platform to platform, and a lot of collecting coins and 1-Ups. In an interesting departure from the series, now Mario has you collect star bits by pointing your wii remote at them where they appear on the screen. These clever gameplay innovations are why Nintendo is winning the console wars.
Gameplay:
The game starts with a cutscene showing Princess Peach's entire castle being abducted by Bowser, who now has a flying saucer for such tasks. Mario gets dragged along with the castle, which is put into orbit around the earth, or whatever planet the Mushroom Kingdom is on. Mario is then separated from Peach, and lands on a little spherical piece of rock, whence the tutorial level begins.
The controls and movements of Mario are very similar to Mario 64. He has various set jumps of varying height which he can use to navigate the stages. The camera is zoomed out quite a bit from what I'm used to in a 3d Mario game, and doesn't seem to be an over the shoulder camera like I'm used to from Mario 64. I travel from planetoid to planetoid in the game, using "launch stars" to move from one to the other. The goal of each level is to grab the "power star" at the end.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 14th, 2008 at 21:28:25.
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AceofAces's Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Something better came along
GameLog started on: Monday 14 January, 2008
GameLog closed on: Saturday 9 February, 2008 |
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