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Friday 25 January, 2008
GAMEPLAY
One thing I’ve started to notice is that the fairly basic premise – Mario collecting stars and rescuing Peach from Bowser – allows me to focus more on my usual 100% completion goal. I’m more willing to spend time finding every available star at a given point when I’m not really anticipating the next scene.
The extra challenge types are a bit hit-and-miss for me. I enjoy playing as a bee, but not having to roll a ball around using the Wiimote. I guess this is because the former provides an alternate, and often more useful, set of abilities, while the latter mostly just gives me a new way to die. The bee suit also has the added virtue of appearing to be a shout-out to Mario’s animal-themed powerups from SMB3.
DESIGN
The levels are surprisingly linear for a game that appears to make strong use of all dimensions. In galaxies that require you to travel from planet to planet, you are usually only given one option as to where to go next at any time. Most other paths that appear available tend to either lead to a minor powerup and a dead end or, on one occasion per galaxy, a hidden star. The good side of this is that most of the individual missions in a galaxy place you in a completely different part area, so you aren’t just doing minor variations on the same thing in each mission.
One of the more significant issues is the camera. It very frequently does not respond to player input, and while it is usually positioned satisfactorily, it will occasionally do things like point in the opposite direction of where the player is trying to go. The game often does not even allow first-person views, which can be a pain when trying to explore. Since the player is almost guaranteed to be stationary when using first person, it seems like allowing first person most of the time wouldn’t be particularly difficult.
The entire game is essentially a series of small challenges, which means the rewards (i.e. stars) are provided with high frequency. This gives a good incentive to keep playing from moment to moment; the next star never seems that far away. The missions themselves often use numerous small challenges, like getting off the current planet, to keep the pace moving even more quickly.
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