Friday 25 January, 2008

GAMEPLAY
A little more time and effort into Mario Galaxy opens up a story book which gives you a little more plot besides the reoccurring kidnapping scenario that everyone has come to know and love. These little tidbits are apparently one of the supporting character's back story and seems to have been written for 6 year olds. In a game where nearly everything is perfect, this weird backstory sticks out like a robot at the renaissance fair. The only thing I could make out from this backstory is that the shiny items I had been stockpiling and feeding to by the bucketload to gluttonous star things were apparently the tears of orphans. Even then I'm not sure though. Fortunately reading the storybook is completely optional and I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a pressing desire to know why some girl is living with a bunch of tiny cuddly star people.
I actually beat the game and the ending is as bizarre as the storybook if not more. Usually in these games, the ending is something like "hurray! You saved the Princess!" but this time around is a bit different. I'm not going to spoil anything, I haven't actually figured out what exactly happened myself, but the ending this time around tries to be really deep. They say something about how everything is all a big cycle or something and it's all really confusing.

DESIGN
While the plot is needlessly complicated, there is so little of it, it hardly detracts from the amazingness of the game itself. The level design is some of the most innovative I have ever seen. Each level is usually a series of planetoids, each with it's own variety of gravity. The player has to hop from one planetoid to the other to get to where they are supposed to be going. Not only is this an extremely original idea, it is also very intuitive and fun for the player.
While the general concept of planet hopping is very original, the planets themselves are almost more so. There is an incredible variety of individual planetoids. Every one is masterfully designed despite being implemented on very nonstandard shapes like spheres and other 3D shapes. There are so many excellent designs for just small planets in small parts of the game, it's a wonder the development team weren't exhausted of creative energy a fifth of the way through the game.

This is the sort of thing we're looking for. I would have liked to see some examples of the kinds of planet levels, and how similar/different each one is from the other. All in all though, you did a nice job.

In the future, please put a single blank line between each of your paragraphs; it makes it a lot easier to read.

-Gillian (TA)