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Wii | Adventure | Super Mario Galaxy

Boxart for Super Mario Galaxy
Super Mario Galaxy 157 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.75
  • SOUND: 4.75
  • CONTROL: 4.75
  • FUN FACTOR 5.00
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.8
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.9
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Preview: Super Mario Galaxy (Page 1 of 3)

Preview by Daphinicus | 11/06/2006 | 13:52:52 PM PST

Will Super Mario Galaxy be worth the wait when it hits the Wii sometime next year? We bare all in our extensive preview!

Everybody knows Mario.

The lovable caricature of the infamous Italian plumber is without doubt one of the most recognizable animated faces in the world. Mario is the iconic avatar of gaming culture: a depiction of fun, adventure, and ingenuity that has always been symbolic of console entertainment and synonymous with Nintendo. For many gamers, the success or failure of Nintendo consoles has been defined by the quality of their Mario titles. It goes without saying that Nintendo's new console will need a flagship Mario game to steer the system's way towards profitable seas.

Are those the Star Power stars from Guitar Hero?

Are those the Star Power stars from Guitar Hero?

It is, then, of little surprise that the upcoming Nintendo Wii will host Mario's newest adventure, but what is surprising -- and very welcome -- is the return of ingenuity to the franchise. The Gamecube's Super Mario Sunshine was certainly a fun game, but it was little more than a glorified sequel to Super Mario 64. While few innovations could hope to approach the scope of Mario 64's magnificent transition into three dimensions, Sunshine offered none at all. There were modifications to gameplay, to be sure (the return of Yoshi and the addition of a jetpack could not be ignored), but it is difficult to classify those additions as anything more than cheap parlor tricks when compared with Mario 64's rich overhaul.

Not so with Super Mario Galaxy. While our knowledge of many of the specific details of Mario's latest adventure remains somewhat cloudy, we have been able to cull from disparate sources a few tantalizing motes of information. Here's a run-down of everything we know thus far about Mario's upcoming galactic romp.

The Story

At first glance, it would seem that we know very little about Galaxy's plotline other than the fact that a) Princess Peach has been captured, and b) she's in space. After a small amount of consideration, however, it becomes apparent that there probably isn't much more to know anyway. Galaxy is a Mario game -- thus, like all its predecessors, it's a platformer with almost no semblance of story other than the desperate need of a crimson-clothed plumber to chase after some mutated animal (usually a turtle) and rescue a princess from certain doom. We don't complain about the story's threadbare nature simply because we've come to expect it.

That Galaxy's storyline isn't evolved is acceptable, to us, on the condition that the gameplay more than compensates. The best way for the game to do that is to take the next logical evolutionary step for the franchise. Two marked alterations to Galaxy's mechanics embody that step: the reorientation of gravity and the rethinking of controls.


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