E for All Hands-On Preview: Super Mario Galaxy

by Andrew Podolsky on October 21, 2007 at 3:25 am

From his first moments, he could jump. Later, with a Tanooki suit or a cape, he could fly. But now Mario has broken the bonds of gravity and gone where no plumber has gone before—the cold lonesome of deep space. What lies in the farthest reaches of the Mario Galaxy? How about pirate ships, surfboard stingrays, and kitschy 80’s throwbacks?

Super Mario Galaxy is a logical continuation of the series– possibly the next game will be called Super Mario Metaverse. Just as the controls of the Wii have been untethered from convention, so too has Mario’s bold new gameplay. Every minute in SMG it seems you are doing something different. Each little spheroid is so tenuously connected to other space debris that you’d think the little guy would just fall off and float into the void.

To travel between celestial objects, Mario has to locate certain stars that whoosh him from starpiece to starpiece. Most of these are hidden in plain sight—break a crate or hit a few switches, and the exit will appear. Some of these require slightly more thought, like guiding Bullet Bills through a cage. And a few missions will involve much trickier feats, like keeping a stingray centered on a twisting waterway that hangs in space.

Mario rides stars
The difficulty level in these first few demo areas was never particularly taxing. There were a few “Too bad!” deaths caused by falling into the black, pulsing void of a lava star or by sending the stingray off the edge of the waterway, but for the most part moving between missions is simple and effortless. It makes us wonder how much of a challenge the game will offer for experienced Mario players, but the 10-15 year old crowd will probably find it just right.

One impressive boss level seen in the demo was against Megaleg, a giant robot that is easily a hundred times bigger than Mario himself. Just like in Shadow of the Colossus, Mario has to run up the leg of Megaleg, navigate across some light rotating platforms (again, nothing too challenging), and then break open the star on top of Megaleg’s head using the redirected bullets trick.

Defeating Megaleg opened up a new area to explore, where the trick was to aim the Wii remote at stars so that Mario could swing from one section to the next. But since this was a short timed demo, we didn’t get to explore the cosmos too deeply on this particular playthrough.

When Super Mario Galaxy comes out next month, it will likely be one of the best uses of the Wii controls and hardware. Once again Nintendo’s first-party software saves the day for a console that has seen more than its fair share of lackluster titles. But even if Mario single-handedly holds up the Wii for hardcore gamers, younger players will want to gravitate towards this new adventure as well.

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