Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

The “demo” (full game) of Super Mario Galaxy has hit some retailers recently and has been put on display for the public in Wii kiosks across the country. I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with the game and I thought I would give my early impression: Unimpressive. I had high hopes for this game being one of the reasons to own a Wii, but if the first few levels are any indication of how the rest of the game is going to play out, I think I will pass. Yes, the graphics are nice, about as good as we'll probably ever see on the Wii, and with the art style it gives you the impression that they are even better than they appear. The controls are a bit iffy, the spherical worlds don't fully rotate the camera as you zoom around the planetoids, which means you are often running around sideways or upside down unless you baby-sit the camera. This leads to occasionally feeling like you have tank controls as Mario takes a second to stop his momentum while running and shift directions if you try to do anything close to a 180. It can also lead to a few unfortunate deaths as you stumble off a cliff into a black hole or into an enemy because the camera didn't keep up with you. Hitting enemies can be a pain as the curving of spherical worlds makes judging distance a challenging. In order to attack, you either point and fire a star bit or you shake the wii-mote to spin. It’s a little annoying having to shake it all the time but it isn't terrible. Personally I would rather just push a button. I don't want to shake the remote just to have something to do.



The first galaxy you explore couldn't be more barren if it tried. Each of the rocks, asteroids, or whatever you want to call them that are connected by the star gateways usually has less than a handful of wandering enemies that barely make an attempt to move in your direction or some sort of spinning boulder that rolls around trying to crush you. Most areas find you running around grabbing star pieces or feeding star bits to star people called Lumas. This then lets you fly off to another asteroid to do the same thing. The first level of the first galaxy also lets you fight a "boss". This boss is the pirhana-saur that has been shown in many of the promo pictures. I felt kind of guilty attacking this bad guy as you actually hatch it from an egg by forcefully landing on it and it is clearly supposed to be a baby, as it is decorated with a ring of petals like a bonnet. Each time you spin at its tail, the tail shoots up to the sky and is pulled back by gravity to smash it on the head each time producing a childish whine of pain. A very odd choice for a friendly Mario game. I am going to play through further tomorrow, as this is only the first few levels, but it isn't the best of first impressions.