I’m not exactly sure of the name (some dudes say its Cat Mario or Syobon Action) but its basically a modification of the old Super Mario Bros. I can tell you one thing, I would have probably shot myself after the first level. Too many traps and way too punishing. I will let the videos do the talking. Its damn funny tho

Christmas was a lot more fun than I thought. During the morning, me and Neko went for a few good rounds of Mario Strikers Charge on the Wii for the first time online. The battle was pretty intense where both of us keep hitting goals one after another to tie the match. However some of the matches were really pure ownage, where we own each other like crazy. During my ‘ownage’ I own my winnings on Neko’s low bat wiimote. During the final match he couldn’t move his players up and they ran downwards on their own. He then requested that we play “half-court” over Skype lol.

Mario Strikers Charged is definitely best played online

I do wonder if the proper team line-up (leaders and teammates) affects the overall performance. Both of us have experience a time where our players are literally avoiding the ball like a plague.

Before our online match, I was caught by a nice surprise. After booting up my Wii I received a new message indicator and opened up the message board. I saw two messages wrapped with ribbons and was puzzled. After I opened them up, I realized it’s a virtual console game gift from Neko. He gave me Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Pokemon Snap for my girlfriend. Thanks for the great gifts man. Who says virtual presents can’t be great?

A great classic Zelda game for the Nintendo 64

Snap all your favourite pokemons and send to friends!

I then spend the rest of the afternoon with my girlfriend. We cooked lunch and spend some time together. It was really great.

I know that things can’t be the same as they were few years back but I will try my best to look forward. Don’t think the future will always be that bad.

And it’s the anniversary of someone very special to me. It has been .. 8 long years?

I might have played Mario games since I was in primary school and enjoyed most of them, but I’m by no means a big fan of the plumber bros. Even though the reviews had been nothing short of phenomenal for the game, I’ve always felt a little skeptic. After all, how great can a Mario game be? Surely it would be no match for Zelda, right? I mean, this is really a matter of preference, but RPG games are often at the top of my list compared to platform games.

It would be good to note that I’ve only recently bought my Wii and only own 3 games myself at the moment – Wii Sports, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy. Not the least impressive collection I’m sure, but I’ve also played a few other games at Dyna’s place – WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Mario Strikers Charged and a little bit of Wiisident Resident Evil 4.

Picking up the game

Even though I had some problems getting the hang of it at the beginning (read: keep dying) the learning curve becomes almost non-existent once you get the hang of the controls. It’s a really simple yet somewhat challenging game thats just highly addictive.

You might need a while to get used to the controls, especially the orientation when Mario is running all over a tiny planet, upside-down and downside-up due to each planet’s gravity. But that’s pretty much all you have to figure out and you’ll be ready to go. The gravitational forces also plays an important role in the gameplay as you would be jumping off from the surface of one planet and getting sucked into the gravitational force of another planet in order to proceed the level.

Gameplay

The gameplay is quite intuitive even when you gained Mario’s power-ups such as the Bee Mario (which is the only power-up I’ve really had played so far) that allows you to fly for a short period of time and to stick to honeycombs. I’ve also tried the rainbow star power-up that turns Mario invincible, just like in any other Mario games. That was pretty fun, too.

The worlds, as you’ve probably already read or heard a thousand times, are very impressive. Modeled in beautiful 3D environment that stays true to the roots of the franchise and plenty of familiar scenes and sounds will definitely bring back memories of Mario’s 2D days. There’s even one stage so far that brings you back to a 2D side scrolling style of gameplay, which is loads of fun.

Each galaxy and planet plays more like a collection of mini-games than a single Mario adventure, which makes it addictive and fun. It takes around 10-20 minutes to complete each galaxy, and it seems that most of them would have 3 stars for you to collect, which is really the equivalent of 3 different routes or stages for that planet. Because of that, you would almost never get bored of the scenery and there are plenty of replay value even this early in the game.

It also pays to revisit the same planet or path more than once to fully explore what options that path could offer to you. And they are simple enough that you would probably never get lost if you just keep moving around.

Experience so far…

The boss stages could be a little more daunting and frustrating, but patience and timing is the key. I’ve managed to complete the first observatory’s galaxies within 2-3 hours and fought a couple of bosses. Had to use up quite a few lives when fighting the bosses especially. But what I’ve discovered is that the easiest way for you to waste lives is to play the Ray surfing mini-game which reminds me of Mario Kart in a way, just instead of cars, you’re riding on a manta ray.

Hyped?

So, does Super Mario Galaxy lives up to the hype it has been getting? Probably close enough, although maybe not every single bit of it (i.e. Galaxy being the 2nd highest rated game of all times after Zelda’s Ocarina of Time). But its definitely a game that all gamers who loves to have fun on the Wii, which should be every Wii owner, since, you wouldn’t have a Wii if you didn’t want to have fun on it

To sum it all up in a single, easy to understand sentence: Super Mario Galaxy is an addictively fun game for all to enjoy, regardless of whether you’re a hardcore, casual or anywhere in between.

Images sourced from: GameSpot.com

Play-Asia still has Super Mario Galaxy in stock. Grab it while it’s still “hot”