Going on a galaxy quest

Who is into video games, knows this guy. Red cap with a capital M, blue overall. He has defeated the enemy in countless adventures just to save his princess, and he doesn’t get tired of it, nor do his enemies, especially Bowser, the boss of the bad guys. I am speaking of course of Mario, the most recognizable video game character in history.

So I got my hands on Nintendo’s latest and greatest flick for the Wii. To find out why it has been rated the highest of all games of all time, I have thrown the disc into the console. Pretty cool thing right away: in order for the console to support all the new features, it updated right after I put in the game. This went much faster than usual download, as you can imagine.

After the reboot I could select the Galaxy Channel, and I was greated by the cool looking logo, and Mario’s voice. The game started off pretty straight forward and easy, and overall makes good use of the system’s UI (well Nintendo wrote it, so…). I could select a Mii or choose an icon, I chose my Mii. After that, the game started off and began to show its might.

The starting sequence is – as rumored and posted on YouTube – the celebration in Mushroom Kingdom, when suddenly Bowser’s Battleship Fleet appears, and then not only takes the princess, but also the entire castle with him. Quest: Rescue the princess… again.

What’s to say? Well… you first have to complete an easy tutorial, and then you’re in the game. The hub is the Observatory, from which you can access “Domes”, which again can transport you into the all the Galaxies available. Each level is uniquely designed, the enemies are children-friendly, but they’re also quite cool to look at for adults. Goombas walk around, sweep the area, and when they see you, they try to rush to you and kick you… You can see they get angry, and if you make a jump, you can see their eyes follow you! However, the bigger enemies, the boss fights, will make you drool and just want to behold of what the console is capable of. And I haven’t even seen bowser yet. But I heard it’s mind-blowing.

Controls? It truly is the perfect blend between old-school and the Wii’s motion sensors, there truly is no problem whatsoever, you get used to it very quickly.

Graphic wise? Stunning. SMG shows off what the Wii is actually capable off, also introduces a new physics model. Meaning each object can have its own gravity, and when you float in space, you simply float into the one direction you jumped to. But not to worry, you won’t float forever, there’s always an object to pull you down. Imagery so far is pretty amazing, it makes you scratch you head about how much work must have gone into each and every single map, each enemy, each detail.

Overall? If you don’t have it already, you can’t be helped. I give this the full 10 of 10. Once you have seen it, you understand while it was time for Ocarina Of Time to retire from the number 1 spot of highest rated games. Go to the next shop and buy it. Make sure you’re ready for some nostalgia; some tunes are from past games, as well as power-ups (I found the invincibility star! I also found a level with a tune from SMB 3!). Ah yes, you remember Airships, don’t you? Well. Not gone yet? Go get it already, before your store runs out of copies. I bet they will run out very fast.