As Paul mentioned I went over to his place to have dinner with P1 and P2 and play some Super Mario Galaxy, aka Super Bee Galaxy. From what I can tell the game is 90% bees and bee costumes. Joking aside, it was a lot of fun I have to say, and probably the best argument for getting a Wii yet (I don’t have one). I really enjoyed the game design. It is probably the most Mario styled Mario game since probably Super Mario 3 in my opinion (or possibly Super Mario 64). I also thought the art design was some of the best I’d seen in a Nintendo game in quite a while. They always have a nice consistency, but this one stood out to me for some reason.

The gameplay was very smooth as well. I have to admit I was a bit dubious about the “shake the remote to spin” mechanic, but it actually works quite well. Similar the pointer mechanic is pretty seamless as well, that is, except when your co-pilot player is trying to draw thunder clouds on the screen using his pointer trail. The “shoot star bits” with the remote thing is a little odd to me. Where do they come from? Why can it happen? No one knows. Well maybe someone does but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t make any sense. Luckily, neither does wearing a bee costume and crawling all over a queen bee to collect star fragments. So in that regard it all hangs together.

Really though, what is the deal with Mario and those stars? Every single thing is related to a star or a mushroom or some kind of crazy thing. I have to think that the stars are just a kid-friendly representation of heroin or something, and Mario is on a quest for his next hit. When you think about it like that all the crazy ass magic actually starts to make some more sense.

Still, great game.