Reviews

[Metacritic's 2007 Wii Game of the Year] The ultimate Nintendo hero is taking the ultimate step ... out into space. Join Mario as he ushers in a new era of video games, defying gravity across all the planets in the galaxy.

Mario may be short, but he's not short on starring roles in cherished Nintendo videogames. The iconic mascot's long resume features some of the greatest platformers to ever grace any home console or handheld, including hits like Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine - the latter of which was met by mixed critical reaction. The funny thing is, for its few flaws - a sometimes-troublesome camera and unpredictable framerate, not to mention some of the worst secondary character designs we've seen - Sunshine was still a remarkable game. In fact, as far as platformers go, it was unequaled on GameCube. And yet, as a follow-up to Mario 64, which simultaneously brought Mario to the third dimension and revolutionized the genre, it felt anticlimactic. Some gamers compared Mario 64 to the original Super Mario Bros. and Sunshine to Super Mario Bros 2, a sequel that, while very good, wasn't everything it could've been. Well, if that's the case, let us humbly submit Super Mario Galaxy as Wii's very own version of Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World. Just as these classics were the pinnacles of 2D platforming in their respective eras, so is Mario's trek through space and beyond the pinnacle of three-dimensional run-and-jump gameplay.

The stellar presentation and fantastic level designs combine to make Super Mario Galaxy the Wii's game to beat and one of Mario's greatest adventures yet.

An in-depth review of Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, the third in a series of reviews I'm doing on the Mario games. Galaxy runs at a higher framerate than t...