Super Mario Galaxy has finally reached Europe and it’s the game that everyone who owns a Wii will have been waiting for, but has it been worth the wait or is it a big disappointment? Well, rather than keep you in suspense we will say this now, it’s wonderful.

The story behind Galaxy will come as no surprise to anyone who has played a Mario game before, basically Mario receives a letter from Peach to come to the castle as she has a special gift for him, however once Mario arrives at the castle he finds Bowser and his son causing chaos with the aid of a fleet of airships and before his very eyes a UFO picks the Princess’s castle from the ground and sets off into space.

Mario is obviously is quite miffed that this has happened once again, probably thinking “why won’t they leave my peach alone”, so off Mario sets in order to get his Princess back, along the way he eventually meets a creature called a luma, who it turns out can help him. The lumas are led by a woman called Rosalina, Mario learns from her that Bowser has made off with not only his princess but all of the power stars used to power the flying space observatory that the lumas live on. Mario strikes a deal with Rosalina that he will travel to each Galaxy and collect the power stars, as this will then give power to the ship and allow Mario to reach Bowser and save Princess Peach.

The game is played on different planets that Mario explores in his task to find power stars and reach the Princess. Galaxy is certainly a lot different from your usual platformer, rather than running along jumping up platforms and through tunnels, instead the action mainly takes place on floating spheres, but thankfully the game loses none of its appeal due to this, in fact it probably gains more than it loses. The great thing about all of the planets is that none of them ever seem repetitive, they are all great fun to play whether you are trying to maneuver through the various obstacles or fighting the bosses. The only disappointment in the game is that the bosses are quite easy, however this is not to say you will complete the game quickly as there are 120 stars to collect and this will take you quite a while.

Games on the Wii live or die by the way they use the controls, however as you would expect, the controls in Mario Galaxy are perfect. Controlling Mario himself is done using the Nunchuk’s analog stick, with the Wii Remote being used to pick up star bits and influence objects in the universe simply by pointing it at the screen. To move to different Galaxies or defeat enemies Mario has a spin maneuver, this is used simply by shaking the Wii Remote, making the controls simple but effective and also easy to use. As well as the straight forward controls Mario Galaxy also has some motion control sections, which also work very well, for example, in one level Mario rides on top of a glass ball which you control by moving the Wii remote back and forward like a joystick, in other levels you can also use the remote like a key, there are many more examples of this, it really is great use of the controls and hopefully other developers will take note.  

Graphically Mario Galaxy is a joy to play, the environments all look fantastic and offer great variety, from the grassy planets to the ice worlds and deserts this is a game you will not get tired of looking at. It’s not only the environments that look great as Mario and all of the other characters have had a makeover, if there is one criticism of previous Nintendo games, it is that the characters could have looked better, however it would be impossible to say this of Mario Galaxy because they have never looked this good before.

The only real issue with Mario Galaxy is the sound, for some reason there is a complete lack of voice acting, it is such a shame because this really would have added so much to the whole atmosphere of the game, however on the flip side of this, the other sound effects and the even the soundtrack itself are quite brilliant, meaning that you wont be too disappointed,

Overall, it is safe to say that Mario Galaxy is one of the finest platform games we have ever played, yet again Nintendo has hit the nail on the head with their innovation and have given their flagship character a new lease of life. If only there were more developers who could wave the Wii’s wand the way that Nintendo can, maybe then would we be convinced that the Wii is more than a novelty.