N64 Review: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Review by: wiifan001

A darkness sweeps the land of planet Ripple Star, home to a bunch of fairies. One fairy named Ribbon goes to try and run from this Dark Matter. With her she carries a large crystal, which is a treasure to the fairies. In her attempt to escape, however, the Dark Matter hits her and the crystal statters into a bunch of shards, 100 to be exact, and scatters across 5 other planets other than Ripple Star. She bumps into Kirby, who is looking at the night sky, and Kirby agrees to join her quest for search for all the shards. Along the way, you'll get from Waddle Dee, Adeleine who is an artist and can make paintings come to life, and even King Dedede, Kirby's rival.

What makes this game cool is the powers you can gain. A lot of enemies Kirby can just suck in his mouth and then either spit out or swallow. Some enemies that are swallowed can give Kirby a copy ability. Even better, Kirby can throw that power onto another person who has a power to get a double power. There are over 30 different powers you can get. There are over 70 different creatures in the game, most of them have only one hit point. Kirby has six hit points. In the end you'll being dealing with all kinds of transformations- from light bulb to a refrigerator, fireworks, missiles, snowman, rolling snowball, spikes, giant walking stone man, dynamite, and lots more.

Some crystals will require a specific double power. Generally, the crystals will be just out in the open. Kirby can fly briefly in the air. At the end of each world comes a boss battle. These are generally easy. They're pretty fun to go up against. This is a 2d side-scrolling game. It's all 2-d. Sometimes the camera angle will move to make it sort of look 3-d.

Every once in a while, this game does put on a clever puzzle. They make the ones inside of wall obvious in terms of showing that the crystal is right there. You just have to match up the colors on the wall with the power colors you have. Example: a wall that is black and brown indicates that you need a rock and bomb move because on the game the rock power is shown brown and the bomb is the color black. I have to complain that this game is a little too easy with the exception of a couple of puzzles.

In terms of graphics, they are one of the most interesting I have ever seen. They look a drawings kids between ages 6-12 made on the backgrounds. Crayons and markers took a part of animating it. It's really neat. However, in a lot, I mean of lot a areas, the backgrounds just don't feel incomplete, they are incomplete. Constantly you'll see a lot of black areas with no background detail whatsoever. There are over 300 different sound effects and 70+ music tracks to listen to. Some are forgettable while others are really fun to listen to. Many of them are kind of... cutesie-ish.

This game can be beaten in a few short hours. Three files are available. There's even three minigames in which you and three other people can play against. There are 4 levels of difficulty for the CP's- Easy, Normal, Hard, and Intense. The stage randomizes in background and color depending how hard you put your CP's on.

Overall, all Kirby fans should own this game. It's largest downfalls are that it's too short and it's missing some graphic and gameplay details.

N64 Review: Mario Kart 64

Review by: wiifan001

Mario Kart 64 is exactly how you would imagine it: 16 racetracks, 32 if you count the mirror stages, along with 8 Nintendo characters- Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Wario, and Bowser. There are 3 modes of difficulty- 50 cc, 100 cc, and 150 cc (plus the the mirror courses). Afterwards, you choose your character and enter the Mario Grand Prix. There are 4 cups to enter- Mushroom, Flower, Star, and Special. Each have 4 race tracks. You'll be on beaches, on ice, in Bowser's castle, through the highway, through the jungle, and plenty of other various courses. Each race track has 3 laps you must complete. To get to the next race, you must finish 4th place or better. If you don't get at least 4th, you'll be asked to try the race again or quit.

One amazing thing about the game is drifting. Drifting takes time to learn. But once you master it, you'll be catching and accelerating along the curves. Two people can enter the grand prix. Among each race holds items. You'll see a row of flashing questions marks on the road and running through will give you an item to use. You can get mushrooms and green shells and red shells in groups of one and three. Green shells will go straight on and then bounce off the walls back and forth. Red shells will often home in on the opponent, but once it hits a wall, it disappears. There are a few more items such as stars which increase your speed and make you temporarily invincible and banana peels which you can cause one to slip and lose control.

One problem with the game is that none of the CP players will ever have red shells or green shells making giving you sort of an unfair disadvantage. The joy stick on this game is a tad jerky when coming to the curves. Furthermore, being in first place and way ahead of everyone else, they will catch up to you unless if you finish.

Another mode of game play is time trial. You race solo and complete the race with the fastest time. The top five scores on each race will be recorded. Then there's Battle and Vs. mode in which up to 4 people can play against each other. Vs. mode is pretty much Grand Prix without the computer players and everyone has access to all the items. In Battle mode, each person has 3 balloons. Whenever someone slips on a banana peel, gets hit by a shell, or rammed over by one wielding a star, they lose a balloon. When all 3 balloons are gone, you are out of the race. However, it there is more than 2 people, you will be transformed into a yellow bomb in which you can chase other players and you won't get destroyed unless you collide with someone who is invincible. They have 4 seperate race tracks that you won't find anywhere else. It's fun at first, but gets boring kind of quickly, which can also be said about the Vs. mode unless you have 2-3 other people that are at your skill level, this game can be pretty lame and boring.

Graphically, Mario Kart 64 looks pretty nice. Generally, it's clean. A few levels are foggy looking up. The characters look pretty good. There's nothing too detailed about them. The backgrounds look pretty nice. Mario Kart 64 is not that great compared to other N64 games, however by itself it's good enough not to bother too much. The sound tracks and sounds coming from the karts sound great. Not too many voice effects from the characters. You'll only hear 3 to 4 different types of voice effects during the race. I just wish that there was more to be heard.

After owning the game for 6 years I'm still coming back and playing this game. It's still pretty fun. I would imagine for most people that they would grow tired of it long ago.

Mario fans and racing fans should own this game. Heck, you could say that this is a family game. Just be prepared to see pretty much everything this game has to offer within a week or two.

GCN Review: Super Smash Bros. Melee

Super Smash Bros. Melee
Genre: Action/Fighting

Review by: Wiifan001

The sequel to Super Smash Bros back from the N64 comes out to the Gamecube. SSBM is a 2d platformer. Unlike other fighting games, you attack and the opponent will rack up percentage damage. They don't die, just fall off the stage. The higher their %, the farther back they'll fall off. You can recover by jumping and other special moves.

All the original characters from the N64 are returning to Melee, including some of your favorite Nintendo characters such as Mario, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, and Yoshi. There are some added characters. One of them is the Ice Climbers. They are unique because you can control 2 characters, one named Nana and the other named Popo, at the same time. Another character is Zelda. She is also uinque because she can literally transform into a completely new character. Also, you can play as Mario's greatest nemesis, Bowser, who has a lot of powerful attacks. Finally, I'll say one last character, also from the Mario series, Princess Peach, who can pull vegetables from the ground and has a unique hovering ability.



The stages are as neat as ever. A few are just like the N64 version with minor changes such as Brinstar and the Great Fox. New stages include an F-Zero stage. You'll be fighting on a race track with F-Zero vehicles racing each other. You better look for them. Another great stage, one of my favorite, is Pokemon Stadium. The entire stage transforms from time to time. It's great fun. There are 20+ stages in the game.

Items are fun to use too. You'll get new (2nd generation) Pokemon out of the Pokeballs and the Home Run Bat is still as devastating as ever. The only item that didn't return from the N64 version is the Bumper (don't know why). New items include a Metal Box, which makes your character temporarily become metal. You won't be knocked back as far. If you do get knocked off the stage you'll fall faster. Appearantly the laws of gravity are being broken. Another new item is the bunny hood which lets you jump higher and run faster. There are arguably 29 items in the game (Capsules, crates, barrels, and eggs are kind of debatable.)

On multiplayer you can switch any item/items off except those in paranthesis above. Let's talk about the 1 Player mode. There are several things you can do as to one player. The classic mode is still there. However, this time you will be fighting with different characters on different stages instead of playing the exact same thing over and over on the N64 version. The good old Master Hand is still fun to fight. This time around, depending on a few circumstances, you can fight the Crazy Hand, a left handed Master Hand.

Adventure Mode is where you'll be doing the same thing over and over and over again. Like the Classic mode, there are 5 modes of difficulty- Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. The 1st stage is a lot like Super Mario Bros. stage where you run across getting past Goombas and Koopa Troopas. It's very fun. But then, you got an underground Zelda stage and Metroid stage which really aren't much fun to do. At the end of Adventure mode, you will fight a Bowser that is bigger than the one you can play as.

Another 1 player mode is called the Event Match. There are 51 stages total where you'll have to do mini objectives, most of them which you simply take out the player/players. Then there's the Target Test which you have to break 10 targets without falling. The Home Run Contest is a mode where you hit a sand bag with a home run bat and it will fly across the stage several hundred feet.

In multiplayer mode, you can play with up to 4 people and can play against CP's. You can do team battles with all the multiplayer modes too. Modes of multiplayer include the classic time and stock battles. There's coin... basically you have to collect the most coins at the end of the match. You will lose 1/2 of them if you fall off the stage. There's special kinds of melee. There's Lighting melee which speeds up all characters dramatically. There's Giant Melee... which increases the size of all characters. Heck, there's even tournament mode in which you can have up to 64 people playing. Sweeeeet.

The graphics are fantastic in the game. The characters all look great. The stages are clean with all sorts of varieties of backgrounds with different artistic views. The trophies that you collect in Melee are animated great with only minor polygon problems in the stages. Very nice graphics.

Every character has at least 20 different sounds, whether attacking or sleeping or crying. It all blends in really good. Some of the most popular sound tracks in video game history are in this game and play on certain stages. Some old-school songs have been redone like the F-Zero music and others like the Earthbound and the Super Mario Bros. music are left untouched.

Multiplayer mode is probably the most addicting one of all the Gamecube games out there. You'll spent many, many hours on multiplayer. Don't worry, you will get a LOOOOT of playing time on single player mode, too. You could also attempt to get all 290 trophies (all from Nintendo games of the present and past) released in America. Tilt- If you have a Gamecube, get this game. Imagine Pokemon, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Mario, Ice Climbers, Ganon... (never mind) all together in one game. This easily has the best multiplayer out there.
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8.6


By Wiifan001

GCN Review: Soul Calibur II

Soul Calibur II
Genre: Fighting

Review by: Wiifan001

Soul Calibur 2 is is a fighting game this time in 3-D. Each character in the game is searching for the shards of the most powerful weapons in the world- Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. Each character has a unique story on why they desire the devastating weapon and each have their own different reasons- whether for revenge, to save the world, to conquer the world, and for several reasons in between.

You'll see man familiar characters- Mitsurugi, Ivy, Nightmare, Maxi, Cassandra, and Voldo. There are also some new characters- Yunsung, Sophitia, Charade, and even Link. Link is from the Legend of Zelda series. However, Link really doesn't fit in well in this game. He has projectiles. He can throw his boomerang, blast enemies with bombs, and fire at them with bow and arrow. Another new character is Necrid. Necrid doesn't fit in well either. Most everyone fights with weapons that have blades. Necrid has a unique set of weapons that is hard to describe. Overall, there are 23 characters in the game. Three of the characters cannot be played in single player mode- Lizardman, Berserker, and Assasin. They can only be played in multiplayer.



There is naturally the arcade mode, which takes you directly to the fighting and take down Inferno, the boss at the end. Most battles take only 30 seconds to complete. There are 8 people you must fight and Inferno is at the end who wields the weapon. There are 5 different levels of difficulty on Arcade and Extra Arcade- Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Ultra Hard and Extremely Hard.

Next, we have weapon master mode. In this mode, you go through an actual storyline. There's a bunch of text on the level you are on. However, sometimes it'll take you longer to read the text than it is to finish the fight. There are dozens of short levels including dungeons and having to defeat the boss. There will be several times where you have to beat the enemy under certain conditions. Some conditions include forcing a ring out, sometimes the character will be invisible leaving only the weapon to be seen. Sometimes strong winds will push all across the stage and you won't be able to hold your footing at the edge. You can also gain experience points which levels up your character. Leveling up the character does not increase his/her strength or speed or anything like that. It is kind of pointless except that secret route after reaching level 73.

Along with gaining experience points comes gold. You can trade gold to buy more than 200 weapons, a few dozen costumes, art gallery and more. You can switch to any character and any weapon at any time you like. Each weapon on this game is unique. Some weapons have exactly the same traits as another weapon held by another character, but the actual shape and length of the weapon is all different. Choose what you like best.

Besides weapon master mode, there are 4 different types of time attack, four different modes of survival, and two modes of team attack. So, you have an excellent variety of options. As for the fighting, each character has 50+ moves. Some are quick, some take time charging. There are multiple kicks, horizontal attacks, vertical attacks, and a lot of in between. Each character has a soul charge move. It basically increases their energy for a brief moment and attacks become more powerful. You can also throw your enemy. As for guarding, you can jump over low attacks, block with their shield or weapon they're wielding, and even guard impact. Guard impact is slamming your weapon and up and throwing the character way off balance.

Even after owning the game for more than 3 years, I still see a move that I have never seen before every once in a while. Multiplayer mode is awesome. There are 20+ stages, some of them having certain effects. You'll be in cage matches, fighting in caves, in temples, sand areas, ice caverns, and molten lava surrounding one stage. Finally, the game offers two different training modes. The only difference is regular Training you have only the standard weapon assigned to the character and Extra Training mode you use whatever weapon you want that you have purchased.

Let me just that this game has better background detail than any other Gamecube game I have ever seen. The backgrounds make this game feel so realistic. The lighting effects demonstrated what the Gamecube system was capable. The shadow effects are just right. The characters are tremendously detailed with only minor polygon issues. Some stages are flawless... period. There's a lot of colors, textures, and lots of little things that are in awe. Others do have some polygon problems. The Hellfire stage, however, is the only stage that doesn't look good at all. The frame rate holds up very nicely. Easily some of the best graphics you'll ever encounter on the Gamecube system.

Soul Calibur II has some pretty good sound tracks and good voice acting. The problem comes with converting Japanese into English leaving us with a lot of cheesy, pointless phrases that doesn't make sense. Some are good, however. Almost all the characters have more than 50 voice effects from attacking, to taking damage, to laughs, to death cry. It's overall pretty satisfying. The music in the battles feel right as well. My favorite is the Zelda music orchestrated very well. A few sound tracks don't really feel accurate for the fighting spirit. Still, the music is mostly outshadowed with all the weapon clashing and all the other voice effects.

The Weapon Master mode will take you 15-20 hours your first time through. Then you will want to go back over and buy all the weapons, etc. If you have a friend you'll have fun playing him a few times through. Plus there's a bunch of other single player modes to complete (as mentioned earlier).

If you like action games, look no further. If you are a Super Smash Bros. Melee fan like I am, you may have some difficulty with this game. I beat it the game a couple times over, but was never truly good at this game. If you haven't played the game for longer than a week, odds are you'll be a rusty at it. Overall, this is easily one of the best fighting games available and you should definitely at least rent it.
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8.6

By Wiifan001

Wii Review: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

Review by: wiifan001

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is a fighting adventure some game. Over 20 different Marvel characters to play as- including some from the X-Men, Avengers, The Fantastic Four and other known Marvel characters. There are even 2 next-gen. characters intro'd in the game. They are known as Luke Cage and Moon Knight. I have to say that the super powers were implented well and almost to their fullest extent. There is a variety of attacks- from throws to projectiles, signature move, and even attacks where you swing your Wiimote and execute the attack. You even get to have 4 Marvel characters team up and all fight together and switch to another one of your 4 characters any time you want.

The problem comes when you're constantly switching and looking for your control schematics. When you can unleash your signature move, you must first scroll through some other control styles before using it while enemy combat is occuring causing you to possibly to lose health. If you haven't played it yet, I just simply put that the controls on the Wii were just slapped on and very unorganized. The Wiimote doen't always respond right to the attack you called on it. This is probably the biggest downfall of the game. On top of that, there are some puzzles occasionally. The puzzles in this game are dorky and shouldn't be in the game. The camera is pretty bad as well. To move the camera, simply rotate the nunchuck. The camera is so aggervating that it could make you a little sick to your stomach or give you a headache.

Throughout the game, you'll see a wide variety of creatures and dozens of bosses. Some can be fought head on and some you must use some strategy as to beat them. The boss battles are actually nice with only a few lousy ideas as to bosses. The bad guys have all joined together and is led by Dr. Doom. As you may expect, you must track down Doom and his minion and put a stop to the threat of ruling the galaxy. It's amazing that you'll be fighting in a wide variey of places. Before you know it, you'll be in Atlantis, in the skies, the depths of hell, a space stations, and even inside a pinball machine(?!) Along the way are Sketch Books and Simulator Discs. Simulator discs are extra side quest mission to complete. Most of them are individual with a few in a group of four. These missions aren't much fun, though. There are 2 kinds of multiplayer mode. Cooperative mode is working together to progress through the game. Arcade mode is competing against one another and collecting kills. Both modes are capable of 4 players. However, the Wii version being the only one without online mode hurts.
Naturally, you gain experience as you fight and collect items as you go and defeat enemies which boost your attack or defense or something among the sort. There will also be different costumes to collect. Classic Marvel fans will recognize costumes back in the old days and there are some recent costumes too.

As for graphics, the textures in the Wii version are rotten. The only good points in this game that stand out here is the movie trailers given every once in a while. Had the game looked that good during the play time, this would easily be the best looking Wii game out there. I've seen better background textures on a few N64 games.

The sound effects are one of the top achievements of the game. Numerous sound effects are throughout the game. There are several songs to be heard. The game has voice acting all throughout the game (considering there is a lot of text) from all the bosses and some villains.

Playing this game the first time through should take you about 25 hours if you skipped the Simulator Disc missions and other out of the way side quests. There are 3 levels of difficulty- Easy, Normal, and Hard. You may or may not want to check out the other modes.

Overall: It was very hard to choose between a 7 or a 7.5, but I gave it a 7 because the controls were just slapped on plus clunky and the lack of online multiplayer, bad camera and not so good graphics. I must give it credit for being an improvement to Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects.

Wii Review: Mario Kart Wii

Review by: wiifan001

Mario Kart Wii has a combination of great, new ideas and features we've come to known in the past in this franchise, despite a few problems that don't work so well.

Mario Kart Wii consists of eight different cups in the Grand Prix, with four racetracks in each cup, giving a total of 32 courses. Four cups have brand new, never before seen tracks, 16 new ones in all. These tracks all have a different location and have a great set of track designs. You'll be racing in the city, on a mountain, through a garden, through Bowser's castle, inside a mall, in a desert, and of course, Rainbow Road. In each cup you'll race against 11 other characters instead of the usual seven. The track designs have a satisfactory variety and are overall pretty good, but some are without a doubt flawed.

The other four cups (16 tracks) consists of race courses that have been on a previous Mario Kart game. Each of the four cups have a race course from the versions of the SNES, the GBA, the N64, and DS. These courses get a nostalgic feel to it and have been given the taste of Wii graphics and elements to it. Some of these courses have nothing to them at all. Some are just this plain course with nothing special to them. At the same time, stages like the GCN DK Mountain and GCN Waluigi Stadium, have been given 1/2 pipes to them and a few of the tracks, while they do play better than ever, are obviously not the best picks to include in this game.



For the first time ever, bikes are introduced. You don't have to play in karts given that you can play bikes. In the end, each character will get a total of six bikes and six karts to choose from. There are more than six of each, but no character gets every kart and bike. The character's weight and type of vehicle selected play a huge factor in the races- from the turning to the drifting to the accelerating and to the bumping of other vehicles. The bikes and karts have their advantages and disadvantages. Karts get a mini turbo boost if you drift long enough and they have a greater impact against bike user when you bump into them. Bikes don't get the extra mini turbo that karts get, but they can do wheelies which accelerate. It's preferred to use these on straight stretches. Don't bump into another vehicle while doing this or it'll mess you up. Note that this is very different than how the DS version works.

So, the flaws in the grand prix (and online) can make the results seem unfair. First off, the half pipes and pits aren't always properly placed. The effect of doing tricks (like doing 360 and 720 in the air) on these 1/2 pipes and getting a turbo boost when you land is a pretty awesome feature. However, sometimes when you land you'll end in a pitfall and could possibly severely cost you in the rank your in. There are times when you can't slow down or dodge it and it becomes unavoidable.

Another dramatic flaw is the ridiculously unbalanced items in the game. The more powerful items can completely cost you and result in a lower rank even after maintaining first place up until the last few seconds in the end of the final lap when you don't feel as if you did anything wrong at all. Some items of mass destruction include the lightning which shrinks every racer except the user, the bullet bill which can sometimes literally boost you from 12th to 1st,, and the devastating blue shell which will home in on first place and the other racers behind it if close enough, possibly robbing that character of several ranks.

A few other items include the red and green shell/shells , and single/triple banana peels and mushrooms. These items here have little impact compared to some of the more brutal items. Generally, the higher rank you are the less chance of some of the best items. The Mario Kart franchise has never had more unbalanced items than this one.



Mario Kart Wii has five different control schemes. It is compatible with the GC and the classic controller, Wiimote + Nunchuk, and with just the Wiimote. The fifth control scheme comes free with the purchase the game. It is the Wii Wheel. It's comfortable and offers the most involvement in the game, and works quite well. Everything that involves driving a vehicle will give the option to use turbos automatically or manually.

There are more than 20 characters to play as in the game. You'll see many, many familiar faces in the Mario franchise, plus a couple new ones. The Mii characters can also be played. So with all the options of characters and vehicles, you'll find a satisfactory selection and options to choose from.

Aside from Grand Prix, there is the Time Trials and the Balloon Battle and Coin Runners modes. The Time Trials mode is a test of completing three laps with any character, vehicle, and control scheme of your choice. Your given three mushrooms in the course and the top five times and recorded in the save data. There are no item boxes and no other opposing characters.

Battle mode and Coin Runner mode had much more potential than what was offered. In both of these modes, up to 4 players can join in a four player split screen offline match. There are 10 different stages to choose from, five new and five retro. The problem comes when the option of the number of players is always 12 and the time limit is always three minutes. There is no variety of time or player count, making offline play not so great compared to what it could have been.

The online play will keep you coming back for more and more. There is a rankings board for the time trials in which the top score is displayed and compared to your friends, your region, and even worldwide in the Time Trials. There doesn't need to be 12 players in order for a race or battle mode to be in. As of matter of fact, a couple times I've played 1 vs. 1 online. The Baloon Battle mode and Coin Runner mode are switched off every other time online. The game does not lag at all. There is the possibility of encountering being disconnected completely, but it doesn't lag. The kind of connectivity it has makes Smash Bros Brawl fans wish the online was this lag free each and every time. Nintendo even announces tournaments and the game lets you know in between matches of friends that are currently on. The Mario Kart Wii Channel helps makes the online very organized.

The graphics are overall great. They are not as good as you will find Smash Bros Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, and Metroid Prime 3, but the visuals are worth looking at. Something I like is that the Mii characters you have are all over the place. They will be giant statues and sculptures and found among the audience and in posters. Yes, the makers have used unique, interesting features for the Miis. The music is composed of some new and old tracks. You'll hear a different one for each course. The voices each character has are very limited and it can get repetitive.

Overall, the game is great. The online in terms of lag is done right. The Mario Kart Wii Channel is an incredible extra. The Wii Wheel comes free with it. The multiplayer can be cheap from racing but still addicting , especially with the ranking and leader boards. Despite some flaws with options and items, Mario Kart Wii has done has shown an outstanding job. Any Mario or racing fans should definitely pick up this game. It does a good job inviting family and friends in this ever satisfactory game.

Wii Review: Super Mario Galaxy

Review by: wiifan001

A decade ago, the ever popular Super Mario 64 brought amazement to all and defined how 3d games should be. A decade later, many Mario games have been released since then. Now we have Super Mario Galaxy available for the Wii. I can safely say that this is the best Mario game we've had since.

The game begins with Mario heading up to Princess Peach's castle. Just before Mario makes it, Bowser seizes the castle brings to space, the center of the universe to be exact. Mario is struck by a Kamek and sent to down to a planet. This may very familiar to Paper Mario fans. The story line is the same on that note. There are even 7 Grand Stars to collect. Mario must collect 120 stars and save the princess. I know, it's a combination of Paper Mario and Super Mario 64. This time the Grand Stars will be used to open more galaxies rather than help fighting off baddies.

There is a different story in contrast to this. This one involves a new character named Princess Rosalina. As you go on you'll hear about her story and how she's connected to the hundred year comet that passes by every hundred years and these little Star creatures called Lumas.

The first level starts out looking for 3 bunnies on this planet which will lead you to the First Grand Star. Then you'll unlock an observatory which will lead to these galaxies. Mario Galaxy provides some of the craziest level designs that video games have ever offered. It's all mind blowing and an crazier thing of these "planets" is that they have their own gravity. This is revolutionary because this is the first platformer game to have ever used gravity effects. With gravity you'll be walking upside down, backwards, and sometimes even both.

To go from planet to planet, these stars (not power or grand stars) will launch you to the other planets. This is done by shaking the Wiimote on the star. Mario will literally fly through space to the other planets Superman style. His arms wave out and the way the camera moves while he's flying is just jaw dropping. There are a few dozens galaxies in the game. Each are incredibly unique and on galaxies where there is more than one star will often times lead you to a completely different part of that galaxy leading to new exploration. Often times you'll have to find 5 parts to the star which will create it.

Mario gets a lot of old techniques as well as some new ones. The backflip, triple jump, and crouching are all back in the game. Wall jumping has been made so much easier. You simply jump against the wall and pressing back and forth without having to use the analog stick. A new move of Mario that really helps out and used effectively throughout is the Spin Attack which is done by shaking the Wiimote. It's used to attack enemies, break through shards of crystal, and sometimes even raise jumping. It can also deflect enemy projectile attacks right back at foes.

The controls are very precise. The Wii Remote is used for a several pointing functions. Shaking the Wiimote not only does the spin attack. It can be used to collect Star Bits. Star Bits are found everywhere. You just simply point at the bits you see and you'll collect it. It's really nice because you know you don't have to walk all the way over to reach it. Just simply point. It becomes so natural in only a few minutes time or less. Star Bits will help unlock galaxies and stunning enemies by pointing at them and pressing B. Another reason for pointing is grabbing blue stars. Blue stars will bring Mario up to it and will keep him there until grabbing another blue star and moving across or until crossing a star or planet. Blue stars are never alone and will always come in clusters.

Motion sensing with the Wiimote has done more than pointing and grabbing. Its motion sensing technology is used for the activities found in some levels. Manta ray surfing is riding on top of a manta ray and steering it with the Wiimote. Some levels you'll be on a ball and rolling it to its destination also by using it with the Wiimote. Finally, you can push Mario around in a bubble and blowing it through the planet with it. Each of these is so fun and intense you won't care if you die or not. Even better, the controls continue to be responsive and don't play a problem.

The boss battles in the game are fun but not really rememberable. Naturally you'll fight Bowser a couple times. You fight Bowser Jr, a couple Kameks and other bosses which I won't spoil for you. They're not too terribly challenging except in under specific conditions for a couple that I speak about.

The quest for searching for stars will require transforming into different types of Mario's. Seriously, a couple kinds include the Bee Mario, which transforms you into a bee and you briefly fly around. Of course Fire Mario is implemented. For the first time ever, Fire Mario is 3d. Some people have been waiting for that moment for over 20 years. It's finally here. There are a few other Mario suits, each having their own unique effect and be used a few times over, but I won't spoil them for you.

Comets. Several kinds of comets will be in the game. Comet levels are levels that have been completed already but must be beaten again under specific conditions. An example is the Daredevil Comet. This comet requires you to beat the level with only 1 health point. Purple Coin comets require to search the galaxy and collect 100 purple coins. Note that this is taking place of the 100 coin challenge back in the days of Super Mario 64. Except this time 100 purple coins will be laid out and must collect all of them to get the star. These are only 2 of the many comet types to see in Mario Galaxy.

Though you can defeat Bowser the 3rd time with only 60 stars, something amazing will happen collecting all 120 stars and will likely want you to play the game all over again with this "new feature." As a matter of fact, you really don't beat the game with only 60 stars because you haven't been to all the galaxies.

Two player co-op is available. While one player controls the character, the other can use the Wiimote to collect Star Bits, help them jump really high, and freeze enemies when holding on them pressing the A button. It's not exciting but it is a nice idea and doesn't really get in the way.

There are a couple issues that could've been worked on just a little bit. Sometimes the analog stick can be a little confusing. I've gotten mildly nautious from it, but only playing it for an extended period of time. This may or may not happen to you. Furthermore, occasionally you'll spot a camera problem. Most of the time, pressing the D-pad can help you get out of these situations. But there are still a few cases where the camera didn't go right, but it is rare.

The graphics are the flat out no question about it BEST graphics so far shown on the Wii. No Wii game competes with its artistic design. . It's possible to beat the game and not notice frame rate problems. But no Wii game compares to this one in graphics. [Do not compare Wii graphics to XBOX 360 and PS3. Wii focuses on revolutionary techology while the other 2 stick to their old roots.

The sound tracks on the game are ochestrated beautifully. There are remakes of songs back from Super Mario Bros 1 and 3, and lots of new sound tracks are heard and sound right to the atmosphere. Mario, Peach, and Rosalina all have very short, voice acting phrases heard every once in a while. Nintendo continues to keep it minimal for the Mario series, which is actually a good thing.

Collecting 120 stars will take about 15 hours or so. Doing it over again under the "new feature" which I mentioned earlier and you're looking at about 25-30 hours of the game. You can always go back and play and a level that you want to do again.

So having a game with responsive controls, smart uses of the Wiimote, the best graphics the Wii has yet, an amazing original sound track, multiple types of Mario's, flying through planets and space, co-op mode, being a Mario game, there is no excuse of not owning this game. Even if you're not a fan of Mario series, I"d recommend this to anyone, whether 6 year old or adult and everyone in between. This will be looked back years from now and Super Mario Galaxy will be argued as the greatest Wii game ever made.