I can’t remember the last time I got excited about a new Super Mario game. Actually, that’s a hideous lie - I was terribly excited about New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS, and equally excited (although ultimately disappointed) by Yoshi’s Island DS. I grew up playing the Mario games. They were the sole reason I was friends with Adam Hird in Infant School - he had a NES and I didn’t. I’ve loved every single Mario game I’ve played with the obvious exception of Mario is Missing, which doesn’t count because it’s a terrible, terrible game.

I don’t recall being excited about Super Mario 64, but then this was 11 years ago now and, if we’re being honest, I don’t recall being excited about the N64. I’ve owned three N64s since, mind, and I’ve owned Super Mario 64 five times since then if you count the DS update and the Virtual Console release. Super Mario 64 is quite possibly one of the finest examples of a 2D series going 3D and pulling it off successfully, which is more than can be said for any of Sonic the Hedgehog’s 3D outings. Whereas Super Mario Sunshine deviates from the template set out by Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy builds upon it.

The gameplay is identical to Super Mario 64. The movement is identical. Mario has all of the same jumps, hops and flips. He still takes his hat off and wipes his brow when he finishes a level, which take place on Planets located in Galaxies instead of in Portraits in a Castle. This is by and large a Good Thing because Mario 64 got the mechanics so spot on it would be sacrilege to bugger about with perfection. So they didn’t. What they did instead was they got rid of the "down is down" rule and replaced it mostly with "if it’s round, you can walk on it" - Super Mario Galaxy makes use of the same spherical platform tech seen in places in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and it’s marvelously implemented. Hopping from one world to the next, either with a well-timed jump, or a launching pad, or by grabbing onto a spinning blue star in the sky, is easy and, Gosh Darn it, fun.

The only gripe with the spherical world system is that sometimes the camera can get a little confusing. It can be difficult at times to gauge whether or not pushing up on the Nunchuk analog stick is going to move Mario forward from his point of view or yours, and this can often change purely on whimsy. Sometimes it feels like the fat Italian plumber we all know and love has grown tired of being manipulated and yearns to break free and explore the world for himself. Or possibly I’m exaggerating. Nevertheless, it has to be said that the camera and its influence on the controls is not always as perfect as has been previously. This is, however, a minor gripe in an otherwise brilliant game - it’s certainly not as bad as the camera/control interaction in some other games I could care to mention but won’t. Kingdom Hearts. There, I said it.

As already stated, the game takes most of its design cues from Mario 64, which includes the entire point of playing a level of the game - finding Stars. Levels generally contain multiple Stars, and if you’re a completist bastard like I am you’ll spend a lot of time going into each level a hojillion times to find every single one of the bloody things. It’s not essential - you can easily complete the game with the bare minimum of Stars, but then you can probably lead a long, fulfilling life with a grand total of four fingers and half of a thumb.Replaying already completed levels in search of previously undiscovered Stars adds tremendous replay value, especially as the level is shuffled and changed for each Star, meaning that you’ll find entirely new planets in a Galaxy when looking for that second Star that you won’t even get the chance to visit while playing the level the first time.

Graphically, the game is superb. It’s been compared to Super Mario Sunshine and I guess if you’re just going to sit there and count polygons then yes, it’s quite close. Galaxy does a lot of things graphically that Sunshine doesn’t, and it’s all the better for it. I really like the way that the 3D is touched up in this game - bloom, I think it’s called. It’s a lighting technique which is sometimes overused but in Galaxy it’s soft, subtle, and compliments the colours and graphical tone of the game perfectly. It goes without saying that the fuzz and fur rendering in the game, seldom though it may appear, is top-notch and makes the same tech in Starfox Adventures look rather pants, much like going back and watching Shrek after having seen how good Monsters Inc. looks. This analogy works best if it’s 2002, which it isn’t. Bollocks.

I love the music and sound in this game. Okay, so the music in the Comet Observatory - what in Mario 64 would have been the Castle - sounds like it was originally recorded to play over the PA system in Disneyland, but it’s still a fun, bouncy tune, as is most of the music in the game. So enjoyable is the game’s audio, in fact, that I’ve already pre-ordered the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack.

There are a lot of really enjoyable games for the Wii, but I’d happily place Super Mario Galaxy at the top of the pile. It’s the jewel of the Wii library, developing on the initial groundwork laid out by Super Mario 64 brilliantly. I would happily and easily recommend it to anyone who owns a Wii, anyone considering buying a Wii, anyone who happens to like games, anyone with a fondness for Fun, and anyone standing within a 15-foot radius of my current location. Actually, that might explain why my friends have stopped inviting me to parties.