Super Mario Galaxy & Super Luigi Galaxy

 Yes, I've played it. Got me some 241 stars and it took me some estimated 2o / 25 hrs. Was good fun. But not as innovative and ground-breaking as Super Mario 64, so I needed some time to realize, when Reggie Fils-Aime, head of Nintendo of America, called it "the true successor to Mario 64" on this year's E3 Media & Business Summit, he just meant that Nintendo absolutely agrees that Super Mario Sunshine, the de-facto-successor, was a crappy game ;^p [...]
(show me)(don't show me)

But ignore this comment and you have a brand new Mario game that is much like (almost) any other Mario game: accessive and easy for the little ones and sophisticated and demanding for hardcore gamers like me due to optional missions. Although I have to say I can't see the damsel-in-distress-"story" anymore ...

Some levels were quite nice and fun to play, some costumes were a pain in the ass but all in all it was a great single-player-experience. And now that I've completed it it's a nice dust catcher. But a Famitsu rating of 38/4o ? I don't agree with that, it's not that great, this game. It's not a must-have if you own the console, only if you like Mario at the very most. But who knows what would have happened to the reviewer if he/she gave it a bad rating ;^)

Oh and the controls, well the Wii™-specific controls: the standard attack besides jumping on the head is a swirl attack executed by a wristflick. That's it. There's some screen-pointing, too, but basically that's it. It's not much but it works way better than some still unclear controls in Wii Sports.

I didn't care much about the relatively high graphics, although they sure are beautiful. But hey, it's a Mario game! He could be a 2D sprite and I'd still be happy. And the music, well ... Mario 64 had one or two really outstanding tracks "Dire, Dire Docks" and "Ultimate Koopa" ... *looking at the OST* aaand there were also other not outstanding tracks but still very moody and catchy, like "Cave Dungeon", "Lethal Lava Land", "Koopa's Theme", "Koopa's Road" and others - all tracks that I really love the one way or the other. But with Galaxy, well, there were only tracks that were merely okay or all-too-familiar. But at least they were all orchestrated. I have exptected more from Mr. Kôji Kondô but I guess my demands were too high ...

I didn't like how you had to play the whole game a second time with another character, but that's better than "just meeting Yoshi on the rooftop of the castle" after completing the game, so ...

This game gets a 7 out of 1o from me.

Oh, and here's a funny little conversation I had last Friday with my brother on the phone, which went someway like this:
Bro: "Hi."
Me: "Hi."
Bro: "Wassup?"
Me: "Nuttin'."
Bro: "Yeah, I bought us a PS3."
Me: "..."

So yeah, I own a Playstation 3™ now. And I didn't even pay any of the 4oo Euros for it. Another thing to hate myself for ...
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