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Super Mario Galaxy first impressions
Nov. 14th, 2007 10:50 amThis game is made of happy. I'm running around tiny, tiny planets. It'll take the industry a long time to clone this.
It does kind of push the edge of my visual capabilities. It doesn't really help that the Star Bits can be any color, so I'm going to spend a lot of time chasing false coins. I might start to depend on a second player to handle the Star Bits so that I can concentrate on the rest of the game. (For those who don't know, that's how 2-player co-op works.) Other than that, I don't have much trouble identifying or locating objects.
Things should pick up once I get the hang of controls. Shaking the controller is something you have to do a lot. I've heard reviewers say that people who have never played games before could feel at home playing this, and I'm skeptical of that just because of the nunchuck. It would make a great experiment, to find someone who hasn't played a video game since the 80's, and see how quickly they pick this up.
Those first levels didn't exactly play themselves. It took me a few tries to beat that boss from the egg world. It was probably easier than it felt, but giving the player the feeling of having earned every star right from the beginning, that's good design. Even Birdo was tough the first time, right?
It feels a bit strange going to other "galaxies" and the first one is populated by the same Goombas and Pirahna Plants we're familiar with. Of course you have to keep it familiar, especially this early in the game, when you're having to come to grips with insane geometry. I've only played it for an hour, so I don't know how weird it's going to get.
It does kind of push the edge of my visual capabilities. It doesn't really help that the Star Bits can be any color, so I'm going to spend a lot of time chasing false coins. I might start to depend on a second player to handle the Star Bits so that I can concentrate on the rest of the game. (For those who don't know, that's how 2-player co-op works.) Other than that, I don't have much trouble identifying or locating objects.
Things should pick up once I get the hang of controls. Shaking the controller is something you have to do a lot. I've heard reviewers say that people who have never played games before could feel at home playing this, and I'm skeptical of that just because of the nunchuck. It would make a great experiment, to find someone who hasn't played a video game since the 80's, and see how quickly they pick this up.
Those first levels didn't exactly play themselves. It took me a few tries to beat that boss from the egg world. It was probably easier than it felt, but giving the player the feeling of having earned every star right from the beginning, that's good design. Even Birdo was tough the first time, right?
It feels a bit strange going to other "galaxies" and the first one is populated by the same Goombas and Pirahna Plants we're familiar with. Of course you have to keep it familiar, especially this early in the game, when you're having to come to grips with insane geometry. I've only played it for an hour, so I don't know how weird it's going to get.
