My mom and wife hate Super Mario Galaxy
From the game's central hub, called the Central Observatory, you can travel between six worlds, which between them provide access to 42 galaxies. Each galaxy has a number of stars which you can collect by getting to the end of the level by working your way across the levels through jumping, ground pounding, flipping switches and beating the colourful bosses.From launching yourself through a star from one galaxy to the next as you fly through space with your arms outstretched to transforming into Boo Mario, which allows you to become a ghost and walk through walls, there are so many great situations to savour and so many things that you'll take pleasure out of doing, that time just flies by whilst playing. There's the return of power-ups from past games, such as the Fire Flower, 1up mushrooms and invincibility mushrooms, and there's also the ability to transform into a range of characters, including Bee Mario where you can fly and stick to honey walls, or Ice Mario, where you can create an icy footpath by freezing the area around him. There's plenty of opportunity given to use these special abilities and there's so many entertaining situations to use them in that telling you about them here would just ruin the surprise.
The gameplay in Super Mario Galaxy is full of imagination, creativity and fun. Many of the situations you'll find yourself in, whether it be jumping into a bee costume, flying up to the Queen Bee and relieving her of a nasty itch or hopping aboard an airship and spinning Koopa shells in order to knock out Bowser Jnr, are extremely entertaining as you rotate and shake your controller to the orchestra of sound and visual barrage of colour. No amount of explanation or spoilers can quite prepare you for the diversity of situations you'll find yourself in. Even when I thought I'd just sussed the game, something brand new cropped up leaving me shaking my head at the ingenuity of it all.
Gravity plays a big part in the game and some levels (planets) often have a shift in perspective, which can see you walking, jumping and carrying out tasks whilst upside down or at different angles. Initially, it took some getting used to, but after the first few levels it was clear to see just how much it opened up the gameplay and how it has allowed Nintendo to experiment and look outside of the conventional platforming box. Ultimately, this gives you a unique experience, the likes of which you wouldn't have experienced in a game before.
This may sound rather strange and it's certainly not a negative point from my particular point of view, but it's something that was actually brought up by my mother and wife. Amazingly, they both hate Super Mario Galaxy and won't play it. Okay, so they're not hardcore gamers, but they've both played previous Mario games and have always loved them. I thought they'd love Super Mario Galaxy, but they just couldn't get their head around the shift in perspectives and therefore were just irritated and frustrated by the whole gravitational system. It's a small point perhaps, but the lack of accessibility to the game for a novice could be seen as a negative.
Bah! It certainly hasn't affected my enjoyment, in fact it has enhanced it no end.
