Mario Might Save Christmas? 127
Last week there was a Nintendo media event giving the gaming press preview experiences for the Christmas season's games. 1up has a look at all the titles on offer, but the one that (understandably) got the most attention was Mario Galaxy for the Wii. Wired's Chris Kohler thinks Mario's bee suit might save Christmas, while MTV's Stephen Totilo has comments from an hour hands-on with the game ala Games For Lunch. From Totilo's comments: "Each planetoid presents a challenge -- squash things, collect things -- that rewards players with the creation of a new launch star. I've launched Mario to a sphere that looks like it's made of wood. A star guy of some sort is in a glass jar. I need to kill all the Goombas to free it. I can jump on their heads, but I can also do the spin move, which knocks them dizzy and sends them spinning themselves. If Mario runs into them while they spin, they die."
Re:Not to troll... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:$5 Says... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if the people giving the "Game of the Year" award are the sort of gamers who are most interested in console-based multiplayer FPS games, then Halo will likely win.
I mean, if you want to talk about it, then let's just say what's going on with that. The current pop-culture of gaming right now is biased towards multiplayer, either FPS or MMORPG, doesn't care about story, art, or single-player gameplay. If that's who's handing out awards, then it's no surprise that Halo is the big game this year.
That's not to say there aren't better games, more original games, or games which will ultimately prove to be more influential. Personally, I think that if you look back in 10 years, Wii Sports will probably have had a bigger effect on the gaming community than Halo 3. Portal is far more innovative than Halo (even though it's kind of a remake of Narbacular Drop), and the Half Life series continues to provide a better single-player experience than Halo.
I recently read someone's attempt to compare Bioshock and Halo 3 to decide which was a better game. The review basically said, "Bioshock looks better, has a better story, and generally has a much better single-player experience. but Halo 3 has the best multiplayer ever, and multiplayer is what really matters!"
So yeah, it's basically a question of who's giving the review or who's giving the award. For some people, Mario Galaxy won't be a very good game unless it's a multiplayer FPS they can play on XBox Live.
Re:$5 Says... (Score:3, Interesting)
In 'proper' Mario games, they've missed twice by my count. Super Mario Bros. 2 (which wasn't really a Mario game anyway) and Super Mario Sunshine.
Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64 are absolutely legendary, definitely among the 'best games ever made'. Yoshi's Island and New SMB are both excellent.
So I'd say that yes, there are very good grounds indeed to think that Super Mario Galaxy will, like most of its predecessors, be one of the best games ever made.
Re:$5 Says... (Score:3, Interesting)
"My friends and I only play FPS and MMORPGs and have narrowed our world view to the point that other game genres and trends don't show up in our small minded view of the world", does not mean the world is changing to adhere to your ignorance.
Geeze, calm down, I'm not even talking about me.
My point wasn't about about actual trends in games, but the pop-culture biases about games. Whenever I see anything related to gaming on TV, it always seems to be about frat-boy types playing Halo. Whenever I read game reviews these days, they're always slanted, favoring multiplayer games over single-player games.
But I don't agree with those people. If you read my post again, more carefully, you'll realize that I'm saying Wii Sports is a better game than Halo. The media and game sites are trying to cater to what people call "hardcore gamers", which basically means teenage boys and frat kids who are into playing first-person shooters on XBox Live. However, those "hardcore gamers" aren't really representative of gamers in general.
And where it really becomes a problem is that "hardcore gamers" (IMO) don't have very good taste in games. There was nothing new, interesting, or innovative about the original Halo game. It was merely the first FPS that really worked on the console, and had managed to have good controls and weapon balance for multiplayer games. AFAICT, the next two Halo games weren't particularly innovative either, but only refined the same formula that Halo had been using.
So if you're looking for a game that really does something cool, innovative, or that hasn't been seen before, Halo isn't where it's at. However, the people who give these "Game of the Year" awards are often catering to "hardcore" gamers. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if Halo won a bunch of those awards in spite of not really being an interesting game.
Re:Awesome. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:$5 Says... (Score:2, Interesting)
What changed from M64 was that while in M64 the level stayed mostly the same and all stars were always available in SMS only the selected star was spawned, forcing you to go through the stars in order and discouraging random exploration because you wouldn't get anything out of it.