Super Mario Galaxy

...Is now completely done! Sort of.

Being a Mario game, it would be wrong not to collect all the stars, no? Well, technically speaking, there's another 121 stars I can get because upon collecting all 120, you can replay the game as Luigi. When you collect all 120 again with Luigi, then there's a final one. However, I am hardly compelled the replay the game so soon. Then again, I never collected all the stars in Sunshine either... but that's because keeping track of all the blue coins in each world (30 in each) was too much of a pain.

As a Mario game, Galaxy does keep up the Nintendo standard of brilliant visuals and music. Visually, the game was crisp and all the colors were bright and easy on the eyes. Nintendo shows that you don't necessarily need HD to make a game look good. Musically, the orchestrated music gives the game a much grander feeling, which is acceptable since we're not playing in outer space and all. There's a good mix of remixed classics and new music that makes the game pleasing to listen to.

The stages presented in the game are all varied and unique, making exploring each new world rather exciting. The biggest twist to gameplay this time around is the gravity manipulation in each of the stages. You can run around and entire sphere or random objects that exert their own gravitational force on Mario. It's dizzying sometimes.

Difficulty-wise, there were only a few stars that were really difficult to obtain, but none of them were so hard that I wanted to break something. Okay, there were a few, but that's mostly due to control / camera issues (more later).

My biggest gripes come from the controls and camera issues in the game. Being a platformer, being able to control your character as well as manipulating the camera is key to not falling off to your perpetual doom. Control-wise, Mario's Bee suit is way too floaty and the Spring suit is nigh impossible to direct. Underwater movement is also rather unbearable. Most games that I've played have been unable to do the underwater thing correct, which is a shame. Camera-wise, there's no easy way to move your camera so you can see where you're jumping to sometimes, which resulted in me falling off way too many times. Also, with camera shifting when you're upside down or left side up or whatever from running around floating objects, controlling Mario also becomes a bit messy.

Overall though, 'twas fun. I'll wait a bit till I play Galaxy 2. There's other things to play for now!


In other news...


Getting half an inch of splinter lodged into your hand is not fun D=. Nor is cutting a friend's hands. Also, in the span of 36 hours (Friday afternoon till Saturday night), I only ate one meal, which was probably not a good idea.


Was looking forward to building Lego yesterday, but apparently lines were extremely long (going into the shop, and paying at the cashier), so that never happened. Apparently the cashiers were having difficulties making things work, so each transaction took way too long. I can't believe his gf waited for so long. The limited edition Lego rodeo set isn't as epic as I thought it would be, which is slightly disappointing too.


It's only been a week. Only? Only. Long week. Is long.