Anyone else enjoying this game as much as I am?

Who would have figured the right handed joystick skills I developed on Mario64 could translate so easily to my left hand on the Wii?

In all seriousness, I’m finding the game enjoyable, interesting, not particularly challenging (yet), but very reminiscent of the experience I enjoyed while playing Mario64.

As a game developer, the things I find most interesting in the game design are:

1. How tossing in falling “star bits” can instantly liven up the game experience in areas where the game play might get a bit slow

2. The ability to have a second player collect star bits, stun enemies and in general help out the main player. Perfect way for the younger ones to get some great play time with an older brother or mom and dad.

3. How the new controller for the Wii takes the classic experience a step forward and then how “going upside down” takes it even a further step forward. There have been games that have done similar “upside down tricks” before, but in Mario Galaxy, it just seems natural. Bet it was fun for the designers to be thinking in all the directions 3D can provide.

4. Fun, light and bright levels that don’t draw on violence, nightmarish fears or shock to involve a player. The bee levels and the bubble level are great examples of content that feels fresh even though similar things have been done before.

I want to make a special note about the “upside down play” aspect of the game. It’s long been said that we “create worlds” when we make video games. Most worlds so far though are digital mockups of worlds fairly similar to our real world, especially in terms of things like gravity and time. The “Matrix” broke the barrier to freeing us from “regular time” by using “bullet time” and games followed suit. Mario helps break the barrier of “normal gravity” of platformers by introducing their new “relative gravity” concept. Very cool. Imagine what the future holds when more of these traditional type of constraints are broken….