Mario Galaxy both warms my soul and hardens my heart.

[David]

Playing through Mario Galaxy for review has made me realize two things:

1. Mario's gameplay is the purest distilled version of 'fun' to this day. The structure within which Miyamoto's design lives is so malleable that you can be both instantly familiar with everything while experiencing something new.

2. Nintendo needs to stop increasing the amount of text in this franchise or at least make it witty like they do with the Mario RPG series. Just show Bowser kidnapping Peach and let us get to the game. I don't want to be interrupted after every star to know that I have a new piece of useless mail or that to jump I press A. The story is juvenile at best and serves as a constant barrier to playing the game.

[Steven]

After playing through the disappointment that was NSMBW http://bit.ly/cedtdu, I can't express how good I feel about Galaxy 2.

Couldn't agree more about the text though. Nintendo needs to distill it just a little more and make it as straight forward as Super Mario World: Bowser has princess, go get princess. That's all anybody wants in their Mario games. Other than that, I'm giddy.

[David]

Couldn't agree more about the text though. Nintendo needs to distill it just a little more and make it as straight forward as Super Mario World: Bowser has princess, go get princess. That's all anybody wants in their Mario games. Other than that, I'm giddy.

What has been you're favorite level/power up so far?

[wodey]

I thought the Chompworks factory was a really cool idea. There is a comet star on that one with the shadowguys. It was a biatch to beat, but once you do it you feel like a champ. I remember in Galaxy 1, the last star for me to get was 100 purple stars on the giant Luigi, where they disappear and flip. That was hard as hell, but you wanted it soo bad!

Also in Galaxy 2 - the Yoshi powerup with the hot chili peppers is great. Also, the flip swap galaxy is good.

I really enjoyed the Donut Land style levels in Galaxy 1. I would like to see those again (haven't gotten through the whole game yet), but if not there is a lot of good stuff.

(ditto on the text. David knows I like to just jump right into the game! - at least by witty like paper mario/rpg)

[David]

Mike, did you get all 240 stars?

[wodey]

I am on galaxy 4 or 5. I am playing through each level at a time, and getting the comet stars and extra stars as they appear. Playing Luigi brings me back to SMB2. I would like to see a new SMB2 type game. Maybe even a 4 player Mario game - not like the new super mario brothers.

[David]

I would like to see a new SMB2 type game. Maybe even a 4 player Mario game - not like the new super mario brothers.

Anything 3D would have to be either split screen (which would suck at the Wii's 480P) or online (which would suck with the Wii's friend code system). I wouldn't hold your breath, but I too think it would be nice is pulled off correctly. However, I'm not sure how that could work within the context of Nintendo's approach to gaming. Any ideas?

[wodey]

So scrap the idea about Mario, considering how Nintendo operates (it's a love/hate relationship). I had another idea. Lost Vikings Reboot - like those Megaman games. It could still be split screen, and with today's big tvs and resolutions, no problems. Run it on the PS3 and have playstation network capabilities. I think this would be awesome.