I received a copy of Super Mario Galaxy for Christmas and have been playing it during the break between college semesters instead of worrying about studying or completing assignments (why does school have to begin again so soon?). Galaxy is the first 3D Mario game I have played since Super Mario 64, if we qualify that a bit by excluding Super Mario Sunshine, which I only played for about a half hour, and New Super Mario Bros., which is essentially 2D. Technicalities aside, the game feels like a solid successor to Mario 64, with the typical star collecting business and multiple ways to approach each level.

What really floored me about Mario Galaxy was how fresh the gameplay is. The designers clearly had both hands on the reigns while making this game, creating gravity puzzles that put other games that have attempted this type of puzzle (i.e., Prey) completely to shame. I suppose being in space lends that sort of flexibility, but it was amazingly well exploited. What bugged me most from Mario 64 was the controls that at times completely failed to get my intentions across. While Mario Galaxy had a few of these moments, they were thankfully few and far between, and the game never became a chore, something I cannot attribute to its spiritual predecessor.

Everything else about the game managed to deliver in spades. The graphics are not over-the-top amazing, but impressive nonetheless. The music is absolutely superb and it is good to know that Nintendo has finally clued in to the idea of using a real orchestra to produce the music. Overall, the game just sounds great.

Sites all around the Internet are already giving out their game of the year awards, and while I agree that perhaps Mario Galaxy is perhaps not the best overall the game of the year, it is the best of its class and definitely in my top two for overall favorite. 2007 was unquestionably a banner year for video games all around.