hile Nintendo of America only briefly touched on Super Mario Galaxy at their annual pre-E3 press conference, many thought it was one of the best games in Nintendo’s booth. We played the game extensively at the show and believe that its action and visuals must be shown in motion to truly capture the essence of Mario’s next adventure. We bring you a ton of widescreen video of Super Mario Galaxy!
What was playable at the show was purely a demo of Super Mario Galaxy to show how Mario would work with the Wii’s controller setup. This demo was spliced together parts of different elements of the game will play in the final version. On the floor, players could navigate the plumber between a number of smaller planets. While it’s no surprise that Nintendo has experimented with Mario on round surfaces with 100 Marios/Mario 128, it was fun to see how it all came together, especially with the uniqueness the Wii provides.
Mario’s new control scheme took a few moments to adjust to, but overall it fits in with the expected platforming – with a few twists. The analog stick from the nunchuck moves Mario, and A on the remote controlled jumping. The remote controlled a star-like mouse pointer that would interact with the environment, as well as collects star shards. With trees and spider web surfaces that Mario was on, you could grab Mario by pressing B and fling him to other planets, or directly at a boss. While the separation of the nunchuck and the remote felt awkward at first in comparison to the GameCube or N64 controllers, the new gameplay elements were very welcome.
Outside of that, there really isn’t much known about the game. Members of the Super Mario Sunshine team are returning for Super Mario Galaxy, and Miyamoto is keeping a close eye on the title, as well as “upending the tea table” quite a bit. Rumor has it that his close watch on the game could delay it from the Wii launch this holiday season. Even if the game misses the launch day, Miyamoto said gamers should expect the game within the first six months of the Wii’s lifespan.
We’ll have much more on Super Mario Galaxy in the coming months. Stay tuned!