G-pinions

I am freaking out with the sheer awesomeness that is Super Mario Galaxy. I am bursting with Mario love and need to contain it somewhere while I'm trapped at work. My expectations for this game were simply Game of the Year. After playing it for a few hours yesterday, it has risen to a place far above simple awards. Galaxy has redefined platforming and adventure games forever. It has fundamentally changed how to construct a level in 3D space. Most importantly, Mario Galaxy is the new high water mark for pure gaming fun.

I am not prepared to write a full review yet, but I have to at least give you a taste of this experience. Bear with me as I try to arrange mere words to describe this truly revolutionary experience. I won't try to explain why this game is so very different from everything else quite yet. Let me play through the whole game and digest its gooey center first. But I can say, it will make everything smell like septic slime for quite some time. If it is possible for a game to be too good, this would be the prime candidate to take this award.

Note: The following three paragraphs describe three separate experiences I have had in the early goings of what promises to be one of the greatest games ever created. If you would like your Galaxy experience to be completely pure, you should probably skip this column entirely.

At one point early in the game I found myself inside a small cube. Gravity was not welcomed in this domain. The walls and ceiling were fair game for my wanderlust. Using ramps to navigate the six sides, I was sprinting around the enclosed world like an overactive rat on amphetamines. It was fun and pointless, just like a game should be. But then, as I set foot on the ceiling, a box beckoned to me. I am well-trained in Mario. I know to open tempting boxes. I spun into it, revealing... notes? Rainbow colored musical notes bounced out, forming a line along the ceiling and walls. As I collected them, the music changed. With each note I picked up, one note from the original Mario theme was played. As I sped up, so too did the tune. I would have clapped with joy had I not been holding a controller, but I did shout.

At another section, I found myself in an open world with a towering mountain ahead of me. From the bottom hole, a cave three times as high as Mario and ten times as wide, a black thing began to slowly emerge. I walked towards this hole, eager to see what would spring forth. I walked in front of it just as a boulder came rushing out. I did a turn-flip and sprinted down the path in front of me. Just as it was about to squash me, I did a long jump. The boulder turned slightly and rolled harmless away from me. Just as I caught my breath from a near-death experience, a whoosh of black flashed from my left. I spun the camera and saw a Bullet Bill speeding towards me. His nose was turning red (was he about to explode?) as I started to run away. I jumped over a little hill and ran back around to the front side. I had lost him. His little arms waved in frustration as he crashed into the hill.

During a race on the back of a manta ray, I accelerated into an approaching wave at an odd angle. My craft shot into the air with me still firmly attached to it. I landed an inch from the edge of a bottomless pit, my momentum carrying me to sudden doom. I grabbed the controller with two hands and slammed it to the side. My ray turned sharply, still drifting towards our mutual death. With one fin hanging precariously off the side, we both finally stopped. Thanking our lucky stars, I turned us back towards the race track and began to speed off towards the finish line. As I was trying to reorient myself, another wave crashed into us, finally knocking us into the dark reaches of space.

In every section of the game, Galaxy offers memorable experiences like this. It quickly changes between an exploration heavy adventure to a combat oriented action game to an intense platforming challenge to an off-the-wall gravity-be-damned navigational nightmare and back to exploration without even a blink or a warning. This is the most tightly designed game I have ever experienced. If Mario 64 showed how a 3D adventure game could be made, Galaxy shows how one should be made.

If the world was an entirely just place, my review of Phantom Hourglass would be a carbon copy of what I wrote in my Ratchet and Clank Future review last week. Both are uninspired sequels that are virtually indistinguishable from past entries in the series. Since both games are the first for their respective consoles, the developers seemed content to throw a bone to the novelties these systems make possible without enhancing the tried and true gameplay one bit. But while I ripped Ratchet for its blatant unoriginality, I am actually going to praise Zelda. Not because it's unoriginal, but because, even despite its familiar gameplay and world, it's still noticeably better than recent Zelda games. Phantom Hourglass is undoubtedly a flawed game that further exposes the problems inherent in the Zelda formula, but the streamlined experience is infinitely more enjoyable than what I was starting to expect of this series.

The main reason Phantom Hourglass is so much more fun than Twilight Princess and Wind Waker is simple: Nintendo removed the boring parts. It's such a brilliant idea! Oh, how many hours I could have saved if Nintendo had only made this change years ago. Both Twilight Princess and Wind Waker were chuck-full of excruciating side quests between dungeons that just dragged the entire experience through a pig's poop-filled bathroom. Do you realize how huge Hyrule is? Why do I have to continually walk across the whole damn thing running errands for ungrateful brats in TP? And Wind Waker, with its tedious boat navigation, who thought that was good idea? If I wanted to spend a week on a boat I would join the Navy's "Ride a Boat for 7 Days" program. Phantom Hourglass thankfully removed those grueling bits so you can quickly jump from one dungeon to the next. I can't believe it took Nintendo this long to emphasize the strength of one of their biggest series.

The dungeon design in PH is simply awesome. First of all, Nintendo did an excellent job designing this for the portable crowd. Most dungeons allow you to unlock doors at various points so you can take a break without having to trudge through the whole damn thing all over again. More importantly, the puzzles are a joy. I had forgotten just how fun a traditional Zelda dungeon can be after wading through all that torturous crap in previous games. Everything is completely logical this time around too. No more puzzles where you have to light all the candles in a room. In fact, the pointless lantern isn't even in this game! You still have the occasional lever to pull or switch to stand on, but the game does force you to use your mind more often than Zeldas past. At one point, you have to shoot a shy eyeball that closes when you look at it. I was stuck for a few minutes at this point. I tried to turn really quickly and catch it staring dumbly (I think everyone does this, as if the game is alive and not a flawless computer program). I tried to toss my boomerang. I tried to leave the room, like I didn't care about the eye at all. Eventually, I realized I had to string my grappling hook between two posts. I could shoot the rope with my back turned to the eye, causing an epic ricochet that would blind that stupid statue. Puzzles like this made each dungeon a blast to play through.

The main problem with Phantom Hourglass, and the Zelda franchise as a whole, is the actual combat is simply awful. In PH, both movement and swordplay is controlled using only the touchscreen. This is a very bad idea. First of all, your movement is way too limited now since you're using a touchscreen to do what used to takes an analog stick and multiple buttons. Rolling is almost impossible to execute and circle strafing around an enemy feels clunky and unresponsive. It also means you will swing when you want to run and vice versa way too often. Thankfully, Nintendo seemed to acknowledge this problem. There are very few times in the game where you have to partake in hardcore sword combat, and it is so easy when you do that you won't be hampered by the crappy controls. A Zelda experience with worthwhile combat would be a much better option than simply avoiding the problem altogether, though.

Another Zelda mainstay rears its ugly head in Phantom Hourglass: the story is insultingly bad. I have no problem with crappy stories in games. Two of my favorite games this year - Earth Defense Force and Crackdown - had completely useless stories. You know why that wasn't a problem? These games just ignored the whole story thing completely. In Phantom Hourglass, like every Zelda game, you have to sit through long, boring cutscenes when all you really need is someone to point you in the direction of your next dungeon. If a game is going to make you sit through a story, it better be worthwhile. There should be some work put into it. I would love to play a Zelda game where Link had a personality. I would love to have an actual plot instead of elaborate fetch quests. But if Nintendo is not wiling to let this universe grow, they should just cut out the pointless crap entirely.

The Zelda franchise will never evolve until Nintendo spends some time crafting an intelligent story and making sure the combat is on par with other adventure games. Until that happens, everything other than dungeon puzzle solving will just be a giant waste of time. I really have no idea why Nintendo is completely unwilling to include an interesting story in any of their games. Yes, the Nintendo fanbase is predominantly much younger than Microsoft's and Sony's, but that is not a valid excuse anymore. Harry Potter has proven that children love compelling stories. Nintendo can claim they are just trying to appeal to the family until they are blue in face, but it is apparent they simply think their fanbase is comprised of individuals who do not want to be intellectually challenged while playing a game. This strategy will ultimately hurt Nintendo more than their harshest competitor will ever be able to.

Until that time comes, Phantom Hourglass will be one of the showcase entries in the Zelda franchise. It may not be particularly deep, but it is fun in ways recent Zelda games could only grasp in small doses. In the future, Nintendo does need to realize that quirky controls alone do not make a game innovative. The last two Zelda games have relied entirely on their new-fangled control schemes rather than push the gameplay further with actual innovation. Now that we have seen what a traditional Zelda game plays like with motion and touchscreen controls, I hope Nintendo tries something drastically different in the future. Fun is the most important part of gaming, but when so many titles offer a deeper experience on top of unbridled fun, it has become clear that Nintendo will need to evolve along with everyone else.