Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Wii
You can’t blame Nintendo for false advertising
They did call the game Super Mario Galaxy 2, after all. And that’s what you get—more of the same old Galaxy. Sure, there’s a Lugi tucked away here, and a Yoshi to ride there. And someone spent a lot of time working out all kinds of new little twists and turns in this already vertigo-inducing Galaxy. And if you haven’t played the original in a while, you’ll have a hard time figuring out if this game really offers anything new at all. Bowser’s got the princess and you can run around tiny planetoids and flip around in gravity-defying splendor. Again.
At its core, this is just another Mario game—a charming meditation on death set in exceedingly weird locations. Whether being chomped by a plant, fried by a fireball or simply falling for the umpteenth time from a dangerous ledge into some gaping black hole in space, Mario is still a little trooper who mindlessly collects coins and stars and mushrooms. And, yes, the Cloud Mario is cute—he can make puffy platforms! And the Rock Mario is neat—he can smash stuff! But what we really need is a Creative Mario to move the series forward boldly, where no game has gone before.