A nostalgic trip back to 1996 that makes the classic concepts even better.

User Rating: 9.5 | Super Mario Galaxy WII
So I went into Best Buy the other day, and I saw Super Mario Galaxy on the shelf. I thought to myself, "Hey, I was going to pre-order this. Guess I'll go over to Gamestop and do that" and headed for the door.

*blink*

"Wait, crap, it's OUT already? Well then! I guess I'm buying it!"

I figured it would be pretty good since it is, you know, Nintendo's pride and joy. But a whole slew of other games came out recently that got great ratings. Bioshock, Crysis, CoD4 etc. So I zipped the disc into my Wii with the hope of having fun until I wanted to get back to killing things with my rocket launcher in UTIII.

MAN, was I wrong.

Super Mario Galaxy is just about the best game I've played for a while on the Wii. Actually, it's the best game I've played in a while, period. NOTHING released in recent years can compare to this. Why is it so good?

It's classic Mario. It's a return to the Mario games before we had Mario Party 8 and Mario Hoops 3-on-3. It's the Mario that we all know and love, with the same "rescue that freaking Peach" storyline. But it's good. Because...

It's not Super Mario 64 DS. It's not a rehash in the SLIGHTEST. Sure, the story is basically the same. But the entire premise of the game involves walking around the surface of planets with some kind of non-Newtonian physics going on. Plus, the little things that older Mario fans will enjoy are the subtle things, like how Mario takes off his hat after "jumping out of a painting" and getting a star, and the music that's remixed to fit an appropriate scene.

I won't go on about how good it is, because you can find a much more in-depth analysis by a professional writer easily. But what makes the game so great is the time and effort that was put into making this Mario game take all the elements of a classic, and put an amazingly fun spin on it.