super mario gone third person shooter???
Gameplay/Story: To stick with his E rating and in order to not break off from his roots too much, they decide to throw you on an island covered in weird graffiti that mario is blamed for! you have to take a water hose thing called FLUDD in order to clean up the mess and find the imposter who is wrecking the island. The gameplay is basically like a Super Mario 64 2, but with a hose. The platforming elements are still in the game but you must now shoot the graffiti to make it go away. Stuff like that. All puzzles are in some way related to water and your hose. You can get add-ons to the hose such as the hover nossel, the turbo nossel in order to solve more puzzles. But they all still are centralized around the hose. This can make puzzles quite simple and they really don't take very much skill or brain power.
The hose is actually controlled quite easily and they do a very good job about implimenting it. You use the R trigger to shoot water and if you press lightly then the hose just shoots straight ahead of you. If you press the trigger in all the way, then you can aim the nossel but you can't move mario. Mario can still jump and slide and stuff like that from the 64 game too. This gives a pretty good control over mario.
The bad part is in the camera. Many games have been killed by awful camera's and this is one of them. If you push up against a wall the camera will become stuck behind that wall and you will hardly be able to see where you are going. This is a major problem throughout most of the game as you will often have jumping and climbing puzzles against walls.
Graphics: The graphics are much like an upgraded Mario 64. Aside from the slight upgrades onto the gamecube, nothing much has changed.
Sound: The sound effects are very realistic with many typical Mario sounds and realistic water effects. The music is somewhat annoying at times however and the voice-overs are sparse and repetitive.
Value: The game lasts a long time but isn't very hard. If you are a big fan of mario then this game will appeal to you. Otherwise stay away.