Once there was a fat pixilated plumber named, uh, Jumpman. Well, technically it was 1981 and he was a carpenter. But soon after saving his kidnapped girlfriend from that angry barrel-tossing ape Donkey Kong, he changed professions and got a first name--Mario, after Nintendo of America‘s Italian landlord--though he‘d still spend a lot of time, y'know, jumping and saving girlfriends.
Soon Nintendo's portly plumber got his own Joust-esque quarter-muncher Mario Bros (enter the lanky Luigi). But plumbers make house calls and it was the Mario boys super sequel, bundled with the original Nintendo Entertainment System (watch Bill O'Reilly's '80s news report!) which turned him into a star.
Mario long outlasted peers like Frogger and Q*Bert, with whom he co-starred in the cartoon Saturday Supercade before graduating to his own series The Super Mario Bros. Super Show featuring wrestling manager extraordinaire Cap’n Lou Albano as the live-action plumber. Bob Hoskins would take over the gig, alongside John Leguizamo as Luigi, on the big screen.
According to a recent poll, Mario is more recognizable to Canadians than our own prime minister Stephen Harper and more famous to Americans than Paris Hilton. But why, lo these many years, do we still care about a portly Japanese game mascot who would be no match for armour-clad Master Chief, cleavage-heaving Lara Croft or an underwater drill-wielding Big Daddy.
The reason is Mario’s games, the main platformer titles anyway, are among the most creative ever designed. Super Mario Bros invented the side-scroller and 1988’s Super Mario 3 (available via the Nintendo Wii’s “virtual console”) perfected it while Super Mario 64 pioneered 3D gaming (dude, you can totally walk into the TV) and last year’s New Super Mario Bros., for Nintendo DS, somehow made 80s game design feel cutting-edge.
That enviable streak continues with Super Mario Galaxy, which has quickly become the best reviewed game of all time. The usual surreal yet family-friendly aesthetic, mushroom-munching, coin-collecting and kidnapped princess are still present while the brightly-colored graphics, brainy puzzles and imaginative level layout hit a new high for the quarter-century-old series. And yes, the motion-sensitive controllers come into play--you shake it for spin kicks, aim it to shoot and tilt it to steer a manta ray.
But legendary creator Shigeru Miyamoto has once again revolutionized gaming by turning the 3D platformer upside down. Literally. There’s no edges to fall off, just a series of spherical planetoids to circumnavigate. As you jump about the universe, the galactic gameplay is almost entirely based on gravity--ceilings become floors, walls can be climbed sideways and there is much upside down movement.
Really, the way Mario Galaxy messes with physics must be played to be believed.