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Super Mario Galaxy DS video a hoax
About ten days ago, we got our first glimpse of a video showing a downloadable, Nintendo DS version of Super Mario Galaxy, supposedly hidden inside the Wii version of the game. We watched with rapt attention as the shaky-cam footage showed Mario and Luigi jumping from the Wii to the DS using a previously unknown, hidden galaxy and the DS' WiFi download capabilities. We were surprised to see low-resolution versions of Mario and Luigi running around low-resolution versions of familiar Mario Galaxy levels. We were shocked and hopeful when the video promised each DS star would be redeemable for 10 Wii shop points.We weren't ready to definitively declare the video real or fake at the time, but now, after some digging, we're ready to set the record straight on this hoax. Read on for our evidence and thoughts on the matter.
Another week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 12/10-12/16
It's that time of the week again when we find out how the Wii and its games sold in Japan. While we really have no need to be worried about the hardware, certain unconfirmed numbers earlier this week did raise concerns about third-party software sales. So, how did the fair Wii fare in the land of the rising sun this week? Regarding hardware sales, the Wii just barely eked out in front of the PSP to take second place with 168,000 units sold, jumping up over 50,000 units from last week. As for the software, there's some good and bad news. Check after the break to see the numbers.
Wii Warm Up: A time for sober reflection
It's been just over a month since Super Mario Galaxy released in the U.S. and Europe, and we normally find that's enough time for us to be able to objectively stand back and view the aftermath of a game's true impact. Our question today is a simple one, then: is Galaxy really one of the best games of all time, a worthy title to be wrestling with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for that #1 spot on Game Rankings? Or would it -- shock, horror -- not even be your choice for GOTY? Speak out!
Miyamoto: 'Ratchet & Clank' who? Lombax what?
Coy or truly confused, Nintendo's maestro has disputed Insomniac's cry for attention, firmly denying that Super Mario Galaxy's spherical worlds were torn out of a page from the Sony developer's Ratchet & Clank book. Miyamoto claims he and the gang were working to disprove the 'games are flat' theory back on N64, when Insomniac was merely taking its first baby steps into the industry (and, Ludwig, years before Sonic Adventure 2 pulled off 'the rounded level' – FYI). "I'm sorry but I have to admit that I've never seen the game in question," Miyamoto told Official Nintendo Magazine UK when questioned about Ratchet & Clank, "Is it a PC game?"
Wii Warm Up: Recommended
If you're anything like us, people are constantly hitting you up for Wii game recommendations. And we don't necessarily mean other gamers, to whom you can squeal, "Metroid Prime 3 OMG," but often, these people aren't gamers at all. You can pass off Super Mario Galaxy, because nongamers get Mario, but what else do you recommend? How much do those recommendations differ from those you offer other hardened gamers?
Nintendo dominates Japan, makes money doing it
The Japanese sales numbers for the week ending 12/9 are in (via Famitsu), and there are some pretty notable things to point out regarding Wii sales: Wii Fit unsurprisingly takes the top spot, after impressively debuting at #2 in last week's charts Wii hardware sales continue to rise, as the system pushed 110,000 units for the week Super Mario Galaxy hit the 500,000 mark in Japan, showing that the game has legs All of these are good developments for Nintendo, we reckon, and keep in mind that we haven't even mentioned DS sales. The nitty gritty of the numbers and charts are listed, for your viewing pleasure, after the break.
Time magazine names Halo 3 game of the year
It's time for Time magazine and every other publication to start dropping their "top whatever" lists of the year. Taking the high honor this year from Time in video games for being "a pebble that has been rounded over the centuries by the gentle splashing of the ocean waves" is Halo 3. The magazine notes that Bungie has refined the series to the point of "pure, unadulterated gaming bliss," though we're a little lost when it calls Halo "graphically gorgeous." Still, it's Time -- we're not expecting too much accuracy from the mainstream press when it comes to video games lately.The next two spots on the Time list are held by The Orange Box and Rock Band, with both games getting their spots for presenting a bunch of things in one package. Rounding out the top five are Super Mario Galaxy and BioShock. With any luck, BioShock won't be missing from many mainstream lists just because it came out more than a month ago. Heck, we're hoping it doesn't get forgotten on a lot of industry lists.
Fan-made Mario Galaxy DS trailer almost fools us
Fan-made videos of this quality are few and far between, but the Super Mario Galaxy DS trailer we've embedded past the post break (for spoiler-related reasons, so be warned) is one of the most professionally produced we've seen to date. Judging by the user comments submitted in response to this over at GameTrailers, many viewers have been duped into believing this is a real game.Alas, it isn't, but it sure does get the old pulse racing.
Witness Super Mario Galaxy's deepest secrets
Super-super-super long jumps? Homing butt stomps? Freezing enemies with your best friend? All of these strategies are yours for the taking in Super Mario Galaxy! The spoiler-tastic video above shows off some neat tricks and glitches from Mario's latest 3D outing. Some are more useful than others, and at least one reveals one of the game's biggest surprises, so those who haven't completed Galaxy should click with caution.
Spoiler Mario Galaxy: tons of secrets revealed
Since we've marked this Super Mario Galaxy video as containing SPOILERS, we're fairly certain that none of you will watch it. Therefore, we can tell you things about the video that may or may not be true, like that it features a heartfelt tribute to Clu Clu Land, and you won't know for certain if we're lying. Did you know that you can subscribe to Famitsu via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, just by jumping into a certain pipe? We won't say which one. Actually (and don't kill us if you watch it and disagree) we find most of the tricks highlighted in the video to be of the non-spoiler variety. There is the occasional secret here and there, but mostly we see glitches and a few helpful moves that should have been in the instruction manual. We also see a few extremely obvious things regarding Star Bits, which probably are in the instruction manual. Is your fear of being spoiled more powerful than your curiosity? [Via GayGamer]
Mario Galaxy's Koizumi on getting stories into Mario games
Chris Kohler conducted a fascinating interview with Super Mario Galaxy director Yoshiaki Koizumi, in which Koizumi revealed the reason for the increase in storyline complexity through Mario (and Zelda) games: himself. He takes a different approach to storytelling in his games from the Miyamoto method, which he describes as providing "a goal" for action and not a narrative. "There's not necessarily a buildup and a resolution of a deeper kind, like you'd find in a novel. It's just a situation that motivates the players." Koizumi's interest in narrative, as contrasted with Miyamoto's sensibilities, has caused him to have to integrate story in unusual, yet organic ways, like the storybook-style presentation of Super Mario Galaxy.He got his start writing game narrative in a rather roundabout way: by writing instruction manuals. In the era of his first game (Link's Awakening), game developers didn't necessarily feel the need to motivate everything, leading explanations up to the people writing the manual. With no existing story in place, "...I ended up making an entire story to go along with the game. The dream, the island, that was all mine." We won't quote too much of it, because you should really go read the whole thing. Game developers are rarely this candid, and nobody ever talks this much about working day-to-day with Shigeru Miyamoto.
Super Mario Galaxies plays nothing like the real deal
We feel guilty whenever we put the spotlight on these half-baked homemade projects, partly because it's unfair to judge a game so early in production, and partly because we don't take enough time to feature the great homebrew work out there. Even so, we felt compelled to pick on Super Mario Galaxies, if nothing more than to contrast Cid2Mizard's release with the game it owes its namesake to. While Mario is definitely in an outer space setting -- evidenced by the spacesuit and the speckled black background -- and appears to be shooting star bits, the similarities between Super Mario Galaxies and Super Mario Galaxy end there. You won't find any 3D platforming, planet hopping, or manta riding in this homebrew release. That might be a lot to expect from a single programmer, but when a game is titled Super Mario Galaxies, it sets our expectations pretty high.Instead, Super Mario Galaxies is a simple shoot-em-up in which you dodge Bullet Bills and floating sprites that look like Care Bears riding Star Wars landspeeders. Knocking into the latter enemies decreases your life bar, but you can shoot star bits at them to put some numbers in your score. Running into one of the invincible Bullet Bills, however, gives you a Game Over. The game is actually more fun than you'd expect, and we could see ourselves playing it pretty often if it had more depth; just don't expect it to be anything like Super Mario Galaxy.[Via DCEmu]
MTV muses on gaming with girlfriends/boyfriends
Sharing is difficult. For those of us blessed with significant others who game, we know this all too well. When games become "ours" instead of "mine" or "yours" how do you go about sharing the gameplay? MTV copy editor Katie Byrne has been thinking about this exact same problem, specifically with reference to her and her boyfriend's shared save file on Super Mario Galaxy.Although things start well with sharing the game -- switching off every other planet, and dividing play-time equally -- the plan goes a bit haywire when she visits home for Thanksgiving, and her beau just keeps on playing... and beats the game without her.Of course, we think the answer is obvious: separate save files for separate people. Single-player games are hard to turn into shared experiences, especially when both parties desire equal play-time. Read about Katie's upsetting experience on gaming with a significant other, and share your own success/horror stories below.
Galaxy director Koizumi on how Mario became Galactic
Super Mario Galaxy director Yoshiaki Koizumi gave the keynote at this year's Montreal Games Summit, discussing the evolution of 3D Mario. He has unique perspective on this, having been not only a 3D animator, but also co-director of Super Mario 64, then director of Sunshine and now Galaxy. His portfolio also includes work on Link's Awakening and directing the fantastic Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat.It goes without saying that all the talk about the early development of Mario 64 is fascinating -- including descriptions of Miyamoto pantomiming certain movements for the animators -- but the really interesting part of the story is how the problems of 3D platforming influenced the design of Galaxy. The major problem? The camera.The world of Galaxy is, basically, a world free of walls. Without walls, backtracking is reduced, and sudden 180-degree camera movements become unnecessary. "We should tune the game so people can play without ever having to think about the camera," said Koizumi. An admirable goal -- awful cameras have just about sunk the Sonic series and countless other 3D platformers.
Super Mario Galaxy versus Super Mario Sunshine
This video is making its way around the internets, showing some of the similarities between Super Mario Galaxy and the GameCube's Super Mario Sunshine. We really never realized how similar the two were, but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of differences as well.Where do you think Galaxy separates itself most from Sunshine? Is it the gameplay, perhaps the music, or something else? Or do you think that they're just too alike for their own good?
GameTrailers compares Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Sunshine
Bad news, friends of the Lumas. After an extra week of reviews, Super Mario Galaxy has slipped to the number two spot on GameRankings, returning a certain ocarina-wielding Hylian to his long-held number one spot.To commemorate the super-duper astroplumber's brief stint as king of all videogames, GameTrailers has whipped up a graphical comparison between Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Sunshine, the last of the home console Mario games. It's common knowledge that the Wii is just two Gamecubes duct taped together, does this mean Galaxy equals two Sunshines? You tell us.
A year of Wii: The PAL verdict
Being a devotee of Nintendo in a PAL region is probably a bit like marriage (I'd urge you to stick with me here, because I've thought this analogy through for at least four minutes). For years, you slog away at the relationship, mildly irritated by the other person's foibles and imperfections, like that weird bumpy mole on their back, or how they noisily slurp soup, or how they insist on playing nothing but Keane during long car journeys.Then every so often, you have your disputes, arguing about the merits of Magnolia Eggshell and Cream Eggshell in the aisle of Lowe's. And sometimes, these disagreements might build up to something bigger in your mind, begin to fester, and perhaps you occasionally think, "Is this it? Is this the rest of my life?" But then, something strange happens -- every so often, the other person does something really fantastic, something that reminds you exactly why you got hitched in the first place, and why you settled on this individual as your soul mate. And suddenly, everything is well with the world, or at least until it's soup night again.The point of this long-winded comparison being: as a gamer in the UK, that pretty much sums up my relationship with Nintendo. For years now, PAL region gamers have often been treated fairly shabbily by Nintendo. I'll freely admit it doesn't take much too rile us -- we hardcore types are notoriously tough to please -- though Nintendo doesn't always help itself. Its insistence that we receive games or hardware late, or not at all, or borked ... well it's just plain infuriating is what it is. The prices, as well, leave a lot to be desired. And totally rad free gifts? Yea, forget about those.
Galaxy back down to #2 in all-time rankings, we burn our copies
Super Mario Galaxy's recent appearance at the top of the Game Rankings all-time pile has come to a swift end. Previously, the Mario romp had former champ The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time pinned against the ropes, thanks to an average review score that was just 0.3% higher than that of Zelda. But the fresh-faced pretender tired, and has now slipped back into second place, thanks to a recent flurry of new reviews. Will the plumber get another shot at the top spot? Barring a sudden deluge of perfect scores, probably not.On another note, it's nice to see the top three can all be played on the Wii.
Super Mario Galaxy sells 500k in its first week
Super Mario Galaxy's initial sales in Japan may have been a little disappointing, but that's not the case in the U.S. The game has sold 500,000 copies in its first week, which isn't too shabby of a debut for the portly plumber's newest escapade. Sure, the U.S. has a larger install base than Japan, meaning that the game should sell more, but even when put into context the U.S. sales for Super Mario Galaxy don't disappoint.According to George Harrison, NoA's senior vice president of marketing, Galaxy is both the fastest selling Wii and Mario game in the U.S. to-date. Furthermore, with the excellent reviews that the game has been receiving, it's not hard to believe that the game will sell even more for the holidays.We'll have to wait until February to see if Super Smash Bros. Brawl can dethrone Galaxy as the Wii's first week sales champ, but we certainly wouldn't be surprised (or upset) if it does. Even so, we decided to put a little Mario tribute video after the break.
You can buy the Club Nintendo SNES controller -- with money
Importers NCSX and Play-Asia are freeing us from the unavailability of awesome Japanese Club Nintendo exclusives -- presumably, by paying some Japanese people for theirs. Whatever methods they use to get these things, we cannot argue with the results. Because the result is the opportunity to preorder the Super Famicom Classic Controller.Both companies will ship the item in April (and the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack in January) in April, but NCSX is taking preorders right now for $30. We don't know when Play-Asia will open preorders or how much they will charge. All we know is this: YES. Who cares if it's a freebie for Club Nintendo members? We're just happy to have a shot at it.
