Okay, so yesterday I played the final version of Super Mario Galaxy at my local Gamestop. I must say that even though the game only comes out in about a week, this is going to be a freaking LONG wait after my brief play through of the game. I assure you, any skeptics who stick around this site need poke their heads into sites like IGN and Gamespot so they can see the game. And then they need to go see if their local Gamestop or EB Games is carrying it. I played it for about 20-30 minutes and got to the first star.

Initially you will select a new file and be treated to an introduction and a marvelous opening cutscene of Bowser's army of Doomships blowing up Toad Town Square, then lifting Peach's Castle out of the ground using a flying saucer (similar to Paper Mario). Mario manages to get onto the castle before it is lifted out of the ground, but in the stratosphere our good friend from Yoshi's Island Kamek blasts Mario off the castle and finds himself drifting onto a strange small moon-like planet.

This whole moon is essentially an introduction to the game; as there aren't any enemies or pitfalls present here. So first things first, the first (bleh, too many firsts :P) task is to catch these rabbits (that are really these star creatures called Lummas in different form) Super Mario 64 style (though I assure you, these guys are not nearly as annoying as Mips from SM64). After running around the moon catching the rabbits, they change back into Lummas (which can be seen on the boxart) and you are introduced to the new Princess of the Cosmos, Rosalina. She explains that Bowser has stolen the Power Stars and Grand Stars (yes, there are two types of stars to collect now, though these certainly appear to be fewer in numbers and I am not sure if they have a separate counter) that power her home, the Comment Observatory which acts as the central hub for Super Mario Galaxy.

Since the Comment Observatory is offline, the game throws you into an introductory level to get the first grand star. So I traveled through the brief level that was meant to get a feel for the game. Right off the bat, you will notice that the planets all have varying gravity. So on one planetoid, you'll find yourself not able to jump so high, and others allow you to piratically long jump the entire circumferences of the planet.
I won't give away any details here but will tell you from the short playtime in both the tutorial level and first world, the variety in this game is unmatched. Every single area and planet has something different about it. Some were grassy, others were metalic; I even found myself taking a warp-pipe inside one planet. Some were flat and others were really easy to fall off of. The gravity defying planatoids are nothing short of genius. The only problem I have is that I semi-spoiled the first 20 minutes of the game so some of that "Wow I've never seen anything like this before!" factor was taken away. Certainly I'll experience it again later on though.

My play through was all too short. I just want to play through more of the game now. Marvelous is the only word to describe it. Fantastic Gameplay, Amazing Music (and did I mention it's often orchestral too?), Excellent Level Design, Beautiful Visuals (artistically and technically), I don't see what else you wouldn't want from a Mario Game.

You.want.this.game

Any questions? I'll answer them.

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I hate this bloody game, for making my decision on which console to get nearly impossible.

Had this not existed, it'd been an easy win for the 360, but oh no, Nintendo had to make their bloody magical game with incredibly surreal worlds and such. :(

Yup, I especially noted the music in the videos too. It's really good, and I think I'll stop myself to listen every once in a while.

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I played a demo of this at GameStop as well. I sense GameSpot will give this a rating over 9................

*Oh god! This is so tempting....*

.................THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!!!!!!

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Got to play it over the weekend too, the full game, not some demo. Very nice indeed... it's gonna screw with a few heads trying to understand and work out the 360 degree nature of the puzzles and levels though ;)

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