Two games have been incredibly important for the Wii this year, as well as utterly fantastic in their own right: Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy. Aside from their overall quality – Really, if you call yourself a gamer you owe it to yourself to play them – both games have acted as a brilliant manifesto on how to really use the Wii to its strengths.
As for Super Mario Galaxy, well, how can we accurately sum up that game without gurgling like excited and misty-eyed eight year olds on Christmas morning? It’s a truly beautiful game in aesthetic, ambience and design. It’s the most triumphant revitalisation the platform genre could ever have wanted and by all rights will have a massive knock-on effect on the industry next year and beyond. Similarly to Metroid, SMG knows how to use the Wiimote to blow the cobwebs out of old genres without drowning what made them great in the first place, and similarly similarly to Metroid, it’s a massive testament to what the Wii can produce graphically when approached with a bit of knowledge and design flair.
