Unreal Tournament 3 (PC)

Unreal Tournament 3 probably shouldn't feel as fresh and as exciting as it does. When you get down to it, UT3 doesn't change a lot of the things that you liked about Unreal Tournament 2004. It's still the same fast-moving and action-oriented first-person shooter. Yet the game's new maps, the requisite graphical overhaul, and easy-to-understand gameplay modes all feel great. The way the shooter genre has changed over the three years since the previous game is also a factor. With most other games slowing things down and going for a more realistic, militaristic pace, UT3's hypercharged gameplay explodes out of the gate feeling refreshing and new.

The UT games have never been about single-player action, but like in the previous games, there is a campaign mode in UT3. It's a series of matches against bots wrapped around a basic but uneventful storyline. The big switch this time around is that Unreal Tournament is no longer a sport. Now it's war, and you play as a character on the hunt for revenge against an evil Necris woman who led an assault against unarmed civilians on your colony. You and the survivors of the attack join up with a corporation, fight to gain territory held by other corporations, and so on. It's little more than a five- to seven-hour training mode to help you get up to speed on the maps and the modes so you can go into multiplayer with a fighting chance. One cool addition is that you can play the campaign mode online with up to three other players. Although joining other humans to combat the artificial-intelligence-controlled bots isn't exactly the most fun you can have in this game, it's more compelling (and easier) when you're playing with other people. You can set the skill level of the bots, too. At the lowest setting, they're complete idiots that won't even bother to turn around and fight you if you start shooting them from behind. The highest setting, godlike, is appropriately stiff, though not entirely impossible. It's just tough to fight against opponents who rarely miss.

The maps you'll see in the single-player campaign are the same maps you'll see online, at least until the mod-making scene shifts into high gear. You'll get into matches using a typical PC-style server browser, but the game tries to keep you away from a full list of every server running by moving you through some console-game-style menus to filter down to the gametype you want to see. UT3 comes with six different modes of play. Deathmatch is the standard free-for-all battle. Team deathmatch, as you'd expect, breaks you up into two teams. Duel is a one-on-one mode where two players go at it while other players spectate. All three of these modes are played on the same set of deathmatch-friendly maps. UT3 also has a standard capture-the-flag mode, complete with the translocator, the teleporter gun that has made UT's take on CTF stand apart from most others. There's a new vehicle CTF mode, which takes the standard CTF concept and places it onto larger battlefields. As the name suggests, you have a number of vehicles that you can use toward your goal of grabbing the opposing team's flag and getting it back to your base. The largest mode is called warfare, and like onslaught mode before it, it's played on even bigger maps, with more vehicles.

Warfare is a node-based mode where each team has a base with a power core that needs to be damaged and destroyed for a victor to be declared. The power core is linked to other nodes at various spots in the map. You must push forward, capture nodes, and link them together until you've got your team's nodes linked to the opposing team's base. At that point, you can damage the enemy core and, ideally, blow up it for a victory. There's a ton of pushing and shoving back and forth across the map when two great teams square off, and it's also the most strategic mode. It differs from onslaught mode by offering secondary objectives, like unlinked nodes that can be captured to give a team forward spawn points and access to more vehicles and a countdown node that will occasionally drain energy from the enemy core if you control it. Each of the objective-based team modes comes with its own set of maps.

Overall, the map quality is high, with plenty of symmetrical, interesting level layouts for the objective-based modes. One deathmatch map, called Gateway, has multiple areas that look really different, all of which are linked together with portals. You'll also get a new remake of the classic Unreal map Deck. Furthermore, the Unreal mod community has always been pretty rabid, so you know it's just a matter of time before someone makes one of those "giant world" levels where you can hide in a sink drain and snipe people with an instagib shock rifle while they float down into the bottom of a bathtub. Yes, that's right, the instagib mode is also back in the game, along with a handful of other basic mutators you can use to make quick changes to any of the modes.

The weapons in Unreal Tournament 3 should be old hat to anyone familiar with the series. The shield gun has been ditched in favor of the impact hammer, and your default weapon is the slow-firing enforcer pistol, but beyond that, the weapon differences feel limited to minor balance changes. The bio rifle's gooey projectiles seem to do more damage, which makes it somewhat more useful. The secondary fire on the flak cannon seems as if it flies out at a slightly higher, slower arc, which forces you to make a few changes to how you aim. But again, the changes are minor. The rocket launcher can still lock on, the sniper rifle is still great fun for headshots, and the redeemer is still a huge missile that you can guide into targets to cause a nice, big blast that's handy in some of the larger vehicle CTF games. But when isn't a large explosion handy?

The other gameplay changes also feel relatively minor. Recent UT games have employed an adrenaline counter, which built up as you killed enemies or collected large pills around each level. When the meter was full, you could activate a special ability, such as invisibility or regeneration. This system isn't present in UT3. Also, the rules for double-jumping after a dodge move seem to have been altered a bit. Again, these are minor differences that don't really get in the way or drastically change the overall feel of the game, but they're noteworthy just the same. A more dramatic difference is the hoverboard, which is in vehicle CTF and warfare. The hoverboard lets you pick up a little more speed, which is useful on the larger battlefields. The catch is that getting hit while on your board knocks you over, which gives enemies more than enough time to finish you off as your character slowly arises from the ground. You can even do tricks while on the board, which isn't useful for gameplay purposes but is still totally rad.

Unreal Tournament 3 uses Unreal Engine 3, the same basic set of tools that powered Gears of War. As such, this is a really great-looking game on high-end machines. But even if your PC isn't top of the line, the game scales better than most, giving you a playable experience on midrange machines as well. But, of course, the game is at its best when you're exceeding the game's minimum requirements, in situations where you can run at a high resolution and still get a great frame rate. It supports widescreen resolutions, but playing in widescreen actually gives you a smaller view of the overall action, given that the game appears to cut off the top and bottom of the 4:3 view to fit it onto a wider monitor. UT3 certainly isn't the first PC game to have this problem, but given its highly competitive nature, cutting off parts of the screen seems to be a pretty bad solution.

The game's textures, character models, and animation are all top-notch when you've got everything turned up. Characters can be tweaked and modified using different torso pieces, shoulder plates, and more. The handful of levels that have running liquids in them have good-looking water effects, too. Overall, it's a very sharp-looking game if your machine can hang with its higher settings. The audio fits right in with what you'd expect a UT game to sound like. The music is high in energy, the explosions and gunfire sound great, and the character voices, which occasionally pipe up to taunt you when you get killed, fit right in as well. The announcer is appropriately loud and booming when calling off your head shots, killing sprees, and the like.

It's a very basic, straightforward package, but don't take that to mean that UT3 is a no-frills sequel. With its variety of modes and its occasionally crazy high-speed action, UT3 still feels very different than the typical first-person shooter coming out these days. On top of that, it's very exciting and just as much fun now as it has been in previous installments. UT3 has more than enough content to keep you busy, and with mod-making tools included in the package, the potential for more user-generated content in the future is certainly present.

Mass Effect (Xbox360)

Developer BioWare has always been at the forefront of progressive storytelling in games, so it's no surprise that Mass Effect's story is one of its best yet. It's got a unique take on the chase-the-bad-guy-across-the-universe plot, and just when you think you've got everything figured out, the game throws you yet another surprise. BioWare has created a politically charged universe with an exhaustive backstory and filled it with a bunch of interesting, multifaceted characters. Combined with an exciting and unique combat mechanic, it makes for a fun and absorbing experience that you'll want to see through to the end, just to see how everything turns out--even if the game isn't perfect by any means. In fact, it's surprising that so many small annoyances and glitches made their way into a game of such general high quality. Still, most players will be able to look past them and enjoy Mass Effect for what it is: A terrific role-playing game with great production values and fun, exciting action.

As in most role-playing games of this nature, you begin by customizing an avatar. You play as Commander Shepard, potential savior of the galaxy, but there's plenty of room to mold him or her as you see fit. Physical customization isn't as deep as you'll find in something like last year's Oblivion, but the system is relatively robust, letting you choose from a variety of preset features, and even letting you round everything off with a scar. Shouldn't every badass commander have one? Of course, you'll also choose a class. In this case, you've got six to choose from, each with various strengths in combat, tech, and biotics (Mass Effect's sci-fi equivalent of magic). More impressively, you will select a few autobiographical tidbits--and these choices aren't just for show. Through the course of the game, characters will refer to your past, and your resulting dialogue options will allow you to react to their comments with various degrees of humility, wistfulness, and scorn.

The narrative is pure space opera, yet there's no denying that BioWare has created a tale of surprising depth and appeal. Surprise number one: Humanity is not the political center of the universe. We don't have a seat on the galactic council, or even a representative on the Spectre squad, an elite group of special forces whose members are given wide berth to solve political and military challenges as they see fit. In the meantime, a Spectre has gone rogue, ransacking ancient artifacts and unleashing the violent, robotic Geth race on an unsuspecting galaxy. As Shepard, you pursue him across the Milky Way, visiting one alien world after another and discovering the fallen Spectre's intentions along the way. He isn't the best villain ever created: He disappears for the bulk of the game, which makes finding him feel less urgent than it should. Still, the journey to the game's exciting end is one worth taking.

In true BioWare fashion, you'll be navigating through loads of dialogue trees throughout the game, and how you respond can have life-or-death consequences--though you shouldn't take that to mean that you need to brood over every decision. Oftentimes, multiple choices have the same result, a somewhat transparent trick that makes it seem as though you have a lot more impact on the conversation than you really do. At important junctures, however, your decisions can affect how missions play out. You can turn friend to foe, console (or devastate) a suicide-attack victim, or exploit evil corporate executives for fun and profit. And it all plays out amid an intricate melodrama of political intrigue and racial prejudice, and in a galaxy populated by fascinating, complex characters. There are pages ripped from the Star Wars and Star Trek playbooks, certainly, but quirks such as the interesting speech patterns of the overly-formal Hanar alien race, or the nomadic structure of the Quarian flotilla--a galactic government that's always on the move--make Mass Effect's version of the Milky Way a unique one.

When navigating dialogue, you'll also be earning paragon or renegade points, which is the usual light-versus-dark system we've come to expect from the developer. Unlike in Knights of the Old Republic, however, your decisions here will not affect any abilities you have. However, the intricate relationship between the story and the game proper means that these decisions still affect gameplay--though that effect is usually an indirect one. More interestingly, your paragon and renegade meters are separate, rather than being at opposite sides of a single spectrum. It's a subtle but effective choice that lends itself to Mass Effect's shades-of-gray fiction, where light and dark aren't mutually exclusive.

The main quest starts you on a huge space station called the Citadel, but takes you across a small series of planets before reaching the game's exciting final moments. Not that you're stuck with the main story, since you can pick up a good number of side quests along the way. Some of them are simple and relatively self-contained, while others will send you across the galaxy to uncivilized planets and derelict spaceships. This involves bringing up your galactic map, selecting a destination system, and going planetside to kick some alien butt. There are multiple regions to choose from, and often multiple solar systems within them, but while that sounds intimidating, it's not nearly as mind-bogglingly huge as you would expect. In any given system, you can usually only land on one planet--and on each of these planets, there are usually only a few things to do before you get to your destination. More surprisingly, once you've finished the mission, there's never a reason to return. Aside from the annoying thresher maws (more on these later), there aren't any hostile indigenous creatures, so once you've dispatched your foes and scavenged for loot, it's time to move on.

When you first land on a planet, you drive around in a rover called the Mako. The thing's possibly the most resilient vehicle ever created in a game. You get dropped onto the surface from hundreds of feet in the air and drive up impossibly steep mountains without much difficulty. Too bad that the driving portions are undoubtedly the weakest of the game. The weird bouncy nature of the rover and the fact that gravity is the same on every world (even Earth's own moon) are both suspect issues, though they don't really affect gameplay.

The rocky planetary design and Mako combat mechanics can really be a downer when combined together. You can spray machine gun fire or launch shells at your foes, and it works fine, provided you are on the same level as your enemies. However, the Mako's turret, for whatever reason, can't move up or down. The result is that bullets don't necessarily land where your crosshair is, so if you're on higher terrain or your target is too close, those endless clips you're unloading are useless (though you can hit enemies above you without difficulty). It's sometimes maddening, since in many situations, the enemy base is nestled below you in a crevasse, and you're forced to either get in closer (often a death sentence in an area swarming with tough foes like the robotic Geth colossi), or get out and try to take on the toughest foes of the game on foot. Be careful if you get out of the Mako in areas like these though, since your adventuring party can slide into a deep valley and get stuck very easily, which forces you to either return to the Normandy (your ship) and return to the planet, or reload a saved game.

The other issue here is with the aforementioned thresher maws, which are sandworm-like beings that burst from the ground, spew deadly goo at you, submerge, and emerge elsewhere. These encounters can be really exciting, since the things are tough to take down and keep you on the move. The problem is that the game doesn't check on the Mako's position before respawning the thresher maw. Multiple times, we had the creature emerge from directly underneath us, which either resulted in an unavoidable insta-kill or getting stuck in the thresher's geometry while the camera jittered madly. That's just not fun, and you will find yourself avoiding flat expanses on planets just to avoid these problems.

Thankfully, on-foot combat is a lot of fun. You'll accumulate six total teammates, two of whom can accompany you on missions at any given time. They have a variety of talents, and each of them is special in his or her own way. There's a variety of guns to choose from, from pistols to shotguns to assault rifles, and each weapon can be outfitted with various upgrades that may increase stability, add scanners that bypass disrupted enemy radar, and more. You can also outfit special ammunition, though you always have unlimited ammo.

On top of that, some characters have magic-like powers called biotics to mess with. It's worth noting, however, that these powers are focused on manipulation rather than direct offense. You can push enemies back with the throw power (awesome to behold at higher levels), lift them in the air, or create a vortex that sucks enemies toward it (another great use of Mass Effect's fun combat physics). Engineers have some nice abilities as well, such as the ability to sabotage weapons from a distance, which makes your enemy's weapon explode, or the power to turn robotic enemies against your own foes. As a rule, your teammates aren't a liability, though they aren't governed by the most advanced artificial intelligence we've ever seen. But provided you micromanage them as described below, you'll not only be getting the most out of the experience, you won't be apt to notice any drawbacks to the AI.

The combat feels like it belongs in a third-person shooter at first, but if you continually approach it this way, you'll die. A lot. Like in many previous BioWare RPGs, you're meant to pause, survey the situation, and perform your actions. As long as you stick to that method, you'll find combat to be a lot easier than it first appears. You can set your party members to automate their actions, simply perform defensive powers on their own (the better choice), or only perform powers on your command. Holding the right bumper brings up the command wheel, which lets you assign orders to your companions, as well as perform your own abilities. You can also take cover behind walls or other objects, though this mechanic isn't all that helpful. Once you get into the groove, battles are rather enjoyable, with a flurry of bullets and biotic powers flying around. The joy of flinging the Geth around, filling them with shotgun shells, and watching them drop from the ceiling after lifting them in the air is a joy few RPGs can approximate.

The spoils of battle are always a fun reward for a job well done, and loot ramps up pretty well. You can also open up various lockers and containers for more loot, though it's best to level one of your party members in the decryption skill for the more difficult-to-open ones. To open locked containers, you have two equally odd choices: Either perform a minigame that resembles the overdone contextual button presses we've seen in far too many games of late, or smear omnigel on the container, which is an all-purpose goo that opens cabinets, repairs the Mako, and, we suspect, may also eliminate ring-around-the-collar. It sounds like a silly mechanic, but all things considered, it's a perfectly legitimate way of keeping the user engaged in the looting process, and it makes you feel like you earned the resulting spoils.

As you can imagine, you'll be doing a lot of fiddling with your inventory, what with all these weapons, upgrades, and party members to deal with, but this is another stumbling block that could have used some streamlining. The menu interface isn't terrible, though on its own, it's a bit clunky. But it's the little things that add up in a game that requires you to spend so much time in menu screens. First annoyance: In some menu screens, you can't hit a button simply to escape to the previous menu. For example, in the weapons upgrade menu, if you decide you don't want to make any changes, you can't just leave the menu--you have to choose something, even if it means scrolling to the top of the list and selecting the same upgrade you already had equipped. In other cases, such as when you convert an item to omnigel, the menu jumps back to the top of the list, which is vexing. You can't even deselect a power from the ability wheel in combat once you've chosen one. You can change the skill, but on the frequent occasion where you will want to change your mind after selection and not cast one at all, you're stuck wasting a skill and waiting for it to recharge.

Other problems rear their heads as well, such as the occasions when you or your party members get trapped on level geometry, which forces you to reload your last save. But you'll be apt to forgive them in light of the depth and variety to be found here. It's fun to get to know your crew, conduct a clandestine romance, or turn Shepard into a hard-line exclusionary (or a racially sensitive diplomat). You could finish a fairly complete play-through in 40 hours--standard for a role-playing game--but there's enough contextual content to make it worth a second play, if only to explore your renegade side, try out other romance options, or see another of the multiple endings. On the other hand, if you ignored the side quests and stuck with just the main storyline, you could be done in 15 hours or less.

Mass Effect's visuals are excellent. Facial animations are among the best in gaming: Characters move their lips believably with the dialogue, further expressing themselves with subtle tilts of the head or with a slight raise of the eyebrows. Character models are beautifully detailed, such as with your Krogan teammate Wrex, whose every wrinkle and ridge is carefully textured and molded. There are some technical hitches, however. The framerate can dramatically dip at the worst possible times, and there is a lot of texture pop-in. There are also frequent load times--some of them hidden by elevator rides, others popping up in the midst of exploration. Nevertheless, Mass Effect looks wonderful. From an artistic perspective, the game looks great, if not quite original. Planet outposts tend to use only one of two interior layouts, and environments owe a lot to games and films of the past (much of the game's look wouldn't be out of place in a Halo title). But even with the obvious inspirations, Mass Effect still conveys its vision clearly, thanks to meticulous character designs and dramatic set pieces, such as the Citadel itself.

It's also one of the best-acted games in recent memory. An all-star cast including such well-known actors as Fred Tatasciore and Seth Green bring Mass Effect's characters to brilliant life. Not once will a drab line delivery or overzealous histrionics get in the way of your immersion. The soundtrack is evocative, with just the right amount of sci-fi shimmering to round out the occasional symphonic swelling. Sound effects are great across the board, from the robotic yammering of the Geth to the din of a planetary blizzard filling the room with its high-powered whooshing.

All told, Mass Effect is a great game with moments of brilliance and a number of small but significant obstacles that hold it back from reaching its true potential. But in the end, if you like RPGs and want to spend some time in an absorbing sci-world populated with a bunch of unique inhabitants, you'll definitely have plenty of fun with this one.

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Here is the game that Wii owners have been pining for, a game that has tons of appeal for both the less experienced player and the longtime gamer. A game that deftly combines accessibility and challenge, all wrapped up in a package that's both deep and addictive. Super Mario Galaxy is all of this and more. It is simultaneously one of Mario's best adventures and a game that doesn't require fandom of the portly plumber's previous engagements to appreciate. The sheer quality of Mario Galaxy's wonderful level designs, tight controls, and brilliant presentation is the sort of thing that just about anyone who loves gaming should be able to appreciate, and that many will fall head-over-heels for.

The premise for Mario Galaxy begins in fairly well-worn territory. Mario receives a note from his beloved Peach to come to the castle, for she has a special "gift" for him. He arrives, only to walk straight into chaos as Bowser and son arrive in a fleet of airships and use a giant UFO to pluck the Princess' castle right out of the ground. Mario gives chase, but is unable to rescue her before the fearsome twosome jet off into space. This all certainly sounds par for the course, but it's where Mario ends up that gives Mario Galaxy its own flavor. Mario eventually hooks up with a creature called a luma, from a race that looks like some kind of cross between an invincibility star and a headless chicken. The lumas are led by an enigmatic woman named Rosalina, who lives with them on a crazy spaceship called the comet observatory. Mario learns that Bowser has made off with a gaggle of power stars used to power the observatory. To reach Bowser's hideout, Mario has to travel to all the various galaxies in the universe to collect as many power stars as he can in order to power the ship back up, fly to the center of the universe, rescue the princess, and set everything right again.

Mario 64, anyone? If you played that seminal game, Mario Galaxy's star hunt progression probably sounds familiar to you. But apart from that basic structuring, you can hardly call Mario Galaxy a Mario 64 rehash. If anything, Mario Galaxy simply takes the basics of what made Mario 64 such a dynamite game, and turns them completely crazy.

The definition of crazy here has a lot to do with gravity and physics. Each galaxy contains a series of little worlds that can't even really be called planets so much as they are floating puzzles. In many of these worlds, Mario can walk just about anywhere. When he lands on a sphere, he can walk all over it, going sideways and upside down in the process. Sometimes you'll simply jump in one area and end up gravitating toward the ceiling or walls or even another nearby planetoid without even realizing it. Often Mario will need to track down launch stars, which, when you shake the Wii Remote while standing near or inside one, will send you flying to a whole new, previously inaccessible area. There are even sections where you'll be floating through space, using specialized pull stars to hop from area to area, all while floating through the spatial void.

Practically every galaxy you explore is an absolute joy to experience. The level designs here are top flight in every regard, with tons of clever and sometimes dastardly traps and puzzles for Mario to navigate. The difficulty doesn't start off terribly high, but as time goes on, the game ramps up nicely, building the challenge steadily until the final areas, which, though perhaps a bit frustrating to inexperienced players, provides the exact sort of tough workout you've come to expect from a Mario adventure. But even aside from the challenge level, simply exploring all these various galaxies is half the fun. Whether you're floating from land mass to land mass on a giant spinning flower, running frantically around a giant series of platforms that shrink to nothing the first time you touch them, or taking on one of several terrific 2D side-scrolling areas reminiscent of New Super Mario Bros. for the DS, you won't be wanting for variety while playing through Galaxy's dozens of levels.

In a sort of nod to the suit-happy gameplay of Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario can don a number of different costumes that give him new abilities. For instance, in several levels, Mario can take on the abilities of a bee, buzzing around through the air via his new pair of wings, and wall-climbing specific honeycombed areas of the environment. With others, Mario can freeze water to walk over it, launch fireballs (natch), fly, wrap himself in a Mario-sized spring and jump to great heights, turn invincible (natch, again) and even turn into one of those pesky boos, allowing him to float around and pass through some solid walls. In most cases, the game takes great advantage of these abilities in the context of each level. A few involving the bee suit are a bit frustrating (given that you lose the suit when you touch water) and the spring suit is kind of a pain to control given Mario's perpetual bounciness, but otherwise, these abilities add a great dimension to the already excellent gameplay.

Apart from the screwiness of the spring suit, there's very little issue to be taken with Mario Galaxy's controls. At its core, it controls much as Mario 64 did, but with a couple of Wii-centric twists. For one, Mario's primary attack is a basic spin move (the same spin move you use to activate launch stars). Simply shaking the Wii Remote engages the spin, and it's an extremely responsive mechanic. The one trick to it is that you have to wait a second before spinning again, so you want to make sure you're able to get away from whatever bad guy is nearby if you happen to miss.

The other key change is the addition of the Wii Remote as a pointer. Simply by pointing at them on the screen you'll collect star bits, which can be found just about everywhere and serve as both Super Mario Galaxy's currency and as a weapon. Firing star bits is as simple as aiming the Wii Remote at an enemy and pressing B to launch. But you don't want to fire off too many of those, as they come in handy for unlocking new stages later on. Only in a few specific cases does the game really dabble in true motion control, such as sections where you're surfing on a manta ray or walking on a boulder. But even these few divergences from the standard gameplay formula are largely successful and quite fun.

Mario Galaxy's journey is scattered and epic all at once. There isn't much of a thread tying together all these disparate worlds, apart from the fact that they have power stars hidden within them somewhere. And yet, at the same time, the lack of cohesion in what you're doing never really gets in the way of your enjoyment of it. Because each level is so much an island unto itself, it actually makes each one stand out all the more.

It helps that practically every stage in the game has a great deal of replayability purely on its own merits. These levels are just inherently fun to go back to again and again, and that the game gives you plenty of reason to is even better. Once you complete an area, you can go back and engage in a specialized version of it in certain cases. Essentially, comets will enter orbit in some of these galaxies, and thus change the way you play in some bizarre way. Whether it's speeding up all the enemies in an area, putting you on a timed run, or having you race against a doppelganger Mario, there's a nice variety of change-ups to experience. The adventure probably won't take you more than 12 to 15 hours if you just collect the minimum number of stars necessary to get to the end level, but you can certainly tack on a great deal more to that if you're into going back and collecting all the stars. And if you want to unlock the game's neat end surprise, you'll need to get all of them.

There is even a multiplayer component to the game, albeit a limited one. Another player can point their Wii Remote at the screen and take part in some of the basic fun, like collecting star bits, shooting star bits, and the like. You can even directly assist Mario by pointing at him and pressing A at the same time as your friend to make him do a super jump, and stop certain enemies from attacking by highlighting them with the pointer. It's not the most involved co-op mode you'll ever experience, but it can be fun if you've got someone enthusiastic alongside you.

As wonderful as Mario Galaxy's gameplay is, its graphics are even better. There simply isn't a better-looking Wii game available. A great deal of credit is due to the art design, which is simply phenomenal. The character designs, level details, animations, all of it is incredibly colorful and vibrant, and just a joy to look at. The technical engine does its part as well, keeping the frame rate drops to minor, infrequent bouts. One area especially worth noting is the game's camera, which takes a largely cinematic perspective, albeit with a limited amount of player control. You can adjust it right or left in certain areas, and go to a first-person view if you just want to look around. There are a few areas where the camera prevents you from seeing things perfectly, but mostly it does an excellent job of framing the action, especially considering all the kooky perspective shifting the game does as you run around these oddball environments. The only thing that's kind of a bummer is that you'll undoubtedly wish at some point while playing that the Wii could support resolutions higher than 480p; but even with the limited resolution, the game just looks beautiful.

Audio is also excellent, thanks largely to the top-notch soundtrack. Much of the music is made up of classic Mario tunes from a wide variety of different games, and it's all modernized and orchestrated. These are some of the best renditions of these tracks since the originals, and you're sure to be humming along as you play. There's little voice work in the game, but the few voice samples that are there are used to nice effect. It's probably better to just hear Bowser snarling than it is to hear him being a chatty Cathy, anyway. The sound effects are a touch on the shrill side at times, but the bulk of them fit the vibe of each stage nicely.

When all is said and done, the thing that really makes Super Mario Galaxy such a standout game isn't the fact that it's another Mario game, but the fact that it doesn't even need to be a Mario game to be successful. Sure, it's got all the nostalgic flavor Mario fans would want, with the updated soundtrack, familiar foes, and various other Mario-related bric-a-brac scattered throughout the adventure, but the game never leans on these nostalgic aspects as a crutch. It instead puts the whole of its focus on its gameplay design, and with good reason. You could probably swap in just about any other characters from practically any other franchise, and this would still be a phenomenally fun game. That it layers all these memorable characters and components on top of that phenomenal design just makes it all the sweeter. If ever there were a must-own Wii game, Super Mario Galaxy is it.