Reviews as a whole are troublesome creatures.

Like anything written they are beholden to opinion and personal preference. So what I find entertaining others might see as tedious or frustrating. And aspects of a game that I despise might be the meat and potatoes to another. So I advise anyone reading anything I say in future articles to temper it with the knowledge that I am particular and to see past my opinions.

My review process happens after 10 hours of game play. If it can entertain me for that long then at least I got my money's worth and I will likely give it a healthy review.

Two days after its release, I picked up Super Mario Galaxy. I didn't pre-order this title because I wanted to hear the buzz about the title before committing any amount of cash to it. I normally purchase games in the "pre-played" state because it is a lot more economical.

But I felt compelled to purloin the newest Mario iteration because I have so little to do on my Wii. Third party games have been lack luster if you don't intend to bring it to parties every other day, and only two of the three proprietary series had released anything. And since I am not a fan of the FPS game on a console, Metriod was out.

When I started up my console I held witness to the worst part of this game, the Wii interface intro screen. Which any Wii owner can tell you is launch screen before the actual game launches. Now, Mario's voice normally is only modest levels of annoying. The Steven Baldwin of aggravation, not really bad, but not good either. But the creators of this game felt compelled to direct the voice of Mario to speak the title of the game as loudly and as high pitched as they could.

Once I was past this nerve smashing obstacle I was thrust right into the game.

I appreciate a game that doesn’t assume I am an idiot. It offers help if I am not finding my way, but assumes out right that I know how to use a directional control stick and "A" button. Being of the generation that could just reach the controls on the brand new Donkey Kong arcade machine, a Mario game comes pretty natural to me. So I was happy to see that hints were available by passing citizens but they never really made me stop to learn anything basic if I didn't want to.

Getting into the action was nearly immediate. That is not to say I didn't enjoy walking through a populated Mushroom Kingdom for the first time ever. There were houses, toad-type people, and all the things one would expect in a actual kingdom. So this was a delightful little bonus. Which became immediately irrelevant since all the important characters were abducted seconds later into space.

So the premise is that Bowser abducts Peach, which is a huge surprise. But this time he does it with the help of some as of yet unrevealed aliens. After my 10 hours I still don't know who the "actual threat" is, since Bowser has been playing second fiddle for the past 3 Mario games and seems incapable of real malevolence when the storyline gets deeper than the gravy bucket at Denney's. So some larger force has to be using him as a front man....I mean front monster.

After a cinematic and the inevitable fall from grace we are introduced to the orbiting gravity aspect of the game through a disguised tutorial and orienting test. Quickly segwaying into our main departure hub which all platformers feature these days. Basically that is what this is, a pure platformer. The true essence of simple puzzle solving and enemy stomping. There is really not a lot more to say about the play of the game beyond that. But that isn't a bad thing. When you buy a "Super Mario" game that is what you expect to get.

We don't expect a super deep and twisty storyline, and that is likely not going to happen. Though there is a nice story telling method through periodically released "storybook chapters" which add some back-story in a charming manner.

If I were forced to summarize the game in an easy to understand blurb I would put it like this. It is Mario 64 with a fully realized third dimension, good storyline, creative puzzles, endearing characters, no Yohsi (so far, hoping it will stay that way), and a visual style that utilizes the Wii’s limited graphical range very nicely. It is like going back to your favorite vacation spot after finding out that they threw out all the lame additions they put up since you last visited. Very comfortable.

At the very least you should rent this title, and anyone who liked Mario 64 or any of the traditional Mario series should buy this title.