#34
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, 2007)
guessed by S.Peelman
The Nintendo Wii supported plenty of great games over its six year lifespan, but few could compete with Super Mario Galaxy, and its sequel Super Mario Galaxy 2, in terms of technical daring, level design, and pure fun. In Super Mario Galaxy, Mario for the first time has an extraterrestrial adventure, a jaunt among the stars that owes a lot to Super Mario 64, but which dwarfs it in size and scope. The developers at Nintendo EAD created for the game an innovative physics system and spherical platform engine that allows Mario to circumnavigate small planetoids, while a gravitational pull keeping him from flying off into space. Even more audacious than this mechanical underpinning is the collection of imaginative and diverse levels that populate the game, all of them brilliantly designed, paced, and packed with things to do, see, and collect. Super Mario Galaxy marks the first of five Super Mario games on my list.
