Joystiq's Top 10 of 2007: Super Mario Galaxy

by Ross Miller { Jan 1st 2008 at 12:00PM }

In the beginning there was Mario 128 and the world was without news. And the Spirit of Mario moved upon the face of galaxies. And Reggie Fils-Aime said, let there be a release date; and there was hype and critical acclaim. And we saw the copies and Toys R Us gift cards, and it was good.

And the Good Egg Galaxy and Flipswitch Galaxy were the first day. And we said, "This control scheme is alright." And we captured stars and struggled with the camera: and it was so. And we called the game fun.

And the Honeyhive Galaxy, Loopdeeloop Galaxy and Bowser Jr.'s Robot Reactor were the second day. And we said, Dear God please do we really have to use faulty controls and race through a crappy Wave Race clone to get one frackin' star? And we persevered through and got the star. And we said the Bee Suit was cute and honey climbing was fun. And the camera decided to change our flight path and we kept falling off the level; and we saw that it was frustrating.

And the entire set of Fountain levels were the third day. And we said, Let Mario learn better momentum so that he might not aimlessly fall off the stage when we clearly told him not to. And Mario said no, and proceeded to fall of anyways. And we said, Let the camera and control issues of yesterday not be a nuisance today. And Mario said "Weee!" and flung himself off a cliff again; and we saw that it was very frustrating.

And two more sets of galaxies were the fourth day. And the remaining galaxies were the fifth day. And we said, maybe we're being harsh because of the overwhelming amount of hype surrounding this game. And Mario said judge not lest Sunshine be judged again. And we laughed because the FLUDD backpack still looks funny. And we noticed that Mario had become another integral part of our lives, and that Galaxy had become a time sink for our social life; and we saw that it was still frustrating but also addictive.

And backtracking to find the missing stars was the sixth day. And we said to Hell with some of these one-star, minigame-fueled galaxies. And yet we kept playing them anyways; and we saw that it was an addiction and that it was fun.

And on the seventh day we ended that which we had played. And we blessed the seventh day, and remembered it, for it was the day in which we had seen the fun. And despite its imperfections, we realized it was a game worthy of the heralded Mario legacy. And, finally, we saw that it was good.

(Oh, you find splicing Mario and Genesis sacrilegious? Consider how we felt when Sonic ended up on a Nintendo platform.)