supermariogalaxy posts (Subscribe to this feed)
Nintendo, Starlight partner to help sick kids
by Jason Dobson 
{ Jun 25th 2008 at 8:20AM }
Video games are not always just about financial muscle and suffering the slings and arrows of fanboy-fueled drama. Sometimes, just sometimes, they're about making the world a better place. Such is the case today, as Nintendo has partnered with Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation to place Wii kiosks featuring such games as Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Sports in hospitals across both the US and Canada to help lift the spirits of seriously ill kids. The move echoes a similar effort by Microsoft last month, which saw the company link up with NHL vet Pat LaFontaine's foundation Companions in Courage to bring hundreds of Xbox 360 kiosks to children's hospitals in the US. According to a statement, Nintendo plans to manufacture some 1,250 new Fun Center kiosks as part of the partnership, with the charity hoping to have around 500 of these in hospitals by the end of 2008. The first pair of Fun Centers will be donated later today to the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles during what Nintendo describes as a Super Mario Galaxy-themed launch event, while Mario will also be on hand, no doubt to discourage Bowser from crashing the party.
Wii Warm Up: 2D remakes
by Eric Caoili { Feb 22nd 2008 at 9:00AM }
Yesterday's popular video demonstration of how Super Mario Galaxy would look on the SNES made us wish there really were 2D remakes of the 3D games we love. Wouldn't it be totally rad if Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 was recreated as a top-down shooter in the style of Medal of Honor: Infiltrator (GBA)? Or if Super Paper Mario was, uh ... Okay, so that example doesn't work.
What 3D titles, old and new, would you want to see turned into a 2D project?
Super Mario Galaxy receives Interactive Achievement Award
by David Hinkle { Feb 8th 2008 at 8:00PM }
Also, Nintendo ended up walking away with another award. The winner of Handheld Game of the Year was none other than The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. As for the other awards, none were for Nintendo or games on Nintendo platforms. So, you could probably care less.
Gallery: Super Mario Galaxy
Call of Duty 4 dubbed game of the year at Interactive Achievement Awards
by Ludwig Kietzmann { Feb 8th 2008 at 10:10AM }
The Orange Box's Portal made off with some shiny statuettes, as did fake instrument extravaganza, Rock Band. Super Mario Galaxy was deemed the best "adventure" game in absence of a "platformer" category (a sad commentary in itself), while Assassin's Creed got a hearty stab pat on the back for its fancy animation. The complete list of winners can be found after the break -- a list of whiners is sure to follow shortly.
Read [PDF link]
Super Mario Galaxy's unsung star talks player experience
by Eric Caoili { Feb 5th 2008 at 10:30AM }
When most gamers think of that sense of amazement the certain parts of Super Mario Galaxy seem to invoke, they attribute that moment to the Miyamoto touch, a direct result of the imaginative developer's attention and care. While it's a natural assumption to make, one shouldn't forget about Yoshiaki Koizumi, the director behind the critically-acclaimed platformer!In a recent interview with Next-Gen, Koizumi championed the importance of surprising players: "If you think about games only as a thing that you interact with, you're missing the possibility of immersion. The inspirations that I tend to draw on for that all come from real life itself. Hiking on a mountain and seeing a cave and thinking about what's inside -- it's that sense of wonder and excitement I want players to feel."
Well, we certainly had a lot of that with just the Gusty Garden Galaxy!
Gallery: Super Mario Galaxy
Wii serves over 5 million in Japan
by David Hinkle { Jan 23rd 2008 at 12:00PM }
A system is only so good as its games though, right? Well, in Japan the games pushing the Wii are Wii Sports (2.6 million copies sold as of now), Wii Play (2.1 million copies sold as of now), Mario Party 8 ( 1.1 million copies sold as of now) and Wii Fit (1.1 million copies sold as of now). Super Mario Galaxy comes in fifth place in the country, only selling a total of 843,961 copies.
Super Mario Galaxy gets a few GDCA nods
by David Hinkle { Jan 22nd 2008 at 8:00PM }
Overall, Super Mario Galaxy gets its hat tossed into two categories, although many* might consider them to be the best two categories: Best Game Design and Game of the Year. It's up against some tough competition, however, as undersea romp Bioshock and Portal, which has seemed to help pie's ugly cousin cake propel itself into the stratosphere of popularity, will undoubtedly give Mario a run for his coin (or stars).
Head past the break for all of the nominees.
Gallery: Super Mario Galaxy
Mario's balls have been around the galaxy and are on their way to you
by David Hinkle { Jan 8th 2008 at 8:00PM }
Of course, they won't be available until April of this year, so this is only an opportunity to preorder. Each set will cost $22, with a variety of different balls on offer.
Joystiq's Top 10 of 2007: Super Mario Galaxy
by Ross Miller { Jan 1st 2008 at 12:00PM }
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.
Jump Festa play sessions reveal new assist trophy, impressions
by David Hinkle { Dec 28th 2007 at 6:00PM }
Apparently, Rosalina from the Wii's current most-popular game will be making an appearance in the Wii's most-popular upcoming game. She's going to be an assist trophy, as one might imagine, so she won't be playable. However, it's nice to see another Nintendo character join the obscenely large roster of folks showing their faces in the upcoming game.
Other tidbits of worth from the time enjoying the demo at Jump Festa pertain to another assist trophy in Duster from Mother 3, the Sandbag actually existing as an item during fights and playable characters Kirby and the Pokémon Trainer, who plays like his N64 version and shouts the name of Pokémon he is using, respectively.
[Via Go Nintendo]
Expect SMG, RRR2, and more; pay less
by Eric Caoili { Dec 26th 2007 at 12:45PM }
Starting today until this Saturday, Target will have six of its Wii games for sale for only $37.00! As you can see from the list below, they're not all crap, either!- Super Mario Galaxy
- Rayman Raving Rabbids 2
- Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
- Need for Speed: Prostreet
- Madden NFL 08
- Smackdown vs Raw
[Thanks, Tofufa!]
NYTimes names Mass Effect game of the year
by Alexander Sliwinski { Dec 23rd 2007 at 6:25PM }
Speaking of unambitious, for the second time in less than a month the New York Times copyeditors took a nap (albeit a minor one) on a video game-related story, which is slowly becoming inappropriate in covering an $18 billion-plus industry. There's no telling when reporter Seth Schiesel submitted his copy for this piece, but E3 2008 was already confirmed for the Los Angeles Convention Center last Tuesday, so the article's suggestion that "the solution for [E3] next year can be summed up in one word (or is that two?): Las Vegas" is just about 1,000 New York minutes behind the times.
Iwata is named Person of the Year
by David Hinkle { Dec 20th 2007 at 6:00PM }
He isn't the only person from Nintendo to be recognized, however. Next-Gen's list encompasses 25 people from the industry, and other notable Nintendo folk include George Harrison and Yoshiaki Koizumi (the director behind Super Mario Galaxy).
Super Mario Galaxy DS video a hoax
by Kyle Orland { Dec 19th 2007 at 11:00PM }
About ten days ago, we got our first glimpse of a video showing a downloadable, Nintendo DS version of Super Mario Galaxy, supposedly hidden inside the Wii version of the game. We watched with rapt attention as the shaky-cam footage showed Mario and Luigi jumping from the Wii to the DS using a previously unknown, hidden galaxy and the DS' WiFi download capabilities. We were surprised to see low-resolution versions of Mario and Luigi running around low-resolution versions of familiar Mario Galaxy levels. We were shocked and hopeful when the video promised each DS star would be redeemable for 10 Wii shop points.
We weren't ready to definitively declare the video real or fake at the time, but now, after some digging, we're ready to set the record straight on this hoax. Read on for our evidence and thoughts on the matter.
Best of 2007: First-party games [update]
by David Hinkle { Dec 18th 2007 at 11:15AM }
