Super Mario never gets old, but as Nintendo's Wii is about to prove with Super Mario Galaxy, it sometimes gets very new. You'll run upside down within the gravitational fields of tiny planetoids, hurl yourself through space on the cosmic rays of blue dwarf stars, and trounce Bowser in a bid to rescue the Mushroom Kingdom from his evil clutches. You'll get to do all this while solving brain teasing puzzles, bashing behemoth bosses, and searching the celestial skies for mystery, magic and fun.
It seems like Mario sure has come a long way since his last adventure in Super Mario Sunshine, but is Super Mario Galaxy's starry sojourn a quantum leap beyond his last adventure or simply the next logical step? To answer these questions, we entered the dangerous waters of graphical comparison, and what we found astounded us. Indeed, Super Mario Galaxy is a great-looking game, but Super Mario Sunshine was too. While Galaxy may far surpass its predecessor in some areas, it's graphically part of the same Super Mario tradition; one that proves it's not the size of your graphical processor that matters, but what you butt-stomp with it.
Mario
Mario packed extra weight in Sunshine thanks to his handy water blaster called FLUDD - a strange device that let him clean poluted surfaces, stun enemies, sprint and briefly hover. In Galaxy, on the other hand, he has a tiny star called a luma, which grants him the power to spin punch, pelt enemies with star bits, soar through gravitational fields and not die from a lack of atmosphere. Most importantly, the luma lives in Mario's stomach, so he no longer looks like a wannabe ghost buster.
Mouse over the default Super Mario Sunshine screenshot to see the Super Mario Galaxy comparison image.
Space
We don't know what was going on in some of Sunshine's space levels. After all, you could simply look up at the night sky and see that there were no train tracks. Still, it's important to note that Sunshine's disembodied space levels provided the seeds for what would grow into an awesome new game devoted to the outer limits, Super Mario Galaxy.
Death
When Mario inexorably fell from the aforementioned space levels in Sunshine, he simply fell and fell, then we assume, fell some more. For all we know, he fell for five years before landing back in the Mushroom Kingdom, just in time for Super Mario Galaxy. Sunshine's deaths lacked closure, but Galaxy's do not, and closure comes in the form of giant black holes that suck Mario circularly into their fatal embrace, presumably squishing him into a fine Italian space paste. What a good-looking way to go.
Victory
Mario's alleged profession is plumber, but ever since Super Mario 64 he's been a dedicated star catcher. He always gets very excited when he finds one and even does little dances. In Sunshine, these are accompanied by the cryptic word "Shine!" On the other hand, Galaxy is super obvious with the message, "You got a star!" Neither one actually compliments you for defeating the giant boss or figuring out the tricky puzzle, but at least they both look nice and happy.
Stars
Speaking of stars, they employ brilliant lighting effects in both games. It's easy to just run up and grab 'em, but if you take a second, you'll notice that these heavenly bodies received quite a bit of graphical attention and care. Aside from their slick gold surfaces, each has a radiant halo, pierced with subtle beams of light and rainbow sparkles. Nintendo's art designers deserve a gold star.
Are you surprised by what you see or did you expect it all along? Come out of your turtle shell and tell us what you think!
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