Super Mario Galaxy 2 Impressions

It's clear that Nintendo got the message from its hardcore fans about its core franchises. The company has answered with not one but two new Mario platforming games today. Not only will New Super Mario Bros. be jumping from the DS to the Wii, but a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy is also under development. Nintendo showed us the first footage of the game at its E3 2009 press conference, and we were massively impressed with what we saw.

The first thing to note is that the game looks very similar to the original Galaxy in terms of style, with lots of galaxies to explore and stars to collect. The first new feature that we saw was a screw device that Mario can use to drill through planets. We also saw how Mario was able to turn the world black and white, and there was a section in which he was being chased by multiple shadow Marios. But most exciting of all was when Mario flew through space on the back of Yoshi, which we'll take as a guarantee that the green dinosaur will appear in the finished game.

As for the environments, we noted new snow levels and switches that can turn water into ice and back again. There were also planets with luscious plant life, literally overflowing with flowers and bushes for Mario to wade through. Other levels featured oversized goombas and Bullet Bill, and Mario himself will again be able to don the bee suit for short flights through the air.

The buzz in the GameSpot booth was tangible when this game was being shown, and it's fair to say that it's the one game that we're all looking forward to most from the presentation. Sadly, we've just had a quick look at the Nintendo booth here on the show floor, and it doesn't look as if the game is going to be playable at E3. However, we'll be pressing Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto in a roundtable later during the show, and we'll report back with any further details on the game.