Comments on: Don't believe the hype: Super Mario Galaxy is not that great

It seems almost everyone has called Super Mario Galaxy the game to beat this generation. But if you ask Don Reisinger, the game doesn't live up to the hype.

[littletad]

Wow, don't believe this review

After carefully reading your review I can't help but wonder if your being remarkably arrogant by trying to "stand out" as a negative reviewer. Sure Super Mario Galaxy deserves criticism, it's not entirely perfect nor does it bring anything new to the platform genre. But reading your review, you'll notice that nearly everything you write is a subtle reference. There is absolutely no detail, except minor small points, in your review. No substance is present that supports your seemingly ridiculous bashing. As a matter of fact, here is your most compelling argument...

"I especially enjoyed running under planets and moving around and jumping was as simple and fun as it always has been."

Conclusion: This review needs some serious editing and evaluation. It's almost hard to believe you didn't write and play this game in under ten minutes.

[happy_hamster]

Wii Remote shakage.

I disagree with you on the use of the Wii remote in the game. What Nintendo has done is simply use the Wii remote shake motion as an additional button.

[tewcewl]

How can you call this game ugly?

How was this game ugly? It has one of the most stunning artwork and creative level design I've seen in a game in a long time. I estimate I'm about halfway through the game and it's been nothing but a visual joy for me.

And as for your distaste of the lack of voice dialogue: big deal. I don't mind it and I rather enjoy it, actually, running by the Toads and seeing what they're saying in a brief voice bubble. It means I don't have to stop by and listen to what they have to say.

[javidaco]

I agree, I love Mario, I don't like SMG

I was really looking forward to this game, I bought my Wii almost 9 months ago and I haven't played anything decent on it. I thought that SMG was going to change that but it didn't. I remember the day when I started playing Mario and was not able to stop, last week I was playing because I bought it, I was thinking OK as soon as I finish this level I'll go back to Call of Duty 4 or Halo. I'm very disappointed with the game.
Don't worry every time I said this lots of nintendo fans jumped on me and told me that I was a XBOX 360 lover, and you know what, yes I'm, I love gaming and the only console that is doing good games (I don't have a PS3, I will soon) is the 360.

[bgavinw]

Wii-mote action *is* fun

I must disagree about the Wii-mote. I think it is not forced on you and very subtle. I find the shaking to be fun, drawing me into the game rather than being a distraction. After playing about 10-15 hours so far, I find myself really enjoying going through the launch stars with the little shake and the spinning. The graphics, while certainly not HD, don't matter to me in a game like Mario because it's all about bright colors and cartoony characters, for a "light" gameplay experience. With a game like RE4 (which *was* amazing) you want the better graphics, but at the expense of quick gameplay. X360 excels at realistic FPS which I love, but sometimes its fun to just fire up the Wii and swing the remote a little bit and have some fun with the puzzles. In that sense, SMG is a hit, and the most fun I've had on the Wii.

[Huxle]

Damnit, Why Can't Anyone Take Criticism?

Primarily, I'd have to agree with a majority of this article. I've been a huge,
HUGE Mario fan for years, and Super Mario Galaxy fell far below my
expectations.

At first, I noticed many of these replies, I take that back, nearly every single
reply is a rebuttal from someone who obviously has a liking for Galaxy. As I
said, I've loved Mario since the beginning, but Galaxy DID NOT live up to the
hype. Obviously, many Nintendo fanboys and girls cannot take even the
smallest bit of criticism, and flagrantly disregard this review.

Sadly, this happens with too many Nintendo supporters. One review, not even
that critical of a review, is written, AND SINCE THIS REVIEW IS NOT
CHERISHING EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF SUPER MARIO GALAXY, YOU NINTENDO
FANBOYS GO ABSOLUTELY CRAZY. It is really sad to see the overall response
to an article providing a small amount of criticism, CONSTRUCTIVE criticism,
not to mention. I'd be really surprised to see how you all react to criticism in
real life, because from what I've seen too many people are overly sensitive.
Now, I'm not sure if your emotions have weakened by playing too much
Cooking Mama or Ant Bully, but you all need to learn how to accept an
opinion. In the author's opinion, he thinks Galaxy does not deserve to be
praised as the greatest game of all time. In response, the Nintendo loyalists
threaten his position after ONE bad, no, not even bad, a slighly criticizing,
review.

At this point in a video game lifestyle, I am so sick of fanboys and fangirls
blindly lashing out at anyone who says the slightest hint of anything negative
about their console or their console's games.

I am addressing this to the many, many fanboys around the world,
particualarly Wii fanboys, who need to get their heads out of their ásses and
look at a game from a neutral point of view. Too many people are willing to
blindly defend Nintendo with such alactricity that it makes me sick.

Super Mario Galaxy is a good game. In my opinion, Super Mario Galaxy is a
better game, but that's just my opinion, and by the looks of it, you Nintendo
fanboys will take this opinion, twist it, and call me a fanboy for not absolutely
loving Galaxy. Trust me, I've encountered this many times before. Xbox
fanboys going crazy when someone doesn't consider Halo 3 a godly game... it
happens all the time. You people need to wake up an realize that not all
games are perfect, and not all people see games as being perfect.

Right now, I'm on the Deep Dark Galaxy. It vaguely reminds me of some of
the beach scenes from Super Mario Sunshine, and that's why it is one of my
favorite Galaxies so far. Yet, when you look around the environment, the
detail is simple, much too simple for a game in late 2007, in my opinion. The
beach texture is very bare, when you go into first person and look at the
umbrellas, towels, and pirate ship, you can even see the pixels. To be
completely honest, I prefer the graphics in Super Mario Galaxy more, but yet
again, that's just my opinion.

[ej5]

Wii-mote for "mini-games and sports"???!!!???

I don't think the comment about the Wii-mote being useful in mini-games or sports games is valid. I have used the Wii-mote with the Legend of Zelda and found it to be fun and accurate. I have also used it with Transformers and while it is for the most part easy to use with that game, the buttons you need access to in battle are not well placed for easy reach.

In all, I find the Wii-mote and nunchuk to be innovative and fun - the biggest reason I bought a Wii.

[KleinJacob]

A Formal Reply to this Redonculous Article

Ive replied to this article here:

http://www.wiipals.net/Forum/showthread.php?p=171623#post171623

Weak sir.. weak.

[BlueJellyForever]

Alright, My opinion on your opinion...

At a certain point i view this article as biased opinion. Although I may be wrong... Anyways i have to say that you are right at some point, shaking the wiimote often is gimicky but some do find this aspect quite fun. You only shake the wiimote to make Mario spin, you use the wiimote to catch starbits and you use the wiimote in certain 'special' galaxies where as you must control a golfball in a golf court with the wiimote, turning the wii remote to the left will make the ball with mario on it turn left, etc... Some parts may be gimicky but some parts aren't. It is not completely gimicky, Please review that part of your - review... Another thing is that Mario cannot turn into a RE4 styled graphic, I mean can you imagine what would happen to mario? Mario is supposed to look comical, it has colorful graphics etc... It's the way mario was intended to be (or hopefully) The graphics, i have to say weren't that great, but this is because of the wii's power, which is indeed not that great... So you have to use the wii's greatest power as a 10 and check what mario galaxy stands as on that 'chart', many people said 10 some people said 9, i say 9. The Frames per second was GOOD it was at 60 FPS (or close to it... )

[qawwali3]

Incomplete review

Don, you're completely entitled to your stated opinions, and I won't argue
with that, as much as I disagree with you.

But even if you were right, I think a lot of people would be willing to live with
modest graphics, traditional controls, and lack of a storyline if the gameplay
is as incredible as it is in this game.

You completely glossed over gameplay (you know, the fun aspect) in your
review. The only time you discuss the gameplay is when you talk about
running around planets and jumping. Ok, right, we all know about that. But
that's about 1% of the game.

What about all the new powerups, level design, physics/mechanics, level
goals, etc? You have no opinion on this at all? How much did you actually
play the game before you wrote a review?

[kwahhn]

I didn't think SMG was that great either...

and my opinion has nothing to do with the graphics. I was just bored 90% of the time throughout the game.

-Graphics were good as far as Wii standards are concerned.

-Sound was great

-controls were good. I think the whole shake the wiimote is a bit overdone as well, but it didn't tick me off.

-gameplay, sorry, but I was bored

-story was terrible, but that doesn't bother me since plot isn't at the top of my priority list

I give SMG 8/10.

[jlbrown23]

Some Good Points

Although I liked SMG more than the reviewer, I do agree that it doesn't quite live up to its hype.

The comment about "lack of beauty" rings true for me. And to me that doesn't mean graphics power, but just an overall aesthetic sense. There was just some sort of WHOLENESS about the environment of SM64 & SMSS that I didn't get. The levels seems somehow sparse - I didn't get the same feeling of immersion and discovery that I did in past games.

I was also genuinely disappointed by the size & difficulty of the game. 15 worlds in SM64, 9 in SMSS, 6 in SMG. This might actually tie in to the lack of immersion I felt - everything sort of ended too soon. Which also ties in to the difficulty. With every other Mario game there wound up being some mind-bending, hair-pulling level somewhere in the game. Levels it took me 100+ lives to get through. And on top of it there were other levels that really tested me. But in this game I can't remember there being any levels that pushed me that hard, and I beat Bowser with ONE LIFE and only lost 1-2 health points.

All that being said, I do still think it was a great game. The weird gravity effects were a blast, and I will disagree with the complaints about how the controllers worked(I really liked this). In fact I think the biggest problem was that the basic design was SO good that it made the fact the game is too small all the more disappointing. You look and see how much MORE they could have done if they had fleshed out the worlds a little more and added another few galaxies.

[streettrash]

I couldnt agree more! I scoured the internet to find people who actually were dissapointed with SMG! I have been a nintendo fan since the NES and think that on every console they have had a handful of titles that always beat the competition thats why I could not wait for SMG and after a few hours playing it realised it wasnt so great. I did not like the level design (the gravity was a nice touch) but you never feel totally immersed in the game and craving to get back to it.
Once you completed one galaxy, the set up was the same for all the others...purple coins,cosmic race mario,luma appears etc etc! To me that was so lazy and there feels like the story develops no further. The same in the observatory where all the characters say pretty much the same thing all the way to the end. And this game was shockingly easy too!
If you want an awesome game to get lost in try twilight princess or metroid prime 3,Both way better than this.

[betinhobr]

Attention Hore

When there are only very positive reviews how do you manage to have some attention?

[x999x]

Don't Believe the Misinformation

To anyone worth their salt as a gamer let me point out the obvious here so that you can save your time reading through the author's drivel.

You can basically stop reading after this comment in the Review:

"In fact, to this day, I still consider Super Mario Sunshine to be one of the better games in the Mario franchise."

Miyamoto didn't even work on Sunshine, and it has been widely referred to as the worst in the series by reputable game critics next to Super Mario Bros. 2 which wasn't even an original Mario game in it's Japanese form. This is akin to preferring the CDI version of Zelda over the SNES version.

This was an extremely weak article, and the author has been blacklisted from my reading. Learn2Review, gather your facts, and support your statements with those facts, not rhetoric.

[MaxFusionX]

Mmmmm nope.

Not a complete review.

Just sounds like you're trying to get your internet 15 minutes of fame.

[Bacon_bitz]

Hype = attention

When there are very few - reviews out ya know they think "Hmm this game is getting positive attention so why don't I give it - attention It'll give me attention."

[JCFG89]

Sorry sir, nice try.

Acording to your very own gamespot, the game is a 9.5 AAA killer app that's runnig along with halo3, WiC, Crysis and the orange box for game of the year. Alex Navarro's review > Don-no-name resinger "opinion".

[Mr. Miyamoto]

Don't believe Cnet: Super Mario Galaxy is great

This is comparable to saying that Ocarina of Time "just wasn't long enough" and that it "didn't have good story development". You can try to say bad things about good games, but no one will listen.

[renger6002]

Strongly Disagree

I know everybody is entitled to their opinion... but sometimes when you state them as facts, it just annoys me a lot.
"Utter lack of beauty"? It has already been accepted that the Wii is not as strong as the 360 or the PS3. So when you go to play a Wii game, lower your standards,and don't just think about the technical aspects of the graphics. SMG looks better than some 360 games (not exaggerating, have you seen Gun?) and the artistic aspect of it is beautiful. It has some of the most imagination I have EVER seen in a video game, and is totally deserving of the title of one of the best games of all time. Forget just the best Mario adventure. It was difficult for me to keep reading after that point because I believe this article was just crap, but I did anyway, and I must say, you should be ashamed of misleading people because we both know you either haven't played the game, or you are lying about you opinion. If you actually believe what you are saying, then I feel sorry for you.

[Huxle]

I Agree, Renger Makes Sense

I agree, renger, SMG does look better than a lot of Xbox 360 games

[distant2nd]

Cnet - connection lost

the connection between cnet and video games is about as strong as Buddah is to Al Qaeda. Stop posting videogame reviews. Cnet is as PC biased as they come, and when they're not, they're worshiping Microsoft products. People are entitled to their opinion, but are to only broadcast it on the right forum. Go to gamespot and make a review, not on cnet.