Galaxy vs. Sunshine

Hello my faithfull readers. A new month, a new blog. Apologies for not updating on the 1st, but I was offline, hiding from the Conficker Worm. It seems there was nothing to be afraid of, though, but whatever. All riiiight, let's kick this month off with the age old question: What's better? Mario Galaxy or... Mario Sunshine?!?Let's compare story. In Sunshine, you're going on vacation with Peach and teh toads to a tropical island. However upon arrival, you find that the once beatiful island has been polluted with sludge. The culprit that was seen spreading the grafitti with a paintbrush is disguised as Mario, and it's your job to clean up the island and solve the mystery of the shadow brush so you can clear your name.

In the end, you find out Bowser is behind the whole thing (surprise surprise) and for the final boss fight, you smash his hot tub into bits and dump him into the ocean. Kind of a disapointing final battle, but the ending cinematic makes beating the game worth it.

Galaxy - Princess Peach invites you to the castle and then is immediatly kidnapped by Bowser. After a failed attempt to save her, Mario is catapulted across the cosmos and lands on a tiny planet where he meets Rosalina. Rosalina takes Mario aboard her mobile Observatory and tells him to go collect some stars for fuel, so that the ship can travel to the center of the universe (where Bowser has Princess Peach imprisoned).

So after you collect enough Stars you fly to the center of the universe and fight Bow-sah. This final battle is extremely disapointing, not only because it's easy, but also because it's divided up into 3 stages which are all exactly the same. Not to mention, this is the same battle you were forced to go through earlier in the game. It gets a little repetitive. Then the ending cut scene is pretty lame, too. Mario, Peach, and Bowser wake up and their lying on the grass, then Mario smiles and shouts "Welcome to a New Galaxy". And that's it. Kind of a lame ending for such an epic game.

But what Galaxy lacks in story, it definatly makes up for in gameplay. Galaxy has some pretty ingenious puzzles in it and it's very satisfying to grab that power star at the end of each level because you feel like you've earned it. So hats off to you, Nintendo.

Sunshine has a completly different feel to it, in SMS (I'm just gonna use acronyms from now on) you wander around alot, ya' know? In SMG you almost feel like your on rails, you go from puzzle to puzzle. Which is fine, and you can still goof off with the gravity and stuff, but there isn't a whole lot of exploring.

For example, in Delfino Plaza, theres a whole lot of stuff to do. Little hidden secrets and st00f. With the Observatory in Galaxy, it's a different story. It's really just there for you to go to different levels which is, I think, what they were aiming for. So it works, but Plaza is definatly bettah.

Sunshine is probably the longer game, but all around, Galaxy is simply more fun. You can play it for hours nonstop!!111

Controls - Mario feels a little heavier in SMG, he'll kinda skid when you stop running. In SMS, he's really light. He'll bounce and run around easily. I'd hafta say I like SMS's feel more, but it really isn't that big o' a deal. When you actually get into the game, you don't really think of it.

I must say, though, I miss the dual analog sticks of the gamecube. Fixed camera kinda stinks, and there are a couple of times in SMG that I wish I could control the camera.

All in all I give this game a Galaxy-is-better-then-Sunshine out of 10. Thanks for reading.