The Average Gamer » Super Mario Galaxy 2

2011 BAFTA Award Nominations – Top Choices

Debbie Timmins (Weefz) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 21:15:05 +0000

The Video Game award nominations for the British Academy of Film and Televisual Arts (and video games) were released this week. Quite a few games received loads of nominations with Assassins Creed Brotherhood appearing in 7 categories, Heavy Rain and Call of Duty: Black Ops receiving 6 nominations each and Mass Effect 2 in the running for 5 awards.

As well as the 14 academy-chosen categories, there’s also the BAFTA Ones to Watch Award to celebrate outstanding Dare To Be Digital titles, and the GAME Award whch is shortlisted by a separate panel and chosen by public vote. You can read my thoughts on the GAME Award BAFTA 2011 nominations over at Zath.

Here are the categories for the 6 most-recognised games of last year:

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood:

Action
Artistic Achievement
Best Game
Gameplay
Multiplayer
Technical Innovation
Use of Audio

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Action
Artistic Achievement
Multiplayer
Story
Technical Innovation
Use of Audio

Heavy Rain:

Artistic Achievement
Best Game
Gameplay
Original Music
Story
Technical Innovation

Limbo:

Artistic Achievement
Best Game
Gameplay
Use of Audio

Mass Effect 2:

Artistic Achievement
Best Game
Gameplay
Original Music
Story

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best Game
Gameplay
Original Music
Technical Innovation

The full list of 2011 categories and nominations is available on the BAFTA video games website.

It’s worth noting that Red Dead Redemption isn’t included in any of the academy-voted categories. This isn’t an oversight; Rockstar declined to enter it this year for undisclosed reasons. RDR has been nominated for the BAFTA GAME Award, so you are able to vote for it over at BAFTAGAMEAward.com, if you are so inclined.

What do you think about the nominations? Is there a game you think has been overlooked or overrated?

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review (Wii)

Nick Silversides (CaptSkyRocket) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:50:46 +0000

It’s me, Mario! Yep, it’s time to play that friendly, Princess saving, astronautic plumber again in the sequel to the fantastic Super Mario Galaxy. But this time Mario is joined by Yoshi too. See, I like Yoshi. I find him a lot more interesting and useful than Luigi. In Super Mario Galaxy 2 Yoshi has loads of really great skills and assets, like his massive tongue and insatiable appetite. Yoshi can simply eat and poo (coins) his way through ~~levels~~ planets. He also sulks and runs off when Mario gets knocked off him, which looks very cute! Luigi, to be honest, is a less fat, green Mario with few skills. He certainly can’t poo stars for start. Boring. Yoshi for the win.

Nintendo has also pulled out all the stops by making Super Mario Galaxy 2 a real feast for the eyes, for a Wii game at least. I just love the whole concept of planets as levels. Especially the really tiny ones that you can scoot round really quickly. And just like the first game there are some really cool ways of using them. For instance, during one boss battle you have to drill through a small planet to hit the boss’s weak spot. Working out when to start drilling is the tricky part whilst being chased by a marauding boss, but fun all the same.

Nintendo has also improved the 2-player game which, to be honest, was poorly implemented in Super Mario Galaxy. The second player couldn’t really do anything, apart from watch and waste some star bits. Brilliant. But in Super Mario Galaxy 2 player 2 can attack, defend and activate items/bits of planets/be generally useful. Oh, yeah and still waste star bits. See, much more to do! Joking aside, when I was playing co-op with Weefz the game was a lot easier to play, especially the boss fights as we worked really well together.

Longevity wise the game is pretty big. So you are looking at 10+ hours game time for the basic plot (defeat Bowser, save Princess Peach). Obviously, you’ll be playing for quite a bit longer if you want to collect all the stars, some of which are a little bit tricky to find.

As you can tell by this review, I love this game. There are a few niggles though. Occasionally the planets, can be bloody annoying and very unforgiving, with some ninja reactions required. Secondly, it’s on the Wii. I know its a Wii game, but I do wish Nintendo would make a more powerful console as the mind boggles about how pretty Super Mario Galaxy 2 would be like on either the PS3 or the Xbox 360. As I’ve mentioned before, Super Mario Galaxy 2 does look good but it’s not anywhere near as stunning as say Uncharted 2: Among Thieves or Gears of War 2.

In summary, this is a great game. Go buy it!

Screenshots:

E3 Expo – Super Mario Galaxy 2 Trailer

Nick Silversides (CaptSkyRocket) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:31:24 +0000

Given Nintendo’s track record of churning out sequel upon sequel, it comes as no surprise what-so-ever that Super Mario Galaxy 2 is in the pipeline. However, the first Super Mario Galaxy game was really, really good. So much so I played it constantly until I’d finished it (and then never touched it again!).

On the basis of this latest trailer, we can expect pretty much more of the same but with added Yoshi. So, I’m pretty happy with that.