Believe the hype

Shigeru Miyamoto and his development team have no problem sending shock waves throughout the video-game industry. Back in 1996, they stunned us all by introducing true 3D platforming with "Super Mario 64." Now, 11 years later, the team's "Super Mario Galaxy" expands the boundaries even further, beyond the confines of pesky things such as gravity and space-time.\nI'll spare you the story line (as perfunctory as many Mario games have ever been) and join the choir in trying to explain what makes Miyamoto's latest creation so thrilling. As Mario searches the galaxy for power stars and his dearly beloved Peach, the sheer expansiveness of it all calls to mind that sense of awe when playing "Super Mario 64" for the first time, except 500 times more expansive. Unlike "Super Mario 64," where oftentimes each world you visited felt like it had been mapped from the same basic blueprint, each of the galaxies in "Super Mario Galaxy" (be they beaches, forests, moons or strewn bits of space junk) feels fresh and ripe for exploration.\nThe game also pushes the Wii to its graphical and control-scheme limits, something no other game for the console has yet managed to do. The WiiMote and Nunchuck, which in the past had a tendency to become unwieldy with some games, feels like the only logical method of controlling Mario now. Graphics-wise, when I bought the Wii I never expected my jaw to drop over rendered environments and big, bad boss battles, but I'm still having a hard time picking my jaw up off the floor. The superb music also deserves a mention, as it's the first fully-orchestrated soundtrack featured in a Mario or Zelda game, which is something fans have been clamoring for for years.\nSo to all you remaining Wii-doubters, if you have an opportunity to give "Super Mario Galaxy" a try, don't pass it up. You might just find yourself converted.