A super game

Heh… a few days into my supposed new “quantity over quality” paradigm, and prolific is probably the last word that comes to mind. In my defense, I did write a couple of entries on my work blog.

I pre-ordered Super Mario Galaxy today. The very extraordinary thing about this game is that it has been received with raptuous praise from all corners of the Internet – a perfect storm if you will. At the time of writing, metacritic gives it a 98% which is probably about the closest that the press will ever come to unanimous agreement on any one particular topic. This upper echelon of goodness is for once rightfully described as “universal acclaim” – a phrase that is often used (particularly about movies) but rarely true.

Rather amusingly, a Variety magazine reviewer dared to offer a contrary opinion, causing howls of derision from fans all over the shop.

Otherwise, the general sentiment is that Nintendo has once again managed to distill pure, unadulterated, child-like joy and pressed it onto a disc. As one member of the Ars Technica OpenForum said: “It’s so grand and enthusiastic, that it could make an emo kid smile and think tomorrow is going to be a better day.” Just don’t count on the press writing an article about how a videogame did some good in the world.