Spanning over two-decades Mario has surely encountered every conceivable earthly scenario. So how do you unite Mario's World with a universe of possibilities? The answer is both singularly simple and humblingly inventive: Super Mario Galaxy.

Familiarity is a staple of the sequel, and even though the means may be different, controlling Mario is still as instinctive and intuitive as it was a decade ago. It's this familiarity that allow the opening minutes of the game to pass with only a pleasant warmth, as memories of Mario64 surface from the palimpsest of a decades worth of gaming. Even when Mario first tests his new spatial limits Galaxy is still only the mirror of 64. When Galaxy truly reveals itself, it is as an imposter: a game where Mario's routine surreality has been sordidly fused with worldly physics in impossible applications.

Galaxy represents freedom; not just in the sense that Mario soars through space, but freedom as a design ethos. Each galaxy Mario visits conforms to an aesthetic theme (the Toy Galaxy for example) but in extricating Mario from his planar platforming existence the developers have freed him from any binding rules. The gradual learning curve, which subtly re-wires the player's spatial awareness, soon accedes to bewildering gravitational concepts that astonishingly retain an elegant and precise control over Mario as he flips and 'yahoos' through the axes (a testament to Galaxy's automated camera). In fact, Galaxy's galaxies often curb expectation, fluidly shifting pace and direction when least expected: three-dimensions become two (an invigorating dynamic rather than throwaway homage) or a platform may twist vertiginously on an impossible axis to reveal a new planet.

The free-form approach to design has also allowed for experimentation and exploration of one-off ideas in the form of short, unique galaxies dotted around the universe. Although these may have a borrowed aesthetic, they employ unique play-mechanics (the inspired ball-rolling galaxy which requires players to hold the wii-remote like a joystick and tip it to roll Mario is just one of the wonderfully inventive examples). This attitude to design seems to have bypassed factors of time and expense (something many publishers would balk at) and is perhaps one of the more prestigious advantages that Nintendo can offer its developers.

Galaxy's core structure sidles with tradition, with a central hub (in the form a space-craft) providing Mario's means to tour the universe and collect one-hundred and twenty Stars. Where the structure becomes a little less conventional is in the way Galaxy spreads its content. Mario is able to confront the 'final boss' after collecting only half of the total Stars, and its at this point that the game could have ceased its liberal gifting of innovation and spectacle. But while in the former half of the game Mario leads players by the hand, the latter is certainly the obverse as Mario's pan-dimensional feats become ever more prodigious and varied - a standard which needs to be adopted across the industry. It is very easy to forgive Nintendo for areas of repeated game-play in the face of such overwhelming generosity.

If Mario64 set a precedent, not only for platform games, but for videogames in general then Mario Galaxy surely supercedes it in both technical and creative capacities. Nintendo clearly needed this to be a success, not just commercially but in the eyes of its longest-term fans, and Galaxy has been created from the very essence of the company's identity. Mario Galaxy is Nintendo. Nintendo is Mario Galaxy.

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