It's review O' clock!

Since I've bought my Wii, I've felt like I haven't really been getting the most use out of the thing. I've got Wario Ware and Twilight Princess but for some reason I never really play them. Wario Ware is for a more party situation and Twilight Princess has annoyed me within the first few minutes, both with the art style and the gameplay (although I've since got over that). The Miis are hilarious but all the fun seemed to get milked out of that in the first few weeks. It seemed like my Wii was destined to be nothing more than a shiny Gamecube which we all only used to play Super Smash Bros Melee until Brawl comes out.

But then I bought Mario Galaxy, and realised that there was a sound reasoning behind me buying this console. Mario Galaxy is a wonderful game. It's not graphically impressive, it's nothing groundbreaking in the engine, but it is pure fun.
The hub world is a really nice environment that improves as you progress through the game. More and more areas light up and the whole place fills with Lumas, little star things that dance around looking cute. Other characters like toads and Luigi wander around, and the whole place feels very vibrant. The orchestra playing the background music also grows, making the music much more epic. From the hub world you can access the galaxies, or levels. The galaxies vary greatly, but most consist of separate planets with their own gravity fields.
The way gravity is used in this game is really inspiring. Like Braid uses time, Mario Galaxy uses gravity. Gravity can change in different areas, leading to platforming puzzles. The gravity gives a great twist to the gameplay. You get on a platform, it starts to move and dangerous objects are hurled at you for you to dodge. So far, so standard. But it's when you remember, hang on, i can stand on the underneath of this that it starts to get interesting.
The controls are pretty good too, given the constant changes in camera angles and directions Mario is actually facing. You simply press the way you want to be going, and ignore wherever might have been forwards beforehand.

Mario Galaxy is frankly inspiring in its gameplay and I'm hoping for more fun innovations from Nintendo in the future.