Poor Service and Strange Gameplay

Super Mario Galaxy was released yesterday, and since Toys R Us was offering a free $25 gift card with it, I decided that would be the ideal place to make the purchase.

The ad stated the game would be out by 5pm... apparently they meant to say it would be completely sold out by 5pm. There is only one TRU left in town, and it is over 15 miles away, so I called at 3pm to make sure they had the game before I spent a half hour driving out there. The lady that I spoke with confirmed that they put the game out, but when I asked if there were any copies left, she said "I don't know. I'm not in electronics." and promptly hung up.

That should have clued me in that I would not have a good experience with the store that day, but instead I hopped in my truck and drove across town to claim Nintendo's latest offering. I arrived to an endcap with a large header announcing the great deal on the game... and three empty shelves.

Surely they had more, right? With such a enticing deal, (even stating that it is limited to one per customer) they would surely ordered more than enough to meet expected demand... at least enough to get to their advertised deadline, right?

The other clerks standing around the game department were busy chatting with each other, so I approached the cashier, and waited for her to complete the transaction she was involved in. Before she finished ringing up that customer, she turned to me and asked "Do you need something?"

"Super Mario," I replied. And it was a good thing I meant the Galaxy game, because she didn't bother to get further specifications.

"Do you have a reservation?"

"No."

"Then we're sold out."

...

That was the tersest example of customer service I have been a part of. Generally, a slightly apologetic tone would be enough tide a customer's disappointment. "Sorry, we're all out. Could I interest you in a different game?" Nope, nope, none of that.

The stinger of that exchange was that they kept the reserved games in the glass case with all the other games directly in view of the public. Oh, we're not sold out, you just can't have any of these. Perhaps if I begged, I would have been allowed to sniff one.

I quickly left before I was asked if I wanted to buy unneeded batteries.

So, 30 miles, six bucks worth of gas, and an hour of my time later, I stopped by the Best Buy near my house to pick up the game. They had plenty.


The game is quite fun. I had a friend with me using the second remote to gather star dust and hold down enemies.. which sorta feels like cheating, but it's quite nice to have another player involved in a unique way without having to sacrifice screen area.

The gameplay is really smooth, and there are a few difficult stages early on, which was surprising. But the thing that stands out to me most is how incredibly weird every single new element is.

Is there really only two categories for game development these days: weird and violent? A lot of the game design reminded me more of the Katamari series rather than Super Mario's 8bit history.

Although, I did have some nostalgic glee with the inclusion of classic music scores and old levels being used as backgrounds.

But I wish Nintendo put more effort into the storytelling, at least try to explain some of the weirdness. At least have Mario acknowledge that this stuff is bizarre.

Like the entire Bee Mario aspect... They teach you how to use the (very limited) power of the bee mushroom, but they don't explain why there is a mushroom that turns you into bee. Yes, I know the mushroom power-up is a staple of the series (at least the 2-d versions), but why so many different mushrooms this time around? Why not a honeycomb? After all, it was a leaf that turned you Raccoon Mario. Is there a space-based pharmaceutical company mass producing all these mushroom varieties? Or are the designers just being lazy?

Also on high on the oddball scale: everything involving something star shaped. I can only describe Mario's celebration after scoring a Grand Star as zero-g frolicking. And those little star throw-pillow things really need to ask my permission before jumping into me.

Oh, and I'm not an astronomer, but it seems to me that what the call a "galaxy" is just a cluster of celestial chunks. Now, each level has a number of these "galaxy" stages, which are show orbiting a common spot, so I would call the level as a whole a "galaxy." Either way, there are a lot of galaxies in this game, so why isn't it called "Super Mario Galaxies?" Does George Lucas own the rights to the pluralized word? I suppose that is quite plausible.

I'm going to play some more. Surely they've used up all the weird in the beginning.