Yet again, another Mario game in glorious 3D format. As you can probably guess from the name, the game is set in outer space. The object is to collect Power Stars, which can be aqquired through completing quests and defeating enemies. You do all this to rescue Princess Peach, who has been kidnapped by the dreaded, yet familiar Bowser. He steals the Power Stars from an observatory, that allows the watcher of the stars, Rosalina, to travel across the galaxy. Well what a great job she did of defending the stars.

So, as I said, you must aqquire these stars back, so you can travel further and further across the galaxy to get more stars, and eventually to reach Bowser and save Princess Peach. A common storyline, the whole hero rescues the damsal job. It gets me wondering, what is Bowser going to do with Peach? Why doesn't he just destroy Mario? And how come everytime he gets defeated in each of the games, he seems to return in another. Either it's obviously to give Nintendo the opportunity to capatilise on the Game Industry, probably the more likely, or Nintendo employed the wrong people to write their stories. We'll forgive them though. It's not the first time an evil character has returned numerous times.

Anyway, you must travel from each galaxy, landing on different planets within each galaxy, and completing each level on each planet. The difficult element is in the planets landscape. Some planets will have gaping black holes, and if you move the wrong way, one of your lives will be gone. There are simpler things like jumping over barriers, but the puzzles can become extremely challenging. One of the ideas is where Mario ends up on a ball, and you have to roll him along, without Mario rolling off anywhere throughout the whole level. New elements do exist in the levels then, it's not just recycled ideas from Nintendo.

The gravity in the game in the game is abit crazy, and fun! each object will have it's own gravitational pull, and if you jump towards it, depending on the strength of the pull, you can end up on that surface. As you walk around the small planets, you'll visually look upside down, but stay on the planet.

This is where things get confusing. The cameras in the game can become extremely tricky, and sometimes you can get lost entirely. This can make gameplay very difficult.

Hidden around levels, you can find lives and powerups, which can come in very handy, especially if you're doing terribly bad. These have featured in all the Mario games, yet they still seem as useful as the first game.

There is a multiplayer element in the game, though not Wi-Fi enabled. You can do the main game with another person, one of you controlling Mario, and the other shooting stars. Moves, such as Super jumps can be achieved by both players working together, which encourages team work, rather than an unwanted competitive element in a fun game like this. This is one game where it's the Humans vs the Computer.

None of the music in the game will be familiar, as it's all been written with a sci-fi theme in mind. The sounds that Mario makes whilst performing actions, is probably exactly the same as previous Mario games though, but you can't expect him to change his voice.

In conclusion, the game seems a toasty little pack of fun at first, until you realise that it immerses you in a whole new world, quite literally. The graphics are superb and continue Mario's cartoon style, the music suits previous titles, and although the game is completely different, it suits in very well in the Mario Series.

Game Rating:7/10