Shigeru Miyamoto did show something new during his keynote at GDC. A new trailer for Super Mario Galaxy was shown. In an older trailer, I was amazed when Mario ran around a perspex-like planet, then to my surprise, hopped right into its core, and just carried on. The thing that's quite apparent, and that I really like about both SMG and Super Paper Mario, is how they seem specifically designed to provoke thought on how gameplay experiences can surprise and challenge the player to try new ways to overcome problems. (In a similar vein perhaps, though using a different approach, to Valve's Portal.)

I'm concerned that SMG may be too easy, while SPM seems to be potentially quite confusing..."I have to switch to 3d mode to get round this, then 2d to show myself running along the background", er, ok.

But both look like they're good experiences. There's also a new Paper Mario trailer thereabouts. In the Galaxy clip, Mario's shown doing lots of different tasks, across the various globes, and it really gets you thinking when you first see that world tip, and he's running, with the enemies still chasing, around the circumference of the sphere! There are lots of different shapes, with spherical only being a single example, and the gameplay's actually actively revolving around the planetoids.

Anyway, both seem like cool titles to me, but what do you make of the footage(s) and what Nintendo looks to be trying to do? Are these games likely to spend long in your Wii?

As far as Super Mario Galaxy goes, it does seem to be pretty easy, but perhaps this is because the person playing it was probably a game tester or someone who's gotten to play a more finalized version of the game and so therefore knows all the tricks and techniques. I will tell you this, however: It looks f-ing sweet. The sheer scope astounds me.

As far as that Super Paper Mario game, it seems interesting, but there's really not much there that excites my interest. The one thing I liked about the Paper Mario games was the art style it had, but really, the platforming gameplay was barely a feature... I'm not sure what else they have in store for players beyond stuff that's already been done on the Gameboy Advance or DS in some way or another.

this game looks so nice in every way

we can all agree with that

Nice to see the worlds are bigger and more "Classic"