Reading about the latest release of the Dolphin emulator recently inspired me to drag my Wii out of storage in order to rip a few of my games (which turned out to be an interesting process in itself).
First cab off the rank was Super Mario Galaxy, the game that pretty much sold me on the console in the first place, and boy is this thing a treat to revisit on PC. Nintendo's art-over-tech philosophy pays off in spades here, with the game looking absolutely stellar (pun intended) in 1080p with the benefit of higher-end effects like anti-aliasing and downsampling. It may not be cutting edge, but this would still be an extremely handsome game on current-gen consoles.
In a move that may shock and disturb console gamers, I'm actually playing this thing on Keyboard and Mouse. My preference would've been my Xbox One controller, but the regular use of pointer controls in Galaxy made that option more trouble than it was worth. I've settled on mouse for pointing, LMB and RMB for jump and spin respectively, with MMB for shooting starbits and WASD/Shift on the keyboard for movement and butt-stomping. It sounds like a nightmare, but 30 stars in and I'm finding it works pretty well.
Shutting up about technical stuff for a moment, the game itself is obviously still fantastic. It's actually probably my favourite Mario game all told, partly because it's just a mechanically and artistically fantastic title, but also in large part because it gets the balance of new vs old just right. I've often felt that Nintendo can lean a bit hard on their classic iconography with their core franchises, but Galaxy I feel strikes just the right middle point between including the things we expect of Mario, while adding tons of fresh content to give the whole package a wonderful feeling of "newness".
The worlds exhibit tons of character and variety in both design and mechanics, making great use of the Wii's hardware gimmicks while not straying too far from the excellent 3D platforming staples. The game is also my favourite Nintendo title from an audio perspective, with some absolutely outstanding tracks and sounds that stand apart from any other Mario game. That dedication to sounding distinct is one of my favourite things it does, and when you get those little snippets of classic tunes popping up they're all the more effective for it.
I'll also say that the team behind Dolphin deserve some mad kudos. The game runs pretty much flawlessly on my machine and the setup is super easy. Having the pointer functionality mapped to a mouse makes the game feel almost like a PC port at times.
So, that's about it! Anyone else revisit this one recently?
First cab off the rank was Super Mario Galaxy, the game that pretty much sold me on the console in the first place, and boy is this thing a treat to revisit on PC. Nintendo's art-over-tech philosophy pays off in spades here, with the game looking absolutely stellar (pun intended) in 1080p with the benefit of higher-end effects like anti-aliasing and downsampling. It may not be cutting edge, but this would still be an extremely handsome game on current-gen consoles.
In a move that may shock and disturb console gamers, I'm actually playing this thing on Keyboard and Mouse. My preference would've been my Xbox One controller, but the regular use of pointer controls in Galaxy made that option more trouble than it was worth. I've settled on mouse for pointing, LMB and RMB for jump and spin respectively, with MMB for shooting starbits and WASD/Shift on the keyboard for movement and butt-stomping. It sounds like a nightmare, but 30 stars in and I'm finding it works pretty well.
Shutting up about technical stuff for a moment, the game itself is obviously still fantastic. It's actually probably my favourite Mario game all told, partly because it's just a mechanically and artistically fantastic title, but also in large part because it gets the balance of new vs old just right. I've often felt that Nintendo can lean a bit hard on their classic iconography with their core franchises, but Galaxy I feel strikes just the right middle point between including the things we expect of Mario, while adding tons of fresh content to give the whole package a wonderful feeling of "newness".
The worlds exhibit tons of character and variety in both design and mechanics, making great use of the Wii's hardware gimmicks while not straying too far from the excellent 3D platforming staples. The game is also my favourite Nintendo title from an audio perspective, with some absolutely outstanding tracks and sounds that stand apart from any other Mario game. That dedication to sounding distinct is one of my favourite things it does, and when you get those little snippets of classic tunes popping up they're all the more effective for it.
I'll also say that the team behind Dolphin deserve some mad kudos. The game runs pretty much flawlessly on my machine and the setup is super easy. Having the pointer functionality mapped to a mouse makes the game feel almost like a PC port at times.
So, that's about it! Anyone else revisit this one recently?
Shortly after playing this I decided to throw New Super Mario Bros Wii on for a bit, and boy was that a contrast. It only made me appreciate the aesthetics of Galaxy more.
