Online gaming publication Eurogamer has awarded the fantastic Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii as the game of the generation. The publication says that the game could well be the pinnacle of Mario’s career as there’s the unmistakable sense of a great idea reaching its fullest, and perhaps final, expression. Mario’s iconic adventure was released back in 2007 and received incredible reviews upon release. The game currently has a Metacritic score of 97 which puts it inline with its brilliant sequel, Super Mario Galaxy 2.

The sense of creative freedom is unparalleled. Once Mario’s designers had kicked themselves free of gravity and were swimming amongst the stars, they found that space allowed them to do anything they wanted. And so they did anything they wanted. Manta-ray surfing on a stiff little tube of twisting water? A marriage of crazy golf and pinball that hangs, stoically, above a black hole? Why not have an asteroid serving as the roost for a towering three-legged robot, and another that’s home to an enormous molten octopus, too? Why not lay on hollow planets, glass planets, planets like deserts and planets like desserts? Why not throw in a video game joke that’s been three decades in the construction: an ice level that comes with a lava level clamped to its back?

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