Plumbing the Depths of Space

Picked up Super Mario Galaxy yesterday. A lot of blogs have already commented on the tight controls and varied gameplay, so I would like to focus on the evolution of Mario's gameworld.

As you know, Galaxy centers on Mario's travels in space. I did not appreciate the nuances of this until I started playing. Then I suddenly remembered--There is no Up or Down in space.

Mario's original abilities, after all, were to run left and right, jump up, and fall down landing on opponents' backs. When Mario 64 was released, Mario could suddenly run in all directions, so players had to learn to think of "Left" and "Right" as relative, changing factors. Of course, this maps realistically to our own worldview. If I'm giving directions in real life, the expression "Run right" is meaningless. We use a frame of reference: "Facing the castle, cross the the lava pit to your right." Mario's world evolved to become more like our own.

Galaxy is a challenge precisely because most of us have never navigated open space. When Mario stands on an asteroid, the game doesn't allow us the luxury of thinking of this as a planar surface. The camera doesn't swoop behind his head, it remains dangling in space. We can clearly see the insubstantial nature of the surface, while empty space yawns all around us. Mario cannot "jump up"--he jumps away from the surface. Each jump increases the feeling that he could jump away and not be pulled back. To navigate this sphere, Mario will spend a lot of time "upside down" to our eyes. You'll constantly find your senses confounded by what your eyes are seeing.

I'm going to make a prediction now: when orbital vacations are commonplace and tourists spend their time exploring the low-grav regions of asteroids and artificial satellites, they will explain their comfort level by saying "I played a lot of Mario Galaxy as a kid."