Samba de Amigo

To start with, the controls are great. Early reviewers were either: a) bad at the game, b) confused or c) lazy. Don't worry about the controls. (More on this later.)

Do you remember the final scene in Beetlejuice where Winona Ryder sings Jump in the Line while floating in front of a stairwell? If that seemed at all fun, go out and a get a copy of Samba de Amigo because it is fun. Actually, it's completely addicting.

The Wii version is a remake of the Sega Dreamcast game, which is in turn an adaptation of an arcade game. The basic gameplay remains the same: shake electric maracas in rhythm to the music. Each side of your HUD (for lack of a better term) has three targets: high, medium and low. Timing balls emerge from the center of the HUD and head towards the targets. If you shake your controller, which may or may not resemble a maraca, at the right position and the right time, you earn points. There are a few extra moves: rolls, poses, dance moves, crossover, and wide hits. The more hits you string together and the more accurately timed your hits, the faster your score goes up and the faster an energy bar fills. If you stay in the groove long enough, your energy bar fills all the way and you achieve a higher rank (from a low of E to a high of A). Missing hits reverses the process. You don't really need to understand the scoring to play: just stay in the groove.

Initially, you will probably want to spend some time with Career mode, which starts easy and ramps up fairly smoothly. It also unlocks a few songs, which isn't completely necessary since most of the 44 songs are unlocked from the beginning. But when a friend comes over and wants to play "Mambo Number 5" waiting can be a drag. There are also some maraca and dance sounds to unlock, but they don't add all that much to the game.

When you do have friends over, there are six different modes to try out. Each of the modes also work with one player, but aren't as much fun. Most of your time will probably be in Quick Play, which allows you to play one song after another for as long as you can shake the controller. While waiting for a turn, players can finally look at the crazy dancing stuff you quickly learn to tune out while playing. In addition to the cast of wacky characters (Elvis, calaca guitarists, luchadors, bongo playing teddy bears, and so on), you'll see Mii representations of the players shaking away. And of course the actual players shaking away provide entertainment too.

One especially positive aspect of the game is that unequally skilled players can play head to head. When I play Hard and my six-year-old son plays Easy, we get scores in the same ballpark. The lyrics have been softened where appropriate. So instead of "Tequila!", the lyric is "Amigo!". (I don't want children picking up potentially unwanted vocabulary, but nothing prevents an older group from shouting the original lyric.) My arms can attest to Samba de Amigo's exercise potential and it probably doesn't hurt player's rhythm and dance skills.

At launch the game cost about a dollar a song. Now you will find it for half or a quarter that much. Master tracks featuring the original artist comprise just under half of the songs and the other half are reasonable covers. In addition, there are three downloadable song packs (3 for 500 Wii points). I haven't bought any, but they look to be high quality. Even more value can be squeezed out of the package by browsing the online leaderboards. These have not been completely hacked yet (unlike Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games) so the top scores are probably real. You can also compare to friends if you have their friend code or find your rank on the overall leaderboard. I can't really think of anything that should be added to the package.

Now let's talk controls. I have a theory about what went wrong with so many reviewers, so let's start with some observations:

1. Most reviewers had played the Dreamcast version and preferred it over the Wii version.
   
2. Most had few complaints about the Easy and Normal difficulties, but found they couldn't keep up with Hard and Super Hard.
   
3. And most had problems shifting from the high to low positions and vice versa.
   

Now the Dreamcast version had two different control schemes: hitting buttons on the normal controller and expensive maraca controllers that measured the height above a sensor bar on the floor. There's only one control scheme on Wii: tilt control (with either two Wiimotes or a Wiimote and a Nunchuck). Sega used the Wiimote's tilt control well in Super Monkey Ball and used it again in Samba de Amigo. Tilt the nose of the controller up for high note, down for low notes and level for medium notes.

Having watched videos of people playing the Dreamcast version, reviews of the Wii version and experimenting on my own, I believe most reviewers expected the controls to work identically to the Dreamcast or arcade game. And amazingly for easier difficulty levels, they do. Lifting the controller above your waist naturally tilts its nose up and dropping it below your waist registers a downward tilt. It's a touch unresponsive, but the beats are slow enough so that it's possible to keep up this way. Once you start playing songs on Hard the beats get faster and more complicated. At that point, you need to remove inefficient motions, practice and become more precise.

Understand that I'm not great at rhythms or difficult games. I played tuba in band and I'm stuck half way through Super Monkey Ball and Super Mario Galaxy. So it was with some trepidation that I started up Hard levels in Career Mode. Sure I missed some beats and maybe some of them were not my fault, but I cleared all of the Hard songs in the first or second try with the exception of "Mexican Flyer". And I've passed some of the Super Hard songs too. If you play the right way, the game is not punishingly difficult. It might even be too easy.

If you are having problems, here are a few tips:

1. Find the "Game" setting on your digital TV. It might not make a difference, but an extra millisecond or two to react to a beat can't hurt.
   
2. Use two Wiimotes rather than the Nunchuck setup. The Nunchuck reduces accuracy because of the tether and because it's difficult to find its level position.
   
3. Experiment with calibration. I've found that tilting too much in calibration makes hitting high and low beats slow, but tilting too little narrows the range for medium beats so that I don't hit them all the time.
   
4. Go back through the Normal levels in career mode trying to use your wrists more than your arms. Imagine playing Super Monkey Ball.
   
5. When you miss, don't assume the hardware is to blame. For instance, I notice that when I move too quickly I sometimes over-rotate on high beats so that the controller is starting to be upside down. That's my fault, not the controller's. Relax and try to get back in the groove.
   
6. If all else fails, consider using an alternate shaking motion. Instead of shaking vertically, a motion that can be confused with changing locations, shake to the side or make a stabbing motion. It doesn't look as much like a maraca shake, but it works.
   
7. A suggestion I can't vouch for is to buy the maraca shaped attachments. Supposedly they help find the high and low positions. Perhaps because they make the angles more obvious.
   

I've seen videos of people getting perfect scores on Super Hard using the button mashing scheme on the Dreamcast. And I've seen dedicated players struggle through the Easy difficulty with the expensive Dreamcast maracas. And I've seen people breeze through Hard levels with Wiimotes. My best explanation for the harsh reviews of Samba de Amigo for Wii is that reviewers were muddled in their memories of the previous game. If Sega is interested in re-releasing the game with Wiimotion Plus support, it probably won't make a difference. Adding a button pushing option, probably would.

Overall, there's almost nothing to lose by trying the game out. Probably the game is more fun on Easy and Normal and easier on Hard and Super Hard than you imagine. And compared to other games in the genre, Samba de Amigo would be a bargain at twice the price.

M&M's Kart Racing

My defense: M&M's Kart Racing was a gift. Sometimes games are bad because they just aren't worth the money you pay for them. I would have been a lot harder on Go, Diego, Go! Safari Rescue and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz if I'd paid full price for them. Other games are bad because they are a waste of time. This poorly implemented racing game falls into the later category.

Looking at the menus, you might think the game offers a lot of play modes and options. "Quick Race" is a single player race. "Training" is the same thing, but with no other karts. "Arcade" is a race for points rather than strictly time. "Tournament" is a single player race just like "Quick Race". "Tournament" is the only mode that makes any sense to play since winning a race opens up new tracks for the other modes. And you'll want to open up more tracks since the three you start off with are boring. Finally there is a "Multiplayer" option, which is just a two-player, split-screen mode. It has two modes: "Quick Race" and "Full Throttle". The difference is that first is one lap with no extra karts and the other is three laps with opponents. "Options" sounds promising, but just allows you to adjust the music and sound effect volumes. (Hint: it doesn't matter since the game should always be played on mute.) "High Score" is pointless since you can't enter your own name.

Lack of modes is forgivable in a racing game, if the tracks are fun. We begin our circuit with the "Chocolate Factory". You might expect bright colors and wide-open spaces. Maybe the track would feature tricky conveyor belt and packing machine obstacles. Sadly, the track is a series of boxy rooms with drab, factory-like decor. Racing consists mostly of getting through the doors between rooms before your opponent and being careful not to run into anything. Turns pop up around each corner, so you have to keep on your toes (or memorize them). There are usually signs pointing the next turn, but they sit on immovable posts that will bring your kart to a dead stop that will force you to reverse away from the post. Annoying.

Next up is "The Streets", which ought to have been called "The Dark Alleys". Most of the course is a series of narrow alleys with protruding door steps designed to slow karts down. Part of the course is a wide boulevard with a giant truck (not moving) and you start to wonder what the game would be like with wide-open courses. Then you take a big left turn into a dead end with a small opening back into the alley. If you can find it. To be successful, you need to memorize the awkward layout of each track, which does nothing to add to interest in the game.

Each course has two types of power-ups that are placed in fixed locations. First are chocolate coins that can be used to purchase new carts. Sadly, the new carts aren't that interesting or beneficial. Once you've bought them all, the coins are best avoided as collecting them blocks your view of the track ahead with an update of the number you have. The other power-up is a cup of coffee that give your kart a speed boost. Invariably, the coffee is at the end of a long straightaway so picking up the coffee will boost your speed into tight, twisty turns. It's the last thing you want.

The House level is more or less the same idea a The Chocolate Factory: boxy rooms with narrow doorways. The Farm actually turns out to be interesting. It's more open than the other courses and it has a difficult hay bail maze section. After running through the course several times, I discovered there is a shortcut through the maze. After three mindless, unrewarding tracks, the first unlockable gave me a glimmer of hope the rest of the game was going to be better. Like, maybe the initial tracks are sort of tutorials.

This tiny nod to rewarding gameplay got me excited to play the next level: The Forest. Here was another chance for a wide-open track with shortcuts and maybe less drab visuals. Sadly the forest the designers seem to have had in mind is Mirkwood. There are no shortcuts, no brightness, no escape. If you stray even for a moment from the path, you are likely to be caught by, well, monstrously large blades of grass or stuck behind huge mushrooms with the M&M logo. In addition, you can't see very far. Or rather, trees pop into existence when you get close enough to them. Initially, I thought this was an issue with objects being loaded into memory when beginning a level. But no, each time around the trees suddenly appear.

I don't have the heart to continue racing in the horrid forest level, so if there are more surprises like the farm, I'll never find them. And to be completely clear, the farm is only a good course relative to the very poor alternatives found in the rest of the game. No matter how cheap the game, it's too expensive. It's just not worth your time.

Why I'm glad I bought a Wii

Reading about Steve Yegge's problems with Fable II makes me appreciate my Wii just a bit more. To begin with, having to deal with games that need certain hardware to work was one of the reasons I've given up living on the cutting edge of PC gaming. It seems Microsoft can't make a break with its past when it develops the Xbox consoles. Some of my earliest, and not so happy, memories of computer gaming are scanning the small print on the side of a the game I'd really like to buy only to discover my computer doesn't have enough RAM or the right graphics card.

Now with the additions of the balance board, Wii Motion Plus and a storage solution, I'm sure hardware requirements on the Wii will get trickier in the near future. Nintendo seems to be taking it slow for the very purpose of making the additions smooth for game players rather than forcing changes.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz

Marble gravity puzzles have a long history both in physical and digital forms. In both cases, whether the maze should be manipulated directly or via mind-bending knobs depends on if the designer intended the puzzle or the control to challenge the player. The grandfather of video game marble puzzles, Marble Madness, began life in arcades with an intuitive trackball setup that highlighted the course itself. Later, it was ported to other platforms which tend to use directional controls making the game an exercise in axis shifting.

Super Monkey Ball on the GameCube represented a sort of middle ground between the extremes. I only played it a few times and using an analog stick to maneuver floating platforms in order to propel monkeys who were inexplicable trapped in transparent spheres took some getting used to. But once oriented, the game felt fairly natural, though the levels themselves are very difficult. However, the Wiimote's tilt control and Super Monkey Ball are an even better fit. Tilting the controller forward tilts the world forward and starts your monkey moving ahead. Tilt in the other direction to slow down and to one side to turn. I'd guess the transition from "What's going on here?" to "This is awesome!" is half as long on the Wii compared to the GameCube.

This time around, Sega added the ability to jump, which adds a platforming element to many levels. Personally, I find jumps enjoyable, but aggravating at times. Part of the aggravation comes from the challenge of getting over obstacles or across gaps, but a bit is related to the controls. Jump is mapped to A, which normally makes sense. However, the A button is toward the front of the Wiimote, so pressing it pushes the controller forward a bit, causing your monkey ball to race forward as soon as you land often sending it crashing into some object in your path or zipping off the end of the platform. Knowing the cause of the problem was all I needed to solve it. Jumps can also be accomplished by holding the B button and flicking the Wiimote up. While it seems gimmicky, this method does allow jumps to flow better at the cost of being slightly less responsive.

I've only finished about half the main game, which tells you A) the course difficulty ramps up pretty quickly and B) I have not played it as much as Super Mario Galaxy. The courses I have beat were fun and challenging. But trying and failing the levels can be a chore because of the way the worlds open up. Initially, you start with an island world (Monkey Island, if you believe it). Each level in that world has the same music and graphics style. If you beat that world (most will have no problem up to the final map before the boss fight), you are allowed to move on to the Jungle world. You can play the levels within a world in any order, but you can't move on to another world until you finish off the previous one. So it's not unusual to get stuck on a map and have nothing to do but try over and over to beat it. In Galaxy, you can never get stuck on a level with nothing else to do because there are always a handful of worlds available at any one time. Opening new worlds in Banana Blitz requires falling off the same level over and over until you get it right.

Thankfully, there are reasons to go back to worlds you've already beaten. In order to unlock the 9^th and 10^th worlds, you'll need to conquer the other 8 worlds without using the continue option. Since only the most obsessive players will make use of the practice option enough to do it the first time through (and they have other problems besides being getting worn out doing something over and over), you'll likely need to retry older worlds in order to get a clean run. In addition, there are high-score, fastest-time, and bananas-collected records that can be pursued. Plus most of the courses are fun to race through and some have crazy shortcuts to attempt. Finally, a look around any cheat site will reveal a hidden goal to pursue. I'd prefer the less-linear Mario-style of progression, however.

Originally, the party games in Super Monkey Ball were a sort of extra that could be unlocked, but in Banana Blitz, they are half of the game's split personality. This time around, there are fifty mini-games and all of them are available from the start. If you've read other reviews, you'll know these are a mixed bag. The most unfortunate are those that match Wii Sports—Monkey Squash, Home Run Derby, Monkey Golf, Monkey Bowling and Monkey Boxing. They are either shells of deeper games or simply don't work (I'm looking at you Monkey Golf!). I feel like these would have been better received if Nintendo hadn't bundled a much better package with the system. Sega could have saved the sports if they had offered traditional controls in addition to motion controls. And since some of these were included in earlier Monkey Ball titles, it should not have been hard to get this right.

Perhaps the biggest complaint about the party games is that the developers seemed to be experimenting with every type of control scheme imaginable and all sorts of crazy game concepts. The result is that each game takes a few plays to understand what's going on, which doesn't work the best in an actual party. The good news is that some of the games do work well and are fun to play. You just have to finish the bad ones quickly and move on.

I am a touch annoyed at the Shepherd game, which is an implementation of an idea I had in the late 80's while playing with my cousin's Arcade Game Construction Kit on the Commodore 64. In fairness, I've had plenty of time to implement my idea and I didn't imagine monkeys playing the role of shepherd!

The games can be divided into tilt-control, IR-pointer, and motion-control listed in order of how well they tend to work. Tilt-control games such as Monkey Snowboard benefit from the developer's experience on the main game and only have issues if theme of the game has issues. Since tilt is even used for navigating the menus, you get the idea that when the developers got down to doing the mini-games, they found tilting the easiest control to work with. All-in-all, I would have thoroughly enjoyed more attention focused on these games and either left the other game out or just directly ported the GameCube versions.

IR suffers throughout. I suspect the Wii's pointer wasn't completely understood at the time. One problem is that the system does not register the motion of pushing the Wiimote toward the screen and Banana Blitz uses this mechanic in many mini-games. Sitting closer to the sensor bar helps as does making more dramatic motions. Another problem stems from a pretty good idea: pointer calibration. Before IR-pointer games the players are asked to land a ladybug on a flower to calibrate their Wiimotes. If you land in the center of the flower, your Wiimote will be directed at the sensor bar, not the TV, so in the game you won't be pointing at the screen. A solution is to aim at the screen and ignore the bug during calibration so it will land at the bottom of the flower if you have your bar mounted above the screen and vice versa. Finally, more rumble feedback would help greatly to know if you are pointing at what you think you are pointing at.

Motion control is temperamental at best in these games. Too often a movement will be ignored only to have the motion of returning the controller to a neutral position be registered. So in Monkey Golf, a back swing won't be detected, but lowering the controller will be detected as a stroke somehow. So your monkey ball will dribble a few feet off the tee rather being hit hard. Putting is even more frustrating since there's no way to gauge how hard the game will interpret your swing. I feel I do the same motion, but one time it barely budges the ball and the next it shoots the ball off the green. Other games are better, but only because constantly shaking the controller is rewarded by lots of action on the screen. The one game that motion control works for is Red Light, Green Light. Shake the Wiimote and Nunchuk like crazy when the light is green and stop all movement when it turns red. Temperamental controls add to rather than subtract from this bazaar activity.

Two factors ought to temper some of my negative comments about Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. First, it was a launch game and having fun titles to play on a new console, especially a console as revolutionary as the Wii, are critical to the platform's success. Taken on its own, the main game is a worth addition to any Wii library and a showcase of the power of tilt-control. The mini-games should be seen as 50 experiments, many of which succeed. That so many copycats have now tread the same ground on Wii should not be held against this group of party games. The second factor is that nobody will be paying anywhere near full price on this title. In the context of Wiiware, and it can be purchased for Wiiware prices, the main game is a true bargain. The rest of the package can be utterly ignored or counted as the whipped cream and cherry topping.

MLB Power Pros: Extras

If this were an infomercial, this would be the moment where I'd say "but that's not all!" There is so much content jammed into Power Pros it's not an exaggeration to say there's something for everyone. Take for instance the collector. While you play through full games in Season Mode, finish Success Mode or compete in the Home Run Derby, the game awards you Power Major Points. These can be used to buy a variety of upgrades, stadiums, uniforms, pitching and batting stances, and baseball cards. The cards include basic statistics, pictures and a short description of the player's career as seen from the Japanese perspective. Getting everything is a major challenge and amounts to hundreds of hours of gaming.

While you are playing, the game keeps track of every pitch and the stat fiend can have field day with the various reports. I know I like to pitch a breaking ball down for the first pitch. The Profile section of the game has reports that tell me not only the exact percentage of my first pitches that are breaking balls, but what the batter did with those pitches. Every record, including various achievements, are tracked constantly. At the end of every game, you have the option to review each pitch. Can't remember if your game-winning homerun was off a hanging curve or a meaty fastball? Look it up! During season mode, you can see player statistics updated play by play. My only disappointment is there's no way to calculate advanced statistics like WARP and Runs Created. If only I could save the numbers to my computer...

When you are ready to step up your game (by taking control of fielders for instance) Practice Mode puts you through rigorous training. Every aspect of the game can be drilled until you have down. You can take batting practice against real or generic players pitching one or a variety of pitches. There's a pitching drill where you aim for a specific location. Fielding can be either on randomly hit balls or balls on a manually set trajectory. Base running practice covers the basics of moving from one base to another, but is very thin. Then there are general offense and defense sessions where there are no outs and you try to score or prevent runs. Each practice can be set in specific game conditions and use any control setup. It's an ideal way to improve your abilities.

Somewhere, no doubt, there is a group of friends looking for a round robin competition offered in League Mode. Until the game can be played online, those guys will be the only ones using it. They will also be good candidate for the Arrange Team mode, which give players total control over a team to be customized. Besides the obvious ability to add and remove players, players can change the colors of a team's uniforms, alter name and location, pick a home stadium and so on. Custom teams may then be used in other modes.

Fans of particular players have quite a bit of control over how they look and act on the field. Most characteristics may be edited down to the color of a player's bat, glove, and wristband. (The Japanese seem to have an unhealthy obsession with wristbands.) Abilities may be changed as well at the cost of a unique band on the player's nameplate. If you are willing to enter painfully long passwords, it's possible to exchange players with others. But passwords do not transfer from one version of the game to another. One thing that can't really be changed is the pronunciation of a player's name. Or rather the name can be changed, but only to a name that has already been recorded. So Barry Bonds will always be announced as "Great Gonzales".

The only reservation I really have is that the 2008 version is already out and the 2009 version is coming soon. Both games seem even better than the 2007 version and neither will are be overly expensive. Given that the game has been under development since 1994 in Japan it's already pretty well polished, so if you find a copy in the bargain bin it will be well worth your while.

MLB Power Pros: Season Mode

Season Mode builds on the core of Exhibition Mode by putting you in the shoes of a big league GM. For veterans of baseball games, this will be familiar territory: you can jump into your local team's front office or draft an expansion team from scratch. Beginning with opening day, you've got 10 seasons to work with in order to build a dynasty, which seems a bit short. (To be fair, I haven't finished a term at GM yet, so I can't really complain.) As with Success Mode, there's distinct Japanese feel with anime-style characters and load screens. You've got an assistant who guides you through the basics of the game (including some extreme basics like the number of teams in Major League Baseball), seems to have a crush on your character and cheers on the team at key moments.

As you might expect by now, there are tons of options, most of which may be safely ignored. For instance, you can initiate a trade with another team in order to improve your talent pool or get rid of expensive players. Before the trade is confirmed, you get feedback about the odds it will be accepted in the form of a zero to five star rating. A few days later, you find out if the other GM accepted or rejected your offer. All of this is totally optional, though you will be offered trades by other teams from time to time.

Games can be played through from start to finish for a fully immersive experience or you can simulate being a manager with Fast Mode or being a GM by simulating weeks, months or entire seasons at a time. Optionally, you may watch specific players or situations so that you can drop into the game when they come up. One especially good use for this option is to watch Success Mode players that you've signed to continue monitoring their progress. MLB Power Pros keeps track of all sorts of achievements from complete game shutouts to getting a certain number of hits to turning double plays, which score your team Owner Points. As the season continues you stock up points that are used to pay player salaries, buy players from other teams or purchase training equipment. Winning individual awards, getting into the post-season and winning playoff series increases your points scored as well. Essentially, the more exciting the team, the more interest the fans have, and the more money the GM has to play with.

Veterans of games like MVP Baseball might miss the depth of Season Mode initially. You don't set hot dog prices, schedule promotions, buy stadium upgrades and so on. The business side of the game is more abstract and the minor league system is just a holding area for upcoming players. Power Pros' training system more than compensates for these short-comings, however. During the season, you can assign players to practice on skills you'd like to have them improve on. Assigning a veteran and a rookie to a practice group will allow the older player to transfer some skills to the greenhorn. Too much practice will wear out a player, so they will need to be rested. To avoid micromanagement problems, players can be assigned to automatic training in which computerized coaches handle assignments.

For the most part, Season Mode lets you play the game the way you want to play it. You can micromanage every moment of you players' professional lives or sit back and let the Wii simulate entire seasons. And there are several viable strategies, such as gambling on free agents to win post-season points or training lesser players to become stars or signing Success Mode players you've created. Unlike Exhibition Mode, the games have meaning as teams find themselves in tight pennant races and players compete for post-season honors. Just as in real life, individual games are fun, but the real pleasure of baseball is the season-long dramas that play out each summer.

Super Mario Galaxy: Controls

Clearly, the Wii owes a great deal of its success to the Wiimote's innovative control features. And the latest Mario also excels in large part because the controls work so well. So you might expect that Super Mario Galaxy relies on the new controls as well. But you'd (mostly) wrong. In fact, I believe the game would be almost as good with a GameCube controller.

Mario's basic movement is accomplished with the analog stick on the Nunchuk attachment, which is exactly what you want in a 3D platformer. Small movements of the thumb start the little plumber walking and big movements propel him across the world quickly, yet accurately. Like the GameCube analog stick, there are eight notches to push into, which makes running from point A to B easier than if the stick were completely free moving. Mario has a quirk that simultaneously makes him easier and more satisfying to control: he can walk right to the edge of most platforms without falling. If he takes that extra step, he usually can grab the edge before falling thus saving a life for another day. It's rare to walk to your death in this game. (Running and jumping to your death commonly occurs, however.)

The other thing you want Mario to do all the time, of course, is jump and that control is conveniently located under your other thumb—the A button on the Wiimote. Again, this is exactly the way a platformer should be controlled. Pulling off precise jumps is made easier by giving the player the ability to change course midair, which is physically-impossible everywhere but in a video game. Jumping into a wall and jumping again in the opposite direction allows you to get to higher locations than would be ordinarily be possible. Many levels rely on the ability to climb parallel vertical walls and the maneuver is very satisfying to pull off.

A third command, which is commonly needed, duck was mapped to the Z button on the Nunchuk. Again, it would have been easy to put this on a shoulder button of the GameCube controller. Combined with movement, the duck becomes a duck walk and combined with a jump, it becomes an extra high back-flip. Tapping Z and A while running allows for long jumps and tapping Z in the air produces a ground pound needed to stun certain enemies. As you can see, there are a number of combinations that help Mario get from point A to point B. Pretty soon, you'll find yourself back-flipping into a wall jump and finishing off with a ground pound. And none of these controls use features not available on the GameCube.

The main action you need that is mapped to a Wiimote only control is Mario's spin attack. Flicking the Wiimote (or Nunchuk) in a vaguely circular motion causes Mario to violently spin with fists outstretched knocking around enemies. While there's no reason it couldn't be mapped to a button, the physical action of flipping the wrist maps well to the onscreen action of a spin attack. In addition, there's a short recharge period that needs to be observed before using spin attack again, so the relatively slower flick control matches the relatively slow development of the attack. As you might expect, the spin control is pressed into a variety of different uses in different portions of the game. You can get a speed boost underwater, turn giant screws, start skating on ice worlds, gain more jump hang time, spin a Boo out of the way and so on.

Galaxy makes moderate use of the IR controls to collect and fire star bits. Most levels are completely playable without this mechanic, but it does make some of them easier. Firing star bits takes a backseat to collecting them, since it's usually better to save them in order to get a new life. The second player essentially uses the IR controls exclusively. When I've been able to talk my son into playing, it's nice to be able to have one person dedicated to manipulating the star bit inventory. (The second player can also freeze most enemies, which simplifies many puzzles.) Other uses of the pointer include aiming the canon with Mario as ammunition, grabbing pull stars, positioning bubble puffers, etc.

It seems like the development team had some fun with some of the levels. For instance, several levels have stars trapped in transparent balls that Mario jumps on and are controlled by tilting the Wiimote. (Now where have I seen that before?) Another level lets Mario ride a giant swimming manta ray via tilt control. A great many puzzles depend on special costumes that alter the way Mario moves through the world. Fire Mario launches fire balls instead of the spin attack. Bee Mario flies a short distance in lieu of jumping. Boo Mario disappears when you flick the Wiimote. And so on.