Official Trailer for Super Mario Galaxy is Gorgeous

For all the talk about the Wii not having the graphical chops of the 360 and PS3, Super Mario Galaxy is an incredibly beautiful game. Most of the video we've seen up to this point has been heavily compressed or filmed off of a screen, so this official trailer really blew my eyelids off. Stunning! Note to Nintendo: this is one trailer that really doesn't benefit from having smooth-faced Benetton models smiling while they play. I understand that a game with more Wiimote waggling might need a little illustration of how it's played, but there isn't much of that in Galaxy so all the shiny people look super cheesy.

Bowser is a Terrorist

This opening sequence from the highly-anticipated Super Mario Galaxy begins with a carefree Mario skipping down a calm Mushroom Kingdom street when BOOM! Bowser's airships swoop in and start blowing up buildings. There's fire and destruction, the streets are riddled with Toad parts... It's ugly. It's also quite a departure from the Bowser we've been seeing in most recent Mario titles. Bowser has been comic relief for a while now, bumbling and fumbling his way through his attempts to kidnap (and sometimes marry) Princess Peach. He is always outsmarted, he always gets angry and whines, and he often ends up teaming with Mario to defeat a greater evil. But in this sequence (which packs in more story than all the other core Mario titles put together) he is just pure evil. I, for one, am ecstatic. This game looks awesome.

Geek Speek: Debating U R MR GAY

Geekanerd jumps through flame war hoops and fights off trolls to bring you the best and worst in internet commentary...
Internet wizkids have discovered that some letters on the official boxart for the upcoming (I can't wait!) Wii game Super Mario Galaxy have little flares on their bottom corners... And those letters spell out "U R MR GAY." Coincidence? Boxart design by a thirteen year old Halo player? Even funnier than that awesome joke I just stole from Megaton News are some comments that the site's readers left on the story.

Go check 'em out there or hit the jump for the highlights...

George W. Bush says: "Why thank you! I totally am gay and I will definitely buy this game for me and my whole family!"

This is so Gay says: "look, my name spells 'this is so gay'."

Anonymous says: "Ha! Seems as tho gamers are the gayest bunch of all, considering they are the ones who always notice the most gay stuff! Only a bunch of gay nerds would search for and find UR MR GAY. LOL…kudos nerds!"

FOS says: "JAJAJAJA Man, we should have commented on this after the release!!! Then, Nintendo can change the box art and we get a rare 'gay' box art. Then, you sell it in eBay in 15 years"

One of my favorite message board tropes is the guy who tops off an idiotic comment with an attack on someone else's intelligence...

JD77 says [in response to someone who said if it wasn't a coincidence they would have "spelled the words correctly"]: "Yeah… its SUBLIMINAL, retard. If it actually said whatever it wouldn’t be hidden. Riiiiiight?? As far as talking correctly goes, people that don’t speak English well (like i don’t know, the Japanese??) might switch things around a bit! Think before you speak smarty."

The award for WTFiest Explanation goes to...

Cameron Heard says: "I’m thinking it might be a reference to the Stephen King Book/Film Dreamcatcher. In the story the character Duditz’ evil alien nemesis is called ‘Mr Grey’. Duditz has a speech impediment though so he pronounces the name of the Alien ‘MR GAY’ which nobody figures out until the end of the story….Solved?"

Anonymous says: "This post is Mr Gay."

nice says [in response to Dwight F, a graphic designer who posted to dispense his sober professional opinion]: "dwight f is mr gay"

Mr. Gay says: "U R me!"

E3: Insane Media Overload Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of our coverage of everybody else's coverage of E3. Starting off, we've got a trailer for the hotly anticipated Super Mario Galaxy:

If you're in the mood for something a little more... intimate... Check out this developer talking us through a particularBEE neat level:


Hit the jump for the new Simpsons game, some Halo 3 action, a Wii trivia game called Smarty Pants, a new LittleBigPlanet video, a cheesy but thrilling Rock Band performance of Bowie's "Suffragette City", and more Metroid Prime 3.


Here's the Simpsons game:

It sure looks good, but I have to wonder: why are most Simpsons games about fighting? There's rarely any fights on the show, so it seems incongruous that that would be the go-to genre for Simpsons video game developers. Why not an adventure game that has you actually progressing through a hilarious Simpsons story, or a Bully-style sandbox game where you run around Springfield pranking people and carrying out specific missions for people? That being said, this game sho is pretty. Also keep an eye out for Matt Groening himself as the end boss, as reported by Eurogamer.

Here's Halo 3 in action:

Pretty.

And now Smarty Pants:

It's hard to tell if this will be fun or not. The only thing I do know is those chaps playing are grating. I like something as simple as the hand-raising motion to "get called on." I hope the emphasis is on trivia and not those little epileptic minigames they do a couple times.

If yesterday left you wanting more, here is the full LittleBigPlanet trailer:


From start to finish, some good (if silly) players running through a Rock Band song:


Yesterday's trailer was a little dry, but it's fun to watch this game developer walk us through a Metroid Prime 3 level:

This is the first time I noticed how good the game looks. It sure moves well, and has a lot of nice art direction touches.