Taking our first playthrough of the game at E3 2006, it's easy to see why Nintendo kept this game under wraps for so long, as the gameplay mechanics are unlike anything we've ever seen before. Yes, it's still Mario doing his usual jumping and bouncing off of enemies, but other than that, it's a whole new world for everyone's favorite mustached plumber - or, a whole new universe, in this case. In Super Mario Galaxy, Mario will find himself not jumping from place to place, but rather from planet to planet as he heads into outer space to battle various enemies. By utilizing Star platforms on the various planetoids, Mario can blast off between worlds, opening up new opportunities for exploration as he leaps from world to world, with plenty of branching paths and a ton of enemies. A cool feature is that while Mario is on the various worlds, the laws of gravity still apply. Therefore, you'll be in control of Mario from tons of different angles, as he runs over, under, and flies above the various planets.

Even with the Wii's unorthodox controller, Super Mario Galaxy most certainly feels like a Mario game in the vein of Mario 64 and Sunshine. The analog nunchaku works very well for controlling Mario's movements and the A button on the remote is, of course, for Mario's trademark jumps. The new features in the game all come from the remote itself, as players can shoot special star pieces with it to pick them up, as opposed to Mario collecting them himself. Also, by shaking the nunchaku unit, Mario went into a spin attack, which was found to be the most effective way to dispatch enemies. There were a few other cool little moves to be used as well, such as shooting special star hooks with the remote so Mario could grapple from them.

The demo culminated with one of two separate boss battles, either of which could be arrived at by going through a specific path in the game. In one, Mario battled against a massive octopus bathing in molten lava. Its main attack was simply spitting rocks at our hero, but using spin attacks to deflect his attacks back at him proved to be the boss's downfall. In the same way, another boss was a massive mechanical beast, which loved to slam his legs down on Mario. The solution? Knock his attacks back at him so Mario can run up his legs, and then smash the light atop his cranium to put him away.

The visuals in Super Mario Galaxy are positively breathtaking, as the game was perhaps the best example of the Wii's upgraded graphical capability. The worlds, enemies, and Mario himself were all positively gorgeous, and there was nary any slowdown or graphical glitches to be found. It's still early, but Super Mario Galaxy is looking very much like it'll be the star of Nintendo's early Wii lineup, and with the promise of a unique multiplayer mode (where other remote-armed users can use their own controllers to help or hinder Mario), the game could very well be the vehicle to bring Mario back to the genre he was made to perform in, and back into the limelight of the game industry.