#42 Super Mario Sunshine - Nintendo's star plumber makes his Gamecube debut

Gamers haven't experienced a proper Mario game since 1996. Sure, our favorite Italian stereotype has made appearances in Paper Mario, Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart 64 and Mario Party, but it's been a while since we've been given new koopas to stomp, bricks to bonk and bosses to battle.

The last offering, Super Mario 64, miraculously freed the player from squashed-flat, 2-dimensional limitations (the 2D platform to gamers) and gave them a deep (literally), 3-dimensional world to explore. Super Mario Sunshine makes no such jump. This time the developers have chosen to forgo formal innovation and simply take advantage of the breathing room afforded by the powerful Gamecube console. At first glance it's apparent that their focus on creating a more vibrant world for Mario's adventures. The levels are vast. The environments are alive with activity—butterflies flit about and water ripples. These touches are superfluous (and not all that revolutionary), but make Mario's previous realms feel downright austere.

No huge leaps were made in game-play either. Several elements, in fact, feel cribbed from recent Rare titles. Mario's new tool, a back-mounted water cannon called FLUDD (Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device), is reminiscent of Rare's Banjo Kazooie, whose main character was a bear with a bird on it's back. The birds wings afforded the grizzly the capability of flight in the same way that Mario's new gadget gives him the capability to hover on spouts of water. Additionally, an alternate FLUDD mode, which sprays jets of water, which Mario uses to hose enemies and clean up graffiti, is suspiciously similarly to the less kid friendly squirting mechanism utilized by the hung-over rodent protagonist of Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Don't get me wrong. I spent four straight hours playing last night after picking the game up from Toys 'R Us. Even in that short time, the magical moments, awe, wonder, and challenge I've come to expect from the Mario games were all present. The act of kicking a spiky fruit around a resort village was so fun, and (at first) seemingly pointless, that I just had to laugh. I'm already completely engrossed.

Don't bother calling. I'm on vacation in Isle Delfina until further notice.