It’s seemed like an age but at last Mario gets a full proper game on the Wii and we haven’t seen him strutting his stuff like this since Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube. In fact, that game being not quite what it should have been it’s actually the best game since Super Mario 64 or its remake on the DS.

This time, Mario’s exploring space on lots of spherical worlds that completely break the boundaries of gravity, what’s up, down, and if and when Mario should stick to the floor or go flying through space.

Once again you’re on the hunt for stars after Bowser steals Princess Castle and the whole castle from under her and flies off into space with it. Gives a whole new meaning to moving home doesn’t it?

Anyway, what this means for you the gamer is a fantastic adventure full of fun, new ideas and plenty of varied gameplay which never gets tiring. There’s the usual jumping on heads, jumping down pipes and coins to collect, but also the ability to spin into enemies with a flick of the wrist with either the nunchuck or the remote. I was a bit worried when I saw Mario running around round planets as to how it would handle but the good news is it feels as natural as breathing, and a lot more fun (although not essential to living).

When it comes to special abilities, Mario can turn into a bee so he can buzz around the levels and climb over honeycombs, let fireballs fly with his flower power and can zoom round space by jumping into stars he can launch on with a shake of the remote. You also need to point it to sweep up Star Bits which appear whenever you bash enemies or run through flowers etc. It’s quite addictive grabbing all those bits which you’ll need at points in the game to feed to stars that open up new locations or do you special favours. There are also other ways Mario can move about according to the level you’re on – sometimes you’re riding on the back of a stingray, or walking on top of a ball using the Wii remote to tilt it. Constantly there are new ways to get hold of those precious stars and you’re going to have to use your brain as well as your reactions to play this one.

This game is also one of the best looking games so far on the Wii. It’s bright, colourful and the world you enter at the very start of the game is breath-taking. It’s also nice to see Bowser back to his proper nasty ways. Well done lad!

It moves along at a great pace and it’s one you’re not going to want to put down.

So, to sum up, if you have the weekend spare I recommend you get this on a Friday and really get into it as you’ll be itching to get back on it as soon as you put down your remote.

It’s rare I do this but I’m going to go into fractions here and give it 9 ½ out of 10. If you have a Wii, you must own this.

Get the game now
New: Buy Super Mario Galaxy from Buy.com
Preowned: Super Mario Galaxy - Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent Super Mario Galaxy - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

This week Matt Cuttle talks:

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Mario Kart for the Wii
• Ace Combat 6: Skies of Liberation
• Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
• Speedball 2
• Ocarina of Time
• Shinobi 3

In the competition this week we are giving away five copies of Ace Combat 6: Skies of Liberation for the Xbox 360, so download this episode , check out the question then head over to the Gamesweasel web site for full details of how to enter. Where are your emails this week? Our email address is gamesweasel@btpodshow.com and we want to hear from you.

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So I’ve managed to get some points to spend on some downloadable games for the 360 and the Wii so I thought I’d share with you what I chose to download and whether it’s worth it.

The first game I tried was Speedball 2 on Xbox Live arcade. If you’ve never heard of this where have you been? It was a classic ball game on the MegaDrive and Amiga made by the Bitmap Brothers in the late 80s and played a bit like the movie rollerball. You play the game in a top down vertical perspective a bit like Sensible Soccer and have to throw the ball in the opponent’s goal. OF course your team all wear armour which you can upgrade because you also punch each other in the face and use powerups to help you win the game. Unfortunately they’ve ruined the game here. The characters are too big on the screen and move about in a clunky manor and it completely lacks the feel of the original which wasn’t broken in the first place. If you fancy some retro action, this isn’t the place to go.

However, if you want to spend some Wii points you could do worse than downloading Ocarina of Time. Widely regarded as one of the best games ever played, (and 2nd only to Mario Galaxy as mentioned earlier) this Zelda came was an instant hit on the N64 and can now be downloaded to reminisce about or play for the first time if you missed it first time around. If you like your Wind Waker and Twilight Princess games you’ll love this if you can get past the fact that the graphics look a bit dated in comparison.

Finally, being a massive Revenge of Shinobi fan I thought I’d download Sega’s Shinobi 3 which came out on the Megadrive. It’s a side-scrolling action platform game whereonce again you have to fight the evil Ne-Zeed clan. Once again you can use your sword, throw shurikens and do some fancy magic to make yourself jump higher, destroy everything on screen or give yourself a shield, but somehow this one lacks what Revenge of Shinobi had. Come on Sega, put that on the channel for us all to play again. You know you want to.

That’s just three games I’ve downloaded recently. If you’ve found a hidden gem you’d like to let everyone else know about do let us all know – share the knowledge by writing to me at gamesweasel@btpodshow.com.

So I’ve done a competition and a feature about Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games so now it’s time for the review. For the first time the fat plumber and the hedgehog have starred together in a game but what’s it like? Have their egos ruined it? Have they made sweet music together? Well, a bit of both. There’s some good and some indifferent aspects of this game which I’m about to explain to you now.

Basically, this plays a lot like the sports games from back in the day such as Track and Field and Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, only with the use of the remote and Nunchuck to wave instead of breaking your old joystick by waggling it too much or bashing the buttons too hard.

The game’s a fusion of Sega and Nintendo presentation with the voices and music of a Sega game and a game structure similar to Mario Kart. Playing Circuit mode has you play in groups of three events and you can unlock new ones as you earn trophies for placing in the top three. As you unlock new classes and circuits, you also unlock new events you can play in free play mode if you fancy just diving into the game for a couple of minutes with a friend. Unfortunately, to unlock new events you have to play through the game in single player mode which, to be honest, is a bit pointless in this kind of game. Playing against another person is everything in a game such as this and the game only becomes truly enjoyable with friends.

In the game you have the usual track and field events, swimming, archery, skeet shooting, table tennis, fencing, trampolining, rowing and loads of others. Running usually involves shaking the nunchuck and remote as fast as you can to gain speed and then pressing a button to jump or flicking the remote skywards. Do it too hard and you’ll have too much power and foul or come last. It’s also worth mentioning that you can become genuinely tired from all that arm pumping and, especially in the hammer throw, could possibly do yourself a wrist injury or even punch yourself in the face.

There are also dream world events such as a Mario-Kart style race on foot and diving from way up high into a goldfish bowl.

There’s a mix of characters from both universes both good and evil and you can even play with your Mii or one of the celebrity ones you or someone else have made which you can download from the new Mii contest channel. Check it out it’s quite a lot of fun.

So to conclude this one’s bright and colourful and has tonnes of variety, but for someone reason just doesn’t hold my attention as much as Konami’s classic Track and Field game. Partly it’s to do with the pace of the game, having to skip past graphic sequences which are fine the first time but are just not needed when you just want to get to the next round. Also, there is no reason why you would really want to play this alone and it’s a real shame you can’t unlock new events at the same time as playing with others.

Also, Mario’s truly a victim of his own success this time around as surely everyone’s now playing Super Mario Galaxy over anything else out this week or even a fortnight ago on the Wii.

It’s good, but in this type of game where precision is key, waving a piece of kit about instead of pushing a button sometimes isn’t enough which can ultimately lead to frustrating gameplay at times.

It gets 6 out of 10 and before anyone complains, 5 is an average for me so anything above that is worth a look.

Get the game now
New: Buy Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games from Buy.com
Preowned: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games - Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

So we all know that for the last few years Call of Duty has been doing the World War 2 thing better than anyone else. They’ve always bee known for great cinematic set pieces, jumping about the campaigns filling different shoes of what we in the Western world call the ‘good guys’ and a decent online experience too.

Well, finally the game’s come into the modern era so it doesn’t end up doing a ‘Medal of Honor’ and what we get here is more great set pieces, a decent online experience and some very tasty graphics this time around, with new bad guys to fight being some very naughty Russians.

The game opens with a fantastic set piece set on a boat where you and your SAS team do your mission, then the boat begins to sink so it’s a race back to the deck with the ship listing to the side and water pouring in from everywhere. It feels like something straight from an action movie, complete with corny dialogue and, being part of the British campaign, we’ve got geezers who sound like they’ve come straight from Albert Square barking at you instead of the stiff upper lips from back in the day.

From then on, a president gets executed on live TV and you get the unnerving point of view when the credit roll of being inside his head, dragged into a car, driven through war-torn streets, tied to a stick in the square and shot. Nice!

Like most other Call of Duty games this one hold your hands throughout and might as well be on rails. Sure, there are times when you can choose which path to take but you always land in the same spot with your squad mates telling you to complete certain objectives or shoot specific targets. They will largely ignore these so you can’t just stay at the back and let everyone else fight for you – which is probably what I would do if I was really being shot at.

You’re equipped with flash bangs, frag grenades, a pistol and an assault rifle and can choose to aim yourself or fire through the scope to snap onto targets. And you’ll need to use this as this game is hard, even on regular mode. You’ll die lots from a grenade or even a burning car suddenly exploding if you’re too close.

However, you do have an urge to play on as the experience is so intense and even looks better then the recent Ghost Recon games.

Online there are a number of deathmatch, team deathmatch and objective-based games which keep you playing as you get promoted as you play and can then unlock extra perks to give you the edge over opponents.

If you like your war games and want a less tactical game than say Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six, then this one will definitely provide that, as well as showing off what your HD console can do to your mates.

It gets an excellent 8 out of 10.

Get the game now
New: Buy Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare from Buy.com
Preowned: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare - free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Ghostbusters fans will be happy to hear there’s a new game coming out next year for Next-gen consoles produced by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis. VU Games will be publishing it and it’s not looking half bad. It should be fun controlling your streams with your Wii remotes. Just don’t cross them as that would be bad.