The Sydney rain on Thur 3 Jun mattered little as the drinks and snacks flooded the inside of the beautiful Star Ship (the theme was galactic!) Maude Garrett from Nickelodeon was on hand to demonstrate how to play before handing over to invitees and around six gaming stations around the party area.

DJ Goodwill from Ministry of Sound played throughout the three-hour cruise, including mixing the globally-famous Mario tune live. Life-size Mario mingled to make sure everyone was behaving (and possibly to check for any leaks). There was also a lucky hat draw, with three copies of the game to be won (for next time, we best have business cards).

It’s been 3 years since the original Super Mario Galaxy was released. Although a great game, people were wondering where’s that lovable dinosaur companion? Well, fans can rejoice as Yoshi is back! Mario also gets a whole lot of new suits and toys to play with, including a screw drill (which you can use to drill from one side of a planet to the other), a cloud suit (that allows you to create clouds to platform) and a host of other new features.

Difficulty level seems to be on par with some of the middle levels of the original and the emphasis seems to have swung back to more of the platforming goodness of Mario 64 than the planet-hopping of SMG1. In each galaxy, the planets seem larger than in the original, with fewer of them so there is less traversing through space to do.

The P2 mode exists again but continues to remain largely superficial. The worlds are colourful and imaginative as always, especially the enjoyably Dali-esque one, filled with sand and dust-devils!

Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be released on 1 Jul across Australia.

Ho Wong & Felix Staica