If you are a gamer then you most likely at some point in time have played or have, at the very least, heard of the gaming institutional juggernaut that goes by the name of Mario. I am not going to bore you with a history lesson that you most likely already know, nor will I pontificate on how many people consider Mario to be the gaming equivalent of Jesus. Super Mario Sunshine is a video game, and I will treat it just like I do any other video game I play. I am in a unique position as I did not grow up as close to Mario as most people seem to have and I seem to be playing catch up on the classics as they are re-released on the GBA. Hell, I just finally picked up a copy of Mario 64 a month ago.

I guess you really can't help but compare and contrast the series of games as the years go by. Let's face it, Mario has generally been on the forefront of either refinement or innovation for the platform game genre. Mario games helped build the foundation of the 2D platformer and Mario was one of the first to really make 3D work. People have a hard time putting their personal feeling and memories aside when speaking about something which has either has that much impact on the industry or even their own lives.

Super Mario Sunshine has a lot of marketing and hype behind it. Mario 64 was revolutionary. It would be hard to argue that it wasn't. People played the game to death and they have had six years and a lot of other video games to play in the meantime. While Mario may have been the front runner in the 3D platform game genre, there have been many others who have since picked up the ball and ran with it. I am going to try and attempt to cover most every angle you can take on this review, in the hopes that it would actually be helpful to those who are curious about the game and aren't interested in most of the reviews I've seen which feature a lot of fanboy ranting based upon their play experience with the game that lasted less time than it took for the shrink wrap to be removed from the game case.

I remember reading a lot of different impressions people were writing on the net as we looked upon the first serious high quality screen shots of the game. The comments ranged from "I just creamed my shorts" to "That is the worst piece of shit I've ever seen in my entire fucking life! FUCK!" Opinions flew around with reckless abandon and speculations as well as expectations were running high. The Gamecube was the first Nintendo console to NOT ship with an actual Mario game and the fans were rabid for it while the anti-Nintendo camp took the opportunity to tear into the screen shots for their use of bright colors and seemingly low polygon counts.

Well, the game is finally here in the US with the domestic release of Super Mario Sunshine and we can finally see what is really going on under the hood. The graphics in the game feel very evolutionary for the series. The 3D models, while keeping reasonably simple, look exceptionally smooth and move fluidly. The levels tend to feel very organic and alive with activity as well as things to interact with.

One of the best improvements is the draw in distance that you can see in this game. That was one thing I felt plagued my enjoyment of the original Mario 64. "Hey! There's a red coin" "oh wait it's not there" "oh there it is again!" I felt like Alex Rogan in the Last Starfighter when it he was trying to figure out the heads up display in his Gun Star. That isn't an issue at all in Super Mario Sunshine as you can clearly see pretty far in the distance, although you will still notice some pop in here and there like when a villager just appears out of thin air as you swim towards on the little islands. Another neat effect is the "heat shimmer" as you look into the distance. I guess this would be a matter of opinion but I felt the effect looked great and really fit the tropical mood of the game.

SMS really does pile on the effects too. I suppose it would be hard to write a review without gushing over the water in this game. Given the tropical island setting and integral gameplay elements, water is abundant. Miyamoto's crew obviously cared a lot about the water in SMS and it shows. Like a lot of other game elements, the water really feels alive. I found myself spending quite a few minutes just swimming around in the water or making an impromptu slip-n-slide by spraying the ground in front of you as you do a running dive, zipping across the land in the second fastest way possible.

Not only does the water look incredible, but it also sounds amazing. There is a lot of subtlety used with the water sound effects that really make for a slick atmosphere. As you spray water about, you can leave temporary footprints on the ground, in the sand, with each step making a different sound depending on the type of ground you are walking on. From boot clicks on dry ground to squishy muddy sloshing on saturated earth, it's all in there and all of the little touches are appreciated by me for whatever that is worth.

Basically, anything remotely liquid in the game is simply amazing. You can even practically feel the different consistencies of the liquids, such as the sludge, paint, etc etc. The paint was one of my favorite encounters since the effects were just so well done. Blobs of paint would fly around the level, leaving a trail of dynamic swirling color behind as it would roll off a ledge. Nintendo's coders just really show how they can throw serious attention to detail when it comes to the liquids in this game.

However, not everything is perfect. The pop-in is barely there, but shows up every once in a while. No big deal in that department. The one part which I find most disturbing is the uneven texturing in the game. Thankfully, the bad textures are few and far between, but they tend to be in places which cause a jarring sensation, jutting you away from an otherwise slick presentation, such as a scene early on when you just out of a little creek and need to grab onto a blocky green grass texture to pull yourself up onto the ground. Sure, it's minor, and it certainly doesn't kill the gameplay, but you tend to just expect a little more from certain games, especially when you are comparing elements within the same game. Some of the textures simply look amazing, and really show off what the tiny Cube is really capable of, however, the inclusion of the low res textures in certain areas will continue to baffle me.

The overall sound in the game continues along a path of putting the player into the lush tropical world as well as giving long time fans some reminiscing tunes to enjoy. Some of the most fun music comes into play when you hunt for Shines in the old school styled obstacle course levels. The music in those levels is basically an a cappella version of the classic Mario theme song. Another one of my favorite is when you traverse underneath the town through the tunnels, playing another classic update to an old Mario favorite.

The sound takes a 180 degree turn for the worse when characters open their noise holes in the game. Dear lord why can't developers use at least tolerable voice actors if they aren't going to give us good dialogue? I wasn't too concerned with the story in this game. It throws a couple curves in there for good measure, but you're not really playing a Mario games for the detailed story. The voice work, however, is appalling. Mario is voiced by the same guy who apparently always voices Mario (who takes the job WAY too seriously.) Mario himself has few lines of real dialogue. (I guess the guy charges by the syllable for his "expert" services.) It also sounds like most of Mario's utterances are simply lifted from the previous game. (More credit to the overcharging voice actor theory.) Princess Peach is just vapid and annoying and the worst one in the whole group is the FLUDD itself. That's right, the water shooting backpack talks. Not only does it talk, it offers helpful hints over and over in the game by blandly stating, "Mario" as well as providing some of the narrative duty during some of the cut scenes. FLUDD speaks in a monotone, slightly metallic voice which works on most of the nerves in your neck in a negative fashion, while being boring at the same time. It's a nice mix of anger and apathy which really is hard to put into words. If you hate Edge in the U2 song, "Numb," you are going to reach for a rusty screwdriver to gouge out your ear canal while listening to FLUDD.

The rest of the game is littered with reasonably nice sound effects which bring back memories as well as wet the pallet for next generation bells and whistles. As I already stated, Mario has distinct footstep sounds when walking over different terrain as well as a host of other little sound effects like fruit re-sprouting from trees etc etc. Water effects sound great which is fitting since the water is such a major star in this game.

Thankfully, the controls in the game, after about an hour of serious play, really feel right. For the most part, everything controls tight and I actually like the new enhancements that the FLUDD pack offers in the game. Some people may not care for Mario running around with hardware for most of the game, but I don't feel it hurts the game in any way. I will definitely agree when people say that the FLUDD pack can allow you to 'cheat' a little sometimes with your jumps. It's easy to correct yourself when you make smaller mistakes on lesser jumps, however, this might cause problems for you when you really need to use the FLUDD pack to reach up just a tiny bit more to reach a ledge. The levels are clearly created so that you take advantage of all of the moves in Mario's arsenal.

The camera system in Mario was designed to be hands on. This is the source of most of the Super Mario Sunshine complaints. Basically, it boils down to this: The camera is dumb. It won't generally try to orient itself in the best position. Luckily, the camera controls are very responsive and quick, however, there are a lot of gamers out there who have been treated to smarter camera systems, especially in the past couple years. Sometimes the camera does seem to work against you with wild swings and pans when you don't want it to. Some of it you can just chalk up to the perils of 3D gaming, however it would have been nice if you didn't have to spend so much time tweaking the camera instead of just playing the game and enjoying the world.

Super Mario Sunshine employs nearly the same level structure as Mario 64. You have a central town plaza which acts in much the same way as the castle did in the previous game. From the town plaza, you can then access the different levels of the game. Not every level is available from the start, and you will need to complete certain events to continue traversing through the difference areas of the game. In order to collect all of the "Shines," you need to go through each level, multiple times, completing different goals each time. Sometimes this may irk you if you are not particularly fond of a level. Super Mario Sunshine is also a little more structured than the last game. In the last game you had a little more choice as to what level goal you tackled at a time. In Sunshine, you're locked to one goal that the game dictates, in the order in which they are dealt. Overall, it's not too big of a deal, however if you get stuck on the second Shine in a level, you're just stuck on the second Shine in the level. The isn't really any way around that. This will most likely lead to some frustrated gamers.

There are also some frustrating levels and incidents that just seem like they are designed to eat up lives and force you to search for more, wasting time you could have spend enjoying another level. Sometimes it seems needlessly difficult just for the sake of being difficult. One example would be a race, early on in the game, where you would ride a little squid in a little mini Wave Race action. Instead of a speed penalty when hitting anything, like most racing games, you simply lose a life. So, basically, you end up burning through a few lives at the very least, just so that you can learn the layout of the track. Don't even get me started on that Plachinko bonus level in the town square.

Overall, I found Super Mario Sunshine to be a well done platformer, with a lot to offer gamers out there. Despite the minor camera issues and some of the needlessly frustrating levels, I have found Super Mario Sunshine to have an oddly addictive quality which keeps roping me in for more. I think this game will make the Mario fan happy, and would probably be interesting enough for even a non Mario fan looking for an interesting platformer out there. The game is good, with solid presentation and some nice high points in gameplay, graphics and sound, but I'm sure that it will leave some fans disappointed due to the lapse of time between games in this series. Mario 64 was revolutionary, Super Mario Sunshine is evolutionary, but it feels like a game that could have followed many years earlier. A lot of gamers out there may have just expected a lot more from the game, but I feel it delivers a very solid experience and another satisfying purchase for my Gamecube.