The gaming industry owes a lot to Nintendo. If not for the runaway success of their breakthrough NES console in 1985, we might not be here now playing our Xboxes and PlayStations. Indeed, Nintendos' flagship franchises have been virtually synonymous with video games for many years. But times have changed, and Nintendo has found itself lagging far behind in console sales, and its marquee characters have been missing in action for quite some time. At the head of this pack is that corpulent plumber Mario, whose last outing came in 1996s' seminal 3D platformer Super Mario 64. After six years of vacation, Nintendo decided that Mario needed... more vacation, and that's the premise behind their latest title, Super Mario Sunshine. This GameCube title looks to occupy the platformer void that Luigi's Mansion just couldn't fill, but does it succeed? Let's find out.

Super Mario Sunshine certainly gets off to an inauspicious start, with one of the most poorly-done opening cinematics in recent memory. A heavily-compressed movie depicts Mario, Princess Toadstool and some old guy (who looks like Toad) heading for their vacation spot on Delfino Island. Watching a promotional video for the island during the flight, Peach notices a shadowy figure who looks suspiciously like Mario wreaking havoc. Hmmm... It's at this point that she speaks up, and we immediately wish she hadn't, as Peach has been given a ditzy, high-pitched voice that is both unbefitting of her character and grating on the ears. In fact, all of the characters are voiced rather poorly, and poor Mario is reduced to grunts and sighs for much of the game. Thankfully there are very few speaking scenes in the game, so this problem shouldn't intrude too much on the experience. Mario games have never been known for their presentation, but these elements are uncharacteristicly sloppy for such a big-name Nintendo title.

Once the trio lands on Delfino Island you'll find out that a mysterious character has been covering the island in goopy graffiti. Mario to the rescue! Mario starts out solo but is quickly paired with a water-squirting backpack named FLUDD. The pack stores and squirts water, which is perfect for cleaning up those nasty paint jobs that have been plaguing the obese inhabitants of the island. Needless to say, this is what you'll be doing for the majority of the game. This is the main departure point between Sunshine and the rest of the Mario games, as the waterpack replaces the classic set of power-ups for which the series is known. That means no more magic mushrooms, no more fire flowers, no more flying feathers and no more tanooki suits. This change will likely divide players into "love-it" and "hate-it" factions, much like the vegetable-throwing antics did in Super Mario Brothers 2. Sunshine offers players a completely different Mario experience which might turn off some long-time fans, so keep that in mind.

Super Mario Sunshine is structured much like the previous installment, with a central hub level that links to all the other stages in the game. Most people seem to enjoy this focused type of setup, though I admit I much prefer the free-roaming, interconnected game world seen in recent platformers like Jak and Daxter. Instead of Stars, Mario will be collecting Shines (which are essentially the same thing) in order to progress through his latest adventure. Each stage presents a range of different scenarios to play that subtly change the landscape each time, though this limits you to tackling one task at a time. These tasks vary in difficulty, and I must say that Super Mario Sunshine is a great deal harder than any of the previous Mario games. If you're looking for a cakewalk, you won't find it here. Much like Super Mario 64, there are a variety of coin challenges to complete, including Red Coins (collect 8 for a Shine), Blue Coins (trade 10 for a Shine) and the standard Gold Coins (collect 100 for a Shine). While these will appeal to those who revel in collecting objects, they are often more frustrating than fun.

There are seven similarly-themed stages available (excluding the Plaza) in Super Mario Sunshine, noticeably down from the fifteen diverse areas in Super Mario 64. There are a total of 120 Shines to collect, and you'll have to replay each course multiple times to get them all, which could grow a little tedious after a while. The stages are filled with lots of stuff to do, but they are all designed after the same tropical theme, and as a result there is much less level diversity than in SM64. To accomplish the myriad goals the game presents, you will be required to make use of FLUDD in a variety of ways. The default nozzle is useful for battling enemies and cleaning up gunk, but there are a variety of other nozzles that you'll have to use, like the Hover nozzle or Rocket nozzle. You can only carry two nozzles at a time, so you'll have to do some creative nozzle switching to obtain certain Shines. All told the waterpack works fairly well, though it still seems too much like a gimmick instead of a solid gameplay element, especially when you consider that Nintendo outfitted the other Mario brother with similar equipment in Luigi's Mansion. Perhaps Mario fans won't even notice, but it's worth mentioning just the same.

Playing a 3D game like Super Mario Sunshine boils down to two discreet elements: play mechanics and camera interaction. First, the good news: Controlling Mario is a snap. The control is light and responsive for the most part, and getting around the various worlds is fairly easy. (Just for the record, I use a Sony DualShock2 joypad to play all my GameCube games, so that probably has some impact on how I rate play mechanics.) Mario has a wide range of moves at his disposal, many of which have been carried over from Super Mario 64, like the triple jump and belly flop dive. There are some new moves to learn that center around FLUDD; for instance, Mario can squirt a streak of water on the ground and then slide around on it. There are even a few "throwback" levels scattered about, in which Mario has to perform some classic platforming maneuvers without the help of the waterpack. All told the game feels a lot like SM64, so fans of the series should feel right at home with Sunshine. Dinosaur pal Yoshi even shows up at one point, though his lack of usefulness makes him feel like an afterthought.

Now, the bad news: Controlling the camera is NOT a snap, and I'm going to go on record as saying that Super Mario Sunshine has one of the worst 3D cameras I've ever seen in a video game (no offense to Sonic Adventure 2). While the camera in Super Mario 64 generally kept pace with the action fairly well, Nintendo has taken a giant step backwards in Sunshine. The camera is slow to follow Mario and it doesn't adjust well to sudden changes of direction, making spatial maneuvers (jumps especially) unnecessarily difficult. Mario will be out of your sight for an inordinate amount of time, as the camera will not move around corners to follow him. The game partially compensates by silhouetting Mario when he is obscured by objects in the environment, so you'll never completely lose track of him. This doesn't work as well as you'd like, though, as you still can't see where Mario is standing, making precision jumps nearly impossible without extensive manual camera positioning. You can rotate and zoom the camera fairly well with the c-stick, though the game curiously negates your manual adjustments on occasion; many times the camera insisted on pointing at Mario's face even after I rotated it to point at his back.

In addition, certain stages (the roller coaster in Pinna Park, for instance) force you to play from less-than-ideal perspectives, which will likely cause an unnecessary amount of frustration for many players. A certain stage on Gelato Beach sees you trying to bounce baddies off of wobbling mirrors, which might have been fun if not for the fact that the game forces the player to attempt this feat from an extremely wide angle. Player preference is tossed out the window more than once like this, which makes me question wether Nintendo did any sort of play testing prior to Sunshine's release. The camera seemed to deliberately thwart any amount of fun I might have had with the game, and I turned off Sunshine in disgust on more than a few occasions. When a developer takes the time to craft an intelligent camera system (like Naughty Dog's Jak and Daxter), players usually won't even notice that they've done anything extraordinary. And conversely, a poorly-implemented camera system will usually be the first thing a player notices in a free-roaming 3D game. With more years of game development under their belts than most other developers, Nintendo has absolutely no excuse for releasing a high-profile game with such obvious and crippling flaws. Wether you can get past the horrible camera is a matter of personal preference; I simply did not care for the game enough to warrant the frustration it entailed.

While not the best-looking GameCube title by any stretch, Super Mario Sunshine is nonetheless a solid visual performer. Mario's tropical world is filled with bright colors, miles of sandy beaches and water. Lots and lots of water. In fact the finest feature of this game is its extremely life-like and detailed water, wether in the ocean or shooting out of Mario's backpack. The water seems to possess a tangible characteristic of wetness that most other games lack, and it looks absolutely fantastic. Paint and water seem to mix more or less realisticly, and the liquid nature of the games' paint allows it to cover objects (including Mario) in a very life-like fashion. Very impressive. The character models are smooth and very round, and we finally have a real-time Mario model that matches the quality of the Project Reality demo from six years ago. Animation is similarly excellent, as Mario moves with much more grace and fluidity than ever before.

That animation comes at a price, however, as you must wait for an animation to finish before another one can begin. This can sometimes make the game feel a tad sluggish, especially while swimming; some animation blending (like that in Jak and Daxter) could have made the game look a bit sharper and feel a touch more responsive. Textures feature suitably cartoony artwork and look fine from a distance, but closer inspection reveals that they are disappointingly blurry and lacking in detail. Although the game runs at a very high resolution, the lack of anti-aliasing results in an overly sharp look that clashes with the cartoony style of the game. Super Mario Sunshine also runs at a relatively low 30 frames per second, which is fine for the purposes of the game, but is a little disappointing for a title that isn't all that visually complex. The good tends to outweigh the bad, though, and most people will definitely like the look of the latest Mario adventure, despite its technical shortcomings.

Sound is very typical for a Mario game, and that is to say that it takes a back seat to the visuals for the most part. And aside from the previously-mentioned voiceover travesties, there's very little to actually discuss. Sound effects are faithful to the style of the Mario games, with lots of suitably cartoony bops, slams and swooshes. Mario also makes a satisfying scrambling noise as he runs, and the water-related sound effects retain that feeling of wetness that the visuals convey so well. Background music is mostly light-hearted banjo and piano fare that is understated and recedes into the background very well. In a nod to earlier games, you'll hear classic Mario tunes during certain events, my favorite of which is the underground theme that accompanies your adventures into Delfino Islands' sewers. Ah, that takes me back. The soundtrack is definitely in line with the rest of the Mario games, although I must admit that many of the songs curiously fail to evoke the island vibe the way the visuals do.

Super Mario Sunshine is not a poor game by any stretch, but its drawbacks are serious and intrusive enough that many gamers will likely be turned off. While the atmosphere is appealing (especially for the younger crowd), the atrocious camera problems conspire to rob the game of much of the fun that Nintendo intended players to have. And indeed this title will likely divide people into those who decide the rewards are worth battling with the controls and camera, and those who decide they are not. With better-looking and better-playing platform games available both now and in the future, it's tough for me to recommend this game to anyone but the most hardcore of Nintendo fans. Give the game a rent, and if you can get past the problem areas, this just might be the game for you. All others are advised to stay far, far away from Delfino Island.