Its hard to call a game like this childish
If you belong to a certain age group, namely the aging gamer group, you'll most likely have some sort of affinity towards Super Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog. But lets face it, now a days, neither of these guys really appeal to the hardcore gamers. Sure they are gaming icons that looks good on T-shirts but outside of children and loyal fan boys most people would rather be in the boots of Marcus Phoenix or Niko Bellic.
Razor sharp controls, creative level design, and something new is all you ever need for a platform game to be successful. Throw in a camera that isn't broken, and you the formula for a near perfect platform game.
Controls in SMG are simple, literally "child's play". The basic Mario controls break down to this; the analog stick moves Mario, and the A button controls Mario's jump. Thats pretty much always been the formula. The new to SMG controls throw in the obligatory Wii waggle gesture (in this case the Mario bitch slap that could have easily been mapped to any button). And the strangely addictive FPS/light gun star bits hunting and shooting game. Basically your cursor is constantly hunting around the screen to collect star bits and should you see fit, use these star bits as ammo to shoot at enemies. Why does this control scheme work? Well it has more to do with the game design but basically given our youtube like attention spans, we're having to platform while multi-tasking a reflex based game of photo hunt that requires FPS like skills.
The mind boggling gravity and physics found on each level design, (or in this case I should perhaps say planet design) really gives this game a sens of 'something new'.
This isn't a super deep game with an amazing science fiction plot line, its a game that tests the reflexes, a game that you will pick up and put down over the course of a year, its a game that you'll play when you've beaten your epic story games, its a game you will play when you get off work and your brain is too fried to think, its a game you should own.
