Super Mario 64

You play as Mario of course, who must tip Toadstool's castle's balance of power into his favor by collecting the power stars that the evil Bowser's lackeys are hiding inside the castle's artwork. You must enter the 15 worlds: Eight behind surrealism paintings, one miniature haunted house, one under a pool of oil, one behind a fake wall, one behind a wall of water, two versions of one behind two still life paintings, one behind a clock face, and one in a hole with a beam of light coming out of it.

The first thing to grab your attention is the look. It's a dated game, but you just can't help but think that it looks cool. The environments that Mario visits are really neat to look at. One is a floating mountain of snow, another is a freaking creepy "Boo" house, and a dark cavern with poison gas, construction beams, and a creature that could be related to the Loch Ness Monster.

There's also the play control. All of Mario's moves are executed easily using only three of the buttons on the controller. There are jumps, special jumps, punches, kicks, combos and backflips. All of these moves are accomplished with no trouble at all.

All the enemies are pretty easy, even Bowser's not that tough. The challenge of the game is the platforming, it can get pretty tough in some places.

While beating this game may not be the hardest thing ever, finding all 120 power stars will take some time, it certainly took me time.

There are also a lot of bonus areas and secrets in this game. Some of the stars are hidden in the secret areas, and you must also find the switch palaces so you can use the power of Mario's hats to fly, become invisible and turn to metal.

The games's biggest flaw is the age. The game still looks good today, but the textures are noticabely awful or plain in some areas. The camera can also be tricky to get used to, and even if you do get used to it, it doesn't always do what you want it to.

There's also Mario's voice, provided by Charles Martinet. Mario sounds like some whacky freak with a voice higher than Michael Jackson's and an Italian accent faker than pro wrestling.

These weaknesses aside, Mario 64 is an excellent game full of wonderful locations, great platforming, fun characters, good music, and loaded with imagination.

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