Home » Will "Mario Galaxy 2" borrow from Boom Blox?
When Galaxy was first anounced for the Wii I remember I started to imagine what kind of new gameplay mechanics you could use the wiimote for in a game like that. And my ideas where ofc pretty bad, but it involved physics and using the wiimote as some kind of tool, actually even with a physical representation in the game world if I remember correctly, and that’s why it was a bad idea. But anyway the game finally arrived and there was use of the wiimote, only, not as a physical tool. I mean, there was the target reticule and the steering mechanics, but not much else (I think at least). That’s not something that makes the game less of a great game, it’s just something you can hope will appear in a future title, like “Galaxy 2″.
What talks against that something like this happens is…
If they were to implement it, what would happen with the already established target reticule that is so vital when you collect stars? Sure, you could map the different functions of the wiimote (that is physical tool a la boom blox, and target reticule a la shooting range) on the d-pad for easy access, but maybe this would make the game too difficult for Nintendos casual gamer market? I’m not kidding here, it could actually get the thumbs down from Nintendo because of this, but this is very unlikely though.
Maybe Nintendo would feel like they borrowed too much from Spielberg if they did this? Although that is very unlikely as well, since it wouldn’t have to involve the same mechanics, just as Boom Blox is a different game from Jenga, and it also wouldn’t be that big a part of the actual game to matter anyway.
The hardware could get too taxed from this function, after all, even Boom Blox is reported to slow down somewhat in the later levels, when there are a lot of bloxes on the screen; so if “Galaxy 2″ were to have this function as well as the same fantastic graphics as its predecesor, there would have to be some serious magic involved to get it to work, although they could of course see to it that there never was that much loose things to manipulate with the wiimote in any level featuring such puzzles or mechanics.
Just as Nintendo never settles for only 2 power-ups in a Mario game, so would they maybe reason if they were to discuss implementing “Boom Blox gameplay”. The target reticule was there to ease collecting stars and shoot at enemies, but it wasn’t that necesarry for the game. With 2 functions the player would suddenly ask the question “but why only 2 functions for the wiimote? Shouldn’t there be more functions?”. So in other words, “Boom Blox gameplay” could be scrapped because no one could come up with more ideas for the wiimote in the actual platforming segments (which ofc is most of the game…), but that’s ofc insane :D What’s the logic in comparing power-ups with wiimote functions?
As for a possible “Boom Blox 2″ borrowing from platformers? Sure, why not? Although it might get too difficult to combine platforming gameplay with boom blox puzzles… and also, one of the developers for Boom Blox said they only wanted to use the wiimote. Ofc, platforming gameplay would be scratched from the multiplayer so there you’d still stick with only the wiimote.
Anyways, I think this merger is a lot more unlikely than “Galaxy 2″ with a spice of “Boom Blox gameplay”.


