Probably the most divisive 3D adventure of the instantly-recognisable plumber, Sunshine deserves praise for trying things to do Mario a little differently. While there was the usual panoply of platforming and jumping around that you'd expect from a Mario game, Sunshine also armed the plumber with a water gun, which he used to wash away the slime covering the game's eponymous island. It's up for dispute whether the water-gun mechanic was ideally suited to a Mario game, but pretty much everyone agreed that using it as a jetpack was a blast. Many of the puzzles revolved around using the gun or Yoshi (rideable in 3D for the first time) to get obstacles out of the way, and it was probably the most fun game to ever depict a large-scale clean-up job. The reason Sunshine doesn't appear higher on this list is because it wasn't as ambitious as other platformers that appeared in the late 2000s. Mario Sunshine for the most part stuck to what people wanted and expected from the Mario formula, but its main gameplay variation sometimes was just a tad tedious to me. The Mario magic was still there, but it would be a few years yet before the man in red would make the big breakthrough that fans had long been waiting for.
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
