Dreary and bleary-eyed you glance up at the clock, and as half of rest of the world sleeps and the hand ticks over to 2am you think "Yeah, just one more star, then I'll stop." Flash-forward to the next day's work - be it in an office block or classroom - and you realise that you actually only had a couple hours sleep, as one star turned into five, into ten... and into 120. Yes there's going to be a huge amount of you that would rather see Mario 64 on here as the originator of 3D platforming, but let's be honest if we're going to pick any game that perfectly showcases everything a Mario title in the 3D realm should have, it's Galaxy. From the absolutely gorgeous graphics and system-sellingly infectious gameplay, there's just something about the construction of Mario - from the voice-acting to the animation itself - that's purely magical. It's definitely up for debate whether or not Galaxy 2 outdid its predecessor, but for bringing about one of the best 'collect 'em all' feelings this side of Crackdown's Orbs, it appeals to that feeling within many gamers to explore every single pixel of an already amazing game.
