Tetris is the first video game I was unable to shut off on command.  Players of Sid Meier’s Civilization are familiar with the problem of “one more turn”, similar to the bookworm’s “one more page”.  Tetris was my first “one more turn” game.  I first played Tetris when I was five or six and received my Gameboy for my birthday or Christmas.

[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“237” caption=“Tetris on Gameboy, the definitive version in my eyes”] [/caption]

I received Super Mario Galaxy for Christmas and I must say that I’m quite happy with the gift.  This is the most talked about Wii game for the end of 2007 and not without reason.  Everyone who’s into gaming kept mentioning that Mario Galaxy is the true successor to Super Mario 64 on the Gamecube.  Pretty much everyone, myself included, thinks that Mario Sunshine was a piece of sod that should never have been made.  Mario Galaxy, on the other hand, has a lot of the same charm that made SM64 so much fun to play.  My only complaint, and this is a very tiny one, is that the puzzles are a bit easier than Mario 64.  I remember racking my brain with my brother trying to figure out how to get the each of the stars for SM64.  With Mario Galaxy, I feel that most of the stars are a lot easier to get.  However, as I write this blog post I realize that I played Super Mario 64 approximately 10 years ago, so it’s possible that the puzzles that were so hard for me back then would not be quite as hard now.  That said, I beat the game in two days with about 20 hours of gameplay.  That is, I beat the final Bowser, but was only about half way through collecting all of the stars.