Nerd Grrl Street Cred

Okay, so this isn't a real accomplishment, which is why the blog is probably the only appropriate way to crow about it, but I recently beat all 120 levels in Super Mario Galaxy. Oh yeah baby! (Thomas is now trotting out that particular phrase whenever he does something well. Should I feel guilty?) Despite the fact that I play games regularly, I've never been hardcore--in fact if a boss fight seems boring and tends to take too many retries, I'll usually just ditch the title for the next game in my lineup. But something about Mario Galaxy has kept me playing.

Once, you could tell the console pros by their zen stillness during play. Beginners have a tendency to whip the controller around in a desperate attempt to get their little guy pixels to do what they want, despite the fact that the controller can't tell whether it's in your lap or flying through the air. Well, until now. I used to be one of those zen players, sitting in silent, button-mashing ohm-position. But the Wii remote has changed all that. Now I careen around on the couch as wildly as before. I even move the remote in ways totally unhelpful to gameplay. In Galaxy, Mario can change direction midair by shaking the remote and pressing the control stick in the direction you want to go. However, I also yank the remote in that direction, even though I know it's useless. I can't help it. The Wii has unmade me back into that silly kid again who whirled the controller around and yelled at Megaman not to fall off the edge. And that's probably a good reason why I can't stop playing it.

Anyway, beat all 120 levels and you get to play Luigi. Beat all 120 levels with him and supposedly the 121st level opens. Beat that...and I don't know. We'll find out when I get there.

Until then, watch this video of a guy beating one of the hardest Galaxy levels: What looks like an old school Luigi sprite from the original NES game turns out to be a map full of rotating boards, disappearing squares, and green muck that serves up an instant kill. The goal is to collect 100 purple coins (out of the 150 available) and make it back to your starting position all before time runs out. I felt pretty cool finally slogging through it after about 50+ retries.

Obviously I'm still just a grasshopper. Mr. Miyagi, is that you?