My relationship with Mario Kart Wii has been a particularly interesting one. When I bought it and played through for the first time, I thought it might be the scariest, most poorly-executed installment in the series. Not that I didn't like the gameplay (though it took me a while to get in the groove), it just seemed like they were making a game that was doing an impression of the series.... None of the characters looked quite right, you know? There's no graphical polish to them, it's almost like they're made of play-doh or something...and the voices sound waaay off-kilter (close your eyes...think of Donkey Kong getting a red shell in the backside...the horror, the horror). But it seemed like the more I played, the more I couldn't put it down. I had discovered the online play - probably the best of any Wii game out so far, there was nothing to it, and I hardly came across the problems of lag and inconsistency displayed by, say, Brawl. It's still my favorite Wii game for parties, and I'd say that despite its weird look, it ought to be up there with the good ones.

I played through Twilight Princess, but really felt like that was it. I didn't feel like there was enough in it for it to be a Zelda game. Side quests, secrets to explore and collect, etc. I'll probably be thoroughly hazed for that, and that's okay with me. But I did love the look of it, and the gameplay was solid - my favorite part of any new Nintendo installment, is when they take you somewhere completely new; I'd say that for me it was 50/50 old and new on this game, where some spots I felt were pretty routine and slightly tweaked from some old formula-starting moment in the series, and some spots came quite unexpectedly: my favorite example being the rickety old mansion in the mountains you get to explore. The puzzles and some of the quests to get to that place are just very well thought-out and fun.

I'd say my favorite Action/Adventure game thus far would be Resident Evil 4, or (and I figure this won't count) the New Control! Pikmin. Both are total masterpieces.

Nothing really tops either of the Super Mario Galaxies though!!