I’m a Nintendo fan. I link this to primary school field trips to Devon and playing my friend’s Gameboy. We only had Tetris and Super Mario. I remember the arguments about who was playing next and the satisfaction of completing levels. I remember begging my dad for my own GameBoy and him insisting I got an Atari Lynx instead as it was ‘in colour’, but that’s another story. That isn’t to say I don’t play other formats, I do, but Mario (and Yoshi) will hold a special place in my gaming heart. So last week I purchased Super Mario Galaxy 2. It came with a SMG2 money box. I now have something else to gather dust in my flat. The front cover of the game advertised that it came with a ‘free tutorial dvd’. At first I thought that it was something to do with having the version with the free money box. On further investigation it turns out everyone gets this dvd with their purchase. I ignored it. I’ve played before. I put in the game and off I went into the world(s) of Mario (with Yoshi in tow this time).

Last weekend I went over to visit some friends. In between a game of Agricola and lighting the BBQ we decided to watch the SMG2 dvd. We were greeted with a similar opening to the Wii Motion Plus start up video. It reminds me of an airline safety video when they explain how to fasten and unfasten your seatbelt as if it’s the most complex set of actions you’ve ever encountered. After watching how to insert the nunchuck into the Wii Remote, the DVD started to explain how you could actually move the Mario character around by using the control stick on the nunchuck. “Pressing forward on the control stick (actually) moves Mario forward within the game”. There was a good couple of minutes just explaining how to move Mario. We fast-forwarded the DVD. It continued to show each move possible within the game. These were shown with run-throughs of different levels within the game playing in the background. Having already played the first couple of levels I was shocked at how much of the game was given away through the DVD. We all commented that it should have come with a spoiler warning. The other point was that you can actually find out these moves as you progress through the actual game. As with any other Mario game, there are signposts throughout the level(s) that you can press A to read and it tells you what to do. There are even quite a few moments when you are forced to read an explanation of a new item you’ve found, especially when it changes Mario’s abilities.

So I’m left questioning the purpose of the DVD. I’d be interested to know how many players watch this from start to finish (or even throughout playing) in order to learn how to progress through the game. I usually learn how to play the game through actually playing the game. That’s what tutorials and pop-up text boxes are for. I realise you could technically watch the dvd and pause and play side by side but what’s the fun in that? For me, playing the game usually allows me to explore the gamespace, test the controls and learn through my mistakes. I like the gameworld to unfold as I progress through them, otherwise I may as well read a walkthrough and not even bother. It’s not as if this DVD even replaces the need for a walkthrough as on a quick google search (as expected) there are many available. Considering the Wii console doesn’t come with a tutorial DVD, I find its inclusion slightly confusing. It’s not as if SMG2 is a console release game. Whatever its purpose, for me I guess it’s just another thing to gather dust.