This was fun to make. It is, at its core, an elaborate ploy to get people to buy the new shirts. But if I ever get to form a band, you're damn right it's going to be called Ded Kitty Hed. I don't care if it's me on a keyboard playing birthday parties. Ded Kitty Hed.

Super Mario Sunshine: This game...had moments. The premise is the same as every other 3D gold-thing-collecting backpack platformer out there, but with the revered Mario license attached. And that is why it fails. The backpack platformer has already been done in Banjo-Kazooie, Rachet & Clank, and Jak & Daxter, and done better. Mario's lame little squirt pack FLUDD (a more forced acronym than NECOWAI) has about half the uses of any other backpack buddy. Artifical difficulty is added by restricting your FLUDD to two out of four nozzles at any one time, while the directional pad sits completely unused.

The 3D platforming worlds are bright and cheery, but feel small and sparse. That's because they are small and sparse compared to even the ancient Banjo-Kazooie. Tightropes and small platforms usually arc overhead, but there's always a feeling of being trapped in one of two layers, "ground" and "above ground".

The most awesomest parts of SMS are the "secret" levels. These small areas take away the FLUDD pack and challenge you to cross an empty void on several types of surreal platforms. Some platforms dissolve when you step on them. Some look like watermelons. Some are cubes that rotate on all three axes while moving through space. All the while, the spherical background flashes pixelated images of classic Mario and a remixed but palatable version of the 1-1 music plays. I found these levels difficult, fair, and the best platforming since Super Mario World.

The next Mario game is already in progress, so it's probably too late to save it. But the one after that should be composed entirely of like 500 of these small levels. The template for this kind of game is right there in last year's Wario Ware. You could even throw a bone to the modern gaming public and put a collectible gold thing at the end of each one. I don't care, I just want more of these things.

Mario Sunshine I can do without. I'll go ahead and spoil the end for you: after braving one of the toughest levels in the game (me hate lava, rawr!), you fight what is possibly the easiest boss in the game, and then watch the lamest movie of the game. The movies are all pretty lame, though. Rent this game and beat it just to say that you have, then let it be mercifully forgotten.