Super Mario Galaxy 2

After a bit of rewarding experimentation, it's time to use the drill in a boss battle, against a clambering bow-legged robot who fights you on the outer edge of an asteroid (which happens to resemble an Oreo cookie). Send Mario drilling towards one of the monster's metal feet and you'll be rewarded with an abrupt clang and a return journey; time things just right, however, and you can slowly smash through the glass chamber lurking under his head to free the star inside.

Actually, it's the boss fights that stand out, too, even though I only get the chance to play through one more. Petey Piranha (it may not be Petey, come to think of it; I was answering a text at the time) waits for Mario on the final stopping-off point at Sky Station Galaxy, a kind of suburban fifties utopia that's been scattered across an asteroid field. Neatly trimmed lawns, bright clapboard structures and perimeter rings made from white picket fences set the scene, all seeming perfectly acceptable within the game's bizarre visual logic.

There are a few things that would be out of place in the world of Oldsmobiles and distant fathers who work in the city and nurse secret passions. The few things include a huge rolling pin you have to work your way across at one point, avoiding patches of sticky tar that will slow you down and get you clobbered by sliding platforms of stone. The oddball additions are entertaining enough to let you forgive them.

Petey himself is in a bit of a state. A screaming baby piranha plant, his fat body still wedged in an egg shell (again, this being Mario, all of this seems to make perfect sense) he's a surprisingly tricky foe to finish off, even though it's obvious you should probably get as close as possible in order to perform spin-attacks on his belly. It's a simple enough set-up, but the game doesn't shy away from throwing in mean touches, increasing Petey's speed when he gets into a rage, and slicing away at the time he spends standing still.

All of which means that, if you'd worried that recent Nintendo games had been getting too easy - granted, you probably weren't thinking that about New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Galaxy 2 isn't afraid to cook up bosses who shove you off into space again and again, and laugh while you're swallowed by a black hole. Later on, it even conjures a purple-coin hunt across some switching tiles that is, arguably, the most difficult thing I've ever endured - and that includes a dream about being stuck in an elevator with Senator Bob Dole.

The game's willing to give you some old friends to help you out, however, and the return of Yoshi - in a game that has finally remembered what to do with him, too - almost brought a tear to my eye.

Thankfully, Yoshi hasn't really changed from the days of Super Mario World. He's still found in eggs, although the spacing of them is a bit kinder this time, he still scarpers around in an excited fluster whenever Mario's in the saddle, he still wobbles through the air with that peculiar frantic hover, and he still dashes off the nearest cliff if the plumber becomes unstuck.