The Blend Games staff conferred on some magical lists to end the year that was 2007, and we still have a few up our sleeves. Aside from getting together and arguing, each writer on staff also has their personal memories of gaming in the past year. Over the next week or so we’ll feature a little something from each member.

Today’s Retrospective sees Rich Knight gushing over the love Mario Galaxy has received. Not just from his own mouth, which has been whorishly lavishing praise upon the game…but also the collective numbers of an aggregator. Heck, even we named it our Game Of The Year.

But we’ll let Rich tell you of the Mario loving in 2007. Grab your scotch and cigar, take a seat in the corner chair and enjoy our continuing series of 2007 Retrospectives.

Super Mario Galaxy Highest Rated Game Ever
By Rich Knight

I already know Super Mario Galaxy is the greatest game ever made. I’ve played the game. I’ve beaten it. But it was especially sweet to see the overwhelming story of agreement when I read that GameRankings.com—an unbiased site that simply tallies up the scores from multiple critics and places them on a scale—showed that Super Mario Galaxy was far and above the highest rated game ever made—besting even the coveted Legend of Zelda entry, The Ocarina of Time. It has since been knocked out of it's top spot as more reviews were accounted for, but there was a bright shining moment of pure Mario bliss.

Now, while I am a bit biased since I’m a self-proclaimed Nintendo fanboy, Nintendo zealots can all admit that we’ve been languishing through a lot of garbage just to get to Super Mario Galaxy. But now that we’ve all played it, we’ll all admit that man, was it worth it.

With Miyamoto-san at the helm of the kid tested, mother approved console, we should have never have lost faith in the Wii, but somehow, we did. Watching our girlfriends, grandmoms and pets play the Wii somehow made it uncool to be a gamer; like we’ve wasted all these years being counter-culture for nothing. But Super Mario Galaxy, with its highly accessible, yet insanely hardcore gameplay (Just try getting all 120 stars—twice—without pulling out all your pubic hair) rewarded nostalgic gamers and newbies alike by plucking elements from what’s arguably considered to be the greatest Mario game ever created—Super Mario Bros. 3.

With flying airships, familiar tunes, and all the wacky suits Mario has to don to get ahead, pretty much the only thing keeping this game from being an outer-space remake of number 3 is the absence of the corrupted Koopa kids. And even they’re not all that missed with the excellent boss fights in the game provided by baby Koopa and the head honcho himself, big Bowser.

Whether Super Mario Galaxy ever gets knocked off by some other Nintendo game in the next few years (Maybe even Super Smash Bros. Brawl), I don’t know. But one thing is for certain: Super Mario Galaxy makes you fall in love with being a gamer again.

For more listings and opinions of the past year by the CinemaBlend.com staff visit our Best Of 2007 coverage, located in a single, handy, story right here.