When you first start to play, you will most definitely find yourself lacking the skills to do well -- no matter how many hours you've spent with other Super Mario titles. The controls for Mario's special actions can take awhile to adjust to, but the major adjustment for players will be learning to master the control of the camera. There are times when the view of Mario is obstructed by a wall or other obstacle and you must quickly adjust the camera to see Mario before he's toast. For an in-depth look at the camera controls, click here.

For the first half of the game, the emphasis is on exploration and puzzle solving. Almost nowhere in this part of the game are there any instantly lethal obstacles for Mario. If you fall off a high ledge, chances are you'll land a few platforms down from where you fell. While this definitely lets you scratch your itch to explore the massive areas, you will need to repeat parts of courses over and over (fortunately this is usually possible using just one life). The result is that if you want to excel at Mario 64, you have to have lots of patience. The game constantly encourages you to slow down and enjoy the view and spot that secret ledge to your right.

The mix of challenging puzzles and action is prefect -- for the first six courses of the game. Once you enter "Lethal Lava Land" the challenge quickly becomes that of half dexterity and half puzzles. This wouldn't be a problem if the controls were extremely precise, but they're not. Often times Mario won't respond as you expect (sometimes do to human error, sometimes due to what appears to be computer error). As with the Mario games for the original Nintendo, you'll find yourself occasionally shouting at the TV "Hey, I didn't do that!" Fortunately, as mentioned before, the design team has taken care to make sure that only the later levels have pinpoint maneuvers that can be fatal if not properly carried out. For those of you who hate games that require superfluous dexterity, don't worry, it is entirely possible to beat the game (with 70 out of the 120 total stars) by only dabbling in the later levels. Once you have seen the spectacular ending (more on this later), your courage is sure to be renewed to get the rest of those pesky stars and see what the prize is.

One of the things that struck me as amazing was how real the world is. The enemies, coins, platforms, etc. are all able to be viewed from a high perch. The N64 literally displays the whole world for you to see. If you are on low ground you can use the camera to look up and see other platforms, or in some cases, just how far you have to go to that precious star. The most impressive example of the 3D-ness of the game has got to be in the ghost house level. There's a shack outside the house that leads to a tunnel and an underground merry-go-round. Spatially, this merry-go-round lies directly below the ghost house. If you happen to mess up at certain points in the house you'll see that in fact this is exactly where it is.

On the superficial side, the music isn't what I had hoped for. Some of the sound patches are kind of scratchy when played through a stereo, and most of the music repeats way too often. With the exception of the water level music, the castle music, the final Bowser music and the ending music, I recommend turning the volume down.

The graphics are mind blowing! There's morphing, lighting, shading, anti-aliasing..... everything is gorgeous! The sheer power of the N64 is no better shown off than in the spectacular ending -- one of the best endings I've ever seen for a video game. I won't spoil it by saying what happens in the ending, but I will give you an idea of what to expect. Let's just say that those who said that CD quality cinema scenes and speech weren't possible on an 8 MB cartridge didn't know what they were talking about! If you get to see the ending, keep in mind that the system is doing everything in real time -- none of it is pre rendered.