As we've already established, we're not science people ('D' grade at GCSE Science, thank you). Bring up a subject such as photosynthesis, or the properties of sulfur dioxide, and it's likely you won't get much of a reply, short of us standing there and saying "buh?" like some slack-jawed, mouth-breathing farmhand.
In other words, Gamasutra's article on debunking the physics found in Super Mario Galaxy never stood a chance of entering our enfeebled brains and staying there. Oh, it definitely interested us, but terms such as "unit vector" and "collision mask" quickly appeared to make us feel like absolute thickos again. What we did pick up from the feature was that gravity can only exist in the real world on spherical surfaces, and that the laws of physics themselves were twisted to accommodate Galaxy's zany world of misshapen planetoids.
If you're one of those people who feels confident conducting conversations about "surface normals," give it a look.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-27-2008 @ 2:22PM
Mr Khan said...
duh
Aside from that, objects as small as they exist in Galaxy wouldn't have gravity anyone, and the black holes would simply absorb whatever was around them
The only physically realistic scene was near the end of the game, when that star collapses and sucks in absolutely everything around it, but then again Mario (or Luigi) and Peach get sucked inside and just find a stellar nursery
This is like people looking at Lord of the Rings and talking about its historical inaccuracy
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 2:24PM
kavorka said...
Who cares? Did anybody actually believe that the physics in Mario Galaxy were true to life? If so, play less video games and read a book.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 2:37PM
vidGuy said...
It's a platformer, fantasy video game which bends the laws of physics and gravity to make the game more fun. This article completely misses the point of the game. No one expects a Mario game to have life-like anything.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 2:37PM
mgroves said...
This "conversation" is such a waste of perfectly good electrons.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 2:40PM
Roto13 said...
The only flaw in an otherwise ultra-realistic game.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 4:23PM
Justin said...
Hahahahahahahah
3-27-2008 @ 2:48PM
kobewan said...
Is there actually a GCSE Science test? We had to do the subjects individually i.e. Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 3:41PM
Parrsman said...
Yup there is, im doing a double award nd the exams have all 3 subjects rolled into one. Depends what exam board your using, ours is OCR
3-27-2008 @ 2:56PM
Jared said...
i'm pretty sure you have gravity on all types of surface, not just spherical. it's just REALLY insignificant unless you're as big as a planet.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 4:20PM
worm said...
Yep, Jared here is right. Even a baseball and a watermelon have a tiny amount of gravity pulling them together. It's just insignificant.
Now, if the moon were a giant watermelon...
3-27-2008 @ 3:16PM
Shmil (Brawl Code 2621-2310-1994) said...
THIS JUST IN
video game physics break laws of physics
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 4:22PM
Anon said...
I think the point of the article wasn't to complain about how the physics was unreasonable, but rather to explain how it worked...and it was fascinating...makes perfect sense to me.
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 4:32PM
Tom said...
NO....WAY.... Super mario Galaxy has something UNREALISTIC in it?.....I....I had no idea! It's.....So Realistic and all......
Reply
3-27-2008 @ 4:59PM
Carlos said...
well duh!
Reply
3-28-2008 @ 3:45AM
hvnlysoldr said...
I wonder if they can find gravity waves soon.
Reply