It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Throws Up Dinner

Like any Nintendo Wii owner, when the plans were announced to release Super Mario Galaxy three weeks before Christmas, I was ecstatic. I'm nowhere near an avid gamer, but having made quick work of Super Mario 64 and really not taking too much of a liking to the Gamecube version, the anticipation was building. Everyone's favorite overweight plumber with the poor choice in clothing and facial hair would be, once again, saving the world from certain doom. I was not about to go barging into my local Game Stop and demand a copy be relinquished to me at once. I was going to do as countless other Americans when finding an item of interest with less than five weeks remaining in the year: I would ask Santa for this gift. You would not find me waiting hours outside my local Best Buy to procure the "limited edition" of a certain first-person shooter. Don't you think that if the editions really were limited that 750,000 people would be leaving the store, like you, $120 poorer and holding a multicolored cardboard box for your efforts? Marketing campaigns never cease to amaze. Anyway, the reviews online all claimed it to be the "best game of the year," the "one you can't afford to miss," the "reason to own a Nintendo Wii," the "sexiest female on the planet..." The list went on, as did the days, and when I finally opened the presents underneath my Pagan-styled Christmas tree, I was both surprised and excited to see a giant black moustache staring up at me. Once I cleared my dad's pile of 1970's porn away from my gifts, the cover of Super Mario Galaxy was something to behold. Despite my desire to play the game, my brother had just gotten Rock Band AND I was going to London for a week. Both, clearly, held priority over rescuing the infuriatingly gullible Princess Peach.
Upon returning from London, my girlfriend and I sat on my couch, both eager to see the "game of the century" as one ostensibly over-zealous game review put it. The story line needs almost no introduction, and really, I skipped it. The Princess has been captured by Bowser once more and it is up to Mario and his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to save her. The game looked awesome, but visually and, just because it's a Mario title, in terms of game play. The controls seemed to be fluid and upon entering the castle five minutes in, I was impressed at how Bowser was able to whisk away the Princess without catching the ire of her absentee father. Come to think of it... who is the King of Mushroom Kingdom? Is he married? Did Princess' dad get betrothed to a female Toad? At the risk of making myself out to be a larger nerd than I already am, I watched Mario get his ass handed to him by the undulations of the ground as the castle itself was yanked out from its presumably weak foundations.
At this point, Mario found himself in a world where he was able to run "off of the board" and onto the bottom of the piece of land. The camera swerves and sways along with him, and when I had Mario standing literally on the side of a grassy knoll and jumping in a manner that typical gravity wouldn't allow... I became dizzy. When the camera followed his every move, ebbing and flowing in whatever direction I chose to move our moustachioed hero in, I nearly vomited. I turned the game off and lay down on my girlfriend's lap, as I would much rather her affection than that of a computerized plumber. My head was pounding and I felt as if I had just been through a bout of turbulence whilst descending into JFK.
Perhaps, I thought as I lay there, waiting for the throbbing and nausea to subside, I have an unbalanced equilibrium... maybe I should see if anyone else has this problem with this game. I did just that, going, for the first time, I may add, to a video game forum. Unofficially, three of every four posts dealt with the nausea and sick feeling that one got while playing the game. Their solution was to "play the game for two hours and ultimately it will go away." Others chided those who felt ill with poor spelling and ridiculous intimations, "maybe if I tayed [sic] up for like 2 days straight and ate nothing but junk food and energy drink [sic] I might get one of those... otherwise u moight [sic] just be unhealthy or somethin... [sic]." Some cute Asian-themed emoticon usually followed, and I was incredulous. "Sure," they were practically saying to those not of their strong-stomached ilk, "get yourself sick, but this game is TOTALLY WORTH IT!" No thanks. I'm sure the game is fantastic, the gameplay unparalleled, and the storyline compelling, but I'll be much happier with my fifty dollars and sense of equilibrium.