I think it really says something about the maturity and freestanding quality of the medium that there can be a game that derives so much entertainment purely from self-reflexivity. That videogames provide such fertile ground for multi-dimensional satire (no pun intended) is as sure a sign as any of the creative health of the art form.

Inspired by a visual trick from The Thousand Year Door, the developers of Super Paper Mario asked a simple question: what would classic Mario levels look like expanded one dimension into the background? So yes, the entire game is based on a gimmick, but in its defence, the gimmick is an extremely good one. Oh, and there’s some RPG and platforming stuff tossed in there as well to keep things from getting dull.