Video games are generally perceived as being fun. Science generally isn't, which means that everyone is wrong.
Science is fantastic. Video games are made of science! As if to prove this fundamental point, the mysterious writer who calls himself only as mcc at Mechanically Separated Meat sat down and did an entire post analyzing the physics at work in Super Mario Galaxy, and specifically, how possible the game's weird gravitational situations are. Here's a sample.
Meanwhile, Wikipedias formula for escape velocity for a planet ( sqrt( 2GM / r ) ) tells us that escape velocity from this planetoid will only be about:
sqrt((2 * G * (1.8043906 � (10^14) kilograms)) / (115 feet)) = 26.2110511 m / s
Which is about 60 MPH. So the cannon stars Mario uses in the video to move from planet to planet should work just fine. (Although platforms might not work so well, at least not tall ones; since the planetoid is so small, youd only have to get about 45 or 50 feet up off the ground before the amplitude of gravity is halved. ...)
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