Super Mario Galaxy co-op is better than you think

On all these podcasts, reviews and critiques I keep hearing about how the co-op option in Galaxy is "girlfriend mode." This may seem so at first, but it would appear that these people, many of them game critics, never pressed the A button while the cursor was over an enemy or over Mario himself. The A button can hold enemies in place for the other person to bop them on the head or what have you. Alternately, the 2nd player can be a playful (and sometimes maddening) type of nuisance during the game. By hitting "A" whilst hovering over Mario with the cursor, you can make him jump, and this will most often result in either Mario incurring damage, or falling into a black hole. This gets particularly interesting while switching off every death with a friend when trying one of the more challenging levels in Mario. Since the other player will be tempted to exact revenge for their un-sportsmanlike conduct, and the cycle continues... Call it immature, but there's certainly much more to Galaxy co-op than just collecting and shooting star bits. [/rant]

When we discovered this (by accident) I asked frequent players of the game, and most, if not all, said they didn't know about this option. So, this is more of a public service announcement than it is a tirade against Nintendo's inability to explain all gameplay options in the manual, or the hasty judgements of the gaming media. Enjoy your "A" button Galactic Marioers.