PLATFORM

Nintendo Wii

DEVELOPER

Next Level Games

PUBLISHER

Nintendo

GENRE

Sports

# OF PLAYERS

1-4, Multiplayer Online

Rating

E10+

U.S. RELEASE DATE

July 30th. 2007

MSRP

$49.99

Mario Strikers Charged

OVERVIEW

Quest for the Striker Cup!

REVIEW

Since the Wii lacked any real Mario title at launch, I was one who looked at any potential Mario release as a sign that the Wii had arrived. Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Super Paper Mario, and this game were three that I was particularly looking forward to. And since Super Paper Mario could only be looked at as a success, it made me all the more excited to give this game a shot. Soccer games are generally fun anyway, so this game had the potential to at least provide some mindless entertainment.

Naturally, the first thing a lot of people do these days when they open a new game is jump right into the tutorial. Who reads instruction manuals anymore? The tutorial generally shows you everything you might need to know to play the game, leaving everything beyond the basics to be discovered later. A good tutorial is brief, to the point, and should have you playing the game competently within a few minutes.

Unfortunately for Mario Strikers Charged, this was the first major failing of the game. I literally sat there for an hour trying to make my way through the tutorial. Not that it took a long time to explain things, but the load time was insane! There were several lessons, and for each of them, you had to load the intro screen, read through an overly flashy and all-too-brief explaination, then sit through an even longer load screen before finally getting to the lesson. After the lesson, you load some more into the flashy summation screen, then more loading back to the menu!

Oh, and it does get better. One of the very first lessons is basic shooting. Now, the game is designed so that there is a wide array of fancy goals and charged shots. And since the computer does the bulk of the goalkeeping for you, it is next to impossible to score a goal with a basic shot. But that is what this tutorial expects you to do. You are put up against a normal-level goalie, given the ball and told to score. You barely know how to pass, you don’t know about Megastrikes or Skillshots, and are barely running around the field, and the tutorial expects you to actually score a goal against a fully-skilled goalie before it passes you on the shooting lesson. Talk about an enormous waste of time. Two minutes into it I had a firm grasp of how to shoot, but I had to spend another ten or fifteen minutes shooting over and over and over again before I finally managed to sneak one in there. Talk about a waste of time.

What was just supposed to be a brief initial session with the game turned into an hour and a half fiasco, and I never did actually play a real game. This initial session really soured me to the game, and it was a couple days before I finally felt like giving it a shot again.

Once I actually got to playing the game, it wasn’t so bad. Basically. The game works thus - each team has a Captain (one of several main characters from the Mario/Donkey Kong universe), three sidekicks, and a computer controlled goalkeeper. The Captains are the most powerful players on the field, each with unique power-ups, and the ability to “Megastrike” - a certain shot on goal that allows you up to six shots on goal per attempt, depending on your timing. Of course, the Megastrike shot takes some time to set up, so if your opponent tackles you while you are setting it up, you don’t get it off.

Now each team has the same goalie - Kritter, a soldier from the various Donkey Kong games. For all normal shots on goal, the computer controls Kritter, and it is usually very good. For the Megastrike shots, however, you do the goalkeeping. After the Megastrike animation, Kritter’s hands appear on the screen and you have to “smash” the balls as the come at you by pointing and pressing the A button before they pass you by. The number of goals scored is, naturally, the number of balls you miss.

Early on I was pessimistic about this system. It seemed like the more Megastrike opportunities you got, the more likely you were to win. And this kind of seemed monotonous to me. That is until I realized that the Megastrike often isn’t the game decider. At higher levels and vs. equally skilled human opponents, the Megastrike almost proves useless. The amount of time it takes to set up almost guarantees that you will get tackled, and any proficient player can easily block all of the shots in a Megastrike. It quickly becomes obvious that the Sidekicks are really your key to victory.

Each team has three Sidekicks, which you can chose prior to the match. These are made up of secondary characters - your Koopas, Boos, Hammer Bros, Toads, etcetera, and fill out your team. Each have special moves and have varying stats, and while they can’t perform the Megastrike, they each have their own special Skillshot. These Skillshots are defended by the computer, and though they can only score one goal at a time, they end up becoming the deciding factor in games once you have progressed to a certain skill level.

To add a little more chaos to the game, you also collect various power-ups. There are two kinds - the general power-up that can be used by every player - these include shells, bombs, banana peels, and other items that are dropped on the field of play (which do exactly what you would expect them to do), and Captain-specific power-ups that of course vary depending on who you are playing with. Effective use of these power-ups is often the difference between winning and losing.

Nintendo core-titles usually make the best use of the controller, and this title is no different. The motion sensor is sparingly used, and it isn’t attached to anything critical. Shaking the Wii remote will allow you to check your opponent just a little harder, and shaking the nunchuck will allow you to cycle through your available power-ups. The rest of the controls are very intuitive, and I had no difficulty at all mastering the control style.

The graphics are good - very solid for the Wii, and the different fields available to play on are varied and unique. The cut-scenes on the other hand - while impressive, are very repetitive. They take a long time to load, and can’t be skipped. This isn’t a bad thing at first, but since the intro scene is identical (one for the home team, one for the visitor) no matter what Captain you chose (aside from the catchphrase), they quickly become annoying and a real waste of time.

BOTTOM LINE

This is a decent game, though one much better suited to multiplayer. The tutorial is a pain in the neck, and since it is vital to complete it before trying to play (for the most part), introducing new players to the game can become time consuming. The cut-scenes are also a drawback - it didn’t take too long for them to become a point of humor in my multiplayer outings.

If you generally play games alone - this might be one to steer clear of. It does have a decent online option - but as well as they pulled off the online component, it still isn’t as fun as playing with someone in the same room. If you routinely play with friends and family, though, it might be one to look into, especially if you are looking for something a little more advanced than Wii Sports, or other party games.

Overall this is a solid game, if a little light on the features. It is a big improvement over Super Mario Strikers, and a good first foray into online multiplayer for Nintendo. My advice is to try and find this one used - with all the new Wii games out about this time, you shouldn’t have too difficult a time finding a cheap used copy.

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Rating(out of 5):

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