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Wii | Sports | Mario Strikers Charged

Boxart for Mario Strikers Charged
Mario Strikers Charged 27 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.75
  • SOUND: 5.00
  • CONTROL: 5.00
  • FUN FACTOR 5.00
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.7
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.1
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Preview: Mario Strikers Charged

Preview by Dave Rudden | 04/27/2007 | 17:48:29 PM PST

Get charged up! The first Mario Strikers for the Wii is right around the corner. Gooaaaaaaaallllll!

Mario's gotten his white gloves dirty in a variety of sports games over the years. While Nintendo has placed the ubiquitous plumber in basketball, baseball, golf, and tennis games, the company's first choice for Mario's motion-sensitive sports debut is a Mario Strikers Charged, the follow-up to the GameCube soccer title Super Mario Strikers.

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Common sense says that a game that makes little use of arm movement in real life would be a poor choice for the Wii's motion sensitive controls, but developer Next Level Games have sped up and simplified the normally mundane soccer videogame experience to the point where it may be able to knock Wii Sports from the top of the standings.

The control method for Mario Strikers Charged is heavily based on traditional movements, using the analog stick for motion and face buttons for passing and shooting. The motion-sensitive controls are for only two defensive actions; slide-tackling (performed with a simple shake of the Wii Remote) and blocking of super-shots called Mega Strikes, where you must line up a goalies hands.

Game Director Mike Inglehart said, mentioning the many control methods that had been tried but deemed too unwieldy, like movement-based shooting, dekes, and setting up pass targets. With only a few, easy-to-remember motion-based moves, the game is able to move at a fast pace. Similarly, traditional aspects of soccer that normally slow the game down like penalties and out-of-bounds recoveries have also been nixed. Overzealous defenders actually provide powerups for beleaguered opponents with every attack, which allow you to unleash special moves specific to each of the game's 20 characters (12 captains and 8 sidekicks).

Yoshi getting soccer fever

Yoshi getting soccer fever


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