Introduction
The Nintendo Wii is my new mistress, and my PC is getting jealous (my wife, on the other hand, enjoys 'sharing' my Wii with me). Lucky? You bet your ass I am. Sexual innuendo aside, I feel like a kid in a candy shop. For those of you that haven't experienced the Wii, I believe your time has come. The Wii has taken gaming out of our hands and cast it into the light, and unlike those other times, this is good for us. With its fun and intuitive "Wiimote", the Wii now makes gaming available for all to partake of the flavor we call delicious.
Background
Enter Mario Strikers Charged (MSC) (Or Mario Charged Football in the UK, or Super Mario Strikers Charged (For the hatred of all that is unholy and undead, can't they just call it Mario Soccer?!?!)) a game that takes the beloved international sport of football ('soccer' for us Americans), spruces it up Mario style, and makes it into something that emits blue sparks. The genre is tried and true: Give us turtle shells to hurl, or mushrooms to eat, and we'll be yours forever.
MSC takes the elements I've mentioned (and many, many others from Mushroom Kingdom lore) and intermixes them with Soccer. The game pits a "Captain" and his three "Sidekicks" (not to mention the goal keeper) against another "Captain" and his "Sidekicks" (and his goalkeeper). The Captain is one of the 'chief' characters from Mushroom Kingdom lore, with the Sidekicks being secondary characters (The Koopa Troopa, for instance) The object, as one might suspect, is to score more goals than the other team, and in this fashion, it mirrors its real-world counterpart.
This, of course, is where the similarities end. I doubt you'll find turtle shells gliding past you on the soccer pitch, or see a ghost disappear before your very eyes and reappear with the ball in the goal. Nor do I suspect that your team's forward can grow to 12 feet tall and smash the defenders into itty-bitty pieces. I'd even be willing to wager that your teammates probably can't burrow into the ground when attacked.
Storyline
There isn't one. Next paragraph. (Edit: The editor emphasized that there *must* be a storyline. After all, this isn't Doom, right?) Ok, so there is, namely: What would a soccer game in the Mushroom Kingdom look like?
Show Me the Effects
Owning a Wii doesn't exactly put me on the cutting edge of graphics — in fact, the Wii lags behind the other 'next generation' consoles in terms of Graphics. But let's be realistic, if you have a Wii, it isn't because you want to see the sweat of your enemy's brow. You'd rather throw a turtle shell at him. The game does offer 480p support, but not having an HDTV, I can't say whether or not it makes a difference. However, on standard definition, it looks exactly like a console game should look. No more, no less. (I suppose if I wanted graphical prowess, I'd put my Wiimote down and play a PC game.)
The sound is standard fare for the Mushroom Kingdom genre: They've made moderate gains in terms of sounds, but at the end of the day, it still sounds like a Mario-type game. Again, sound is not why one plays the Wii, especially with a television sporting built-in speakers.
In the 'Box'
Great googly moogly, there must be gobs of content spewing from the disc. It offers online play ('multiplayer'), "Road to the Stryker Cup", Domination Mode, and various (nefarious) challenges. Each mode has a different objective, with the 'Challenges' mode pitting you against some of the "greatest moments in Mario Soccer", and the Domination mode allowing you to play 'ead to head' on a variety of soccer pitches. As is standard with Mario games, there is content that becomes unlocked after you beat the 'Road to the Stryker Cup' tournaments. And just like in the other Mario games (I'm looking at you, Mario Kart DS), it gets progressively harder as you go along (read: impossible). More on my hatred for the AI later. All in all, I'd say there's about 25+ hours of content for offline play.
The-Not-So-Intelligent-AI
You may wonder why I bring up the artificial intelligence in this game. To be fair, for the gamers that only have single player capability, it's an important discussion. Nintendo has once again found a way around a weak AI by using their tried and true method of environmental disturbances. For instance, when I was playing the CPU on 'normal', the AI wouldn't attack me if I kept the ball on my half of the pitch, close to the penalty area. It would come towards me if I stopped moving, but if I kept passing it between field players on my end of the pitch, it normally wouldn't bother me. The meteors were not so forgiving. Normally after a few seconds, some environmental (Act of God) factor would smash, electrocute, or barbecue my avatar, forcing either another player to pass the ball, or the CPU would get possession of the ball and make my goalkeeper's job just a bit harder. My AI 'sidekicks' are as smart as a collective bag of rocks, and it falls to the player to control each bot in turn if he wants to do anything remotely useful.
I haven't yet played cooperative offline play yet, since each gamer requires a Nunchuck with the Wiimote, but I'd gather that it'd make it much more fun against the CPU. Speaking of the CPU, it cheats. Alright, that isn't entirely fair to say, but it made me feel better. After sweeping the CPU in the 'Fire Cup' (the first cup on the Road to the Stryker Cup), the CPU posted 6 wins against me in the Crystal Cup. Each time, something inexplicable happened, an instant where even though I was tackling the CPU, he was still getting off Megastrikes — or the CPU would rely on the ball rebounding three times from the goalkeeper and amazingly display more football prowess than he had all game. While the CPU doesn't cheat, it certainly has some 'come from behind' win capabilities that seem patently unfair.
Playing Losing Against Others
The multiplayer component pits you against other Wii'ers on a ranked system (complete with Seasons and all) that allows you to see how you rate against other Wii'ers. The multiplayer simply makes MSC what it is.
You can play up to 2v2, with a "Guest" assisting you on your Wii against another 1 or 2 person team. The leaderboards are 'ranked' with persistent stat tracking, and there is a season that begins every week that shows who the top players are for that week.
Make no [dry]bones about it, if you want a great MP game, Mario Strikers Charged is it. While the CPU displays the unbeatable quality that makes it hard to stomach SP (just how many times can you be beaten down before you cower in fear?) the multiplayer aspect at least allows for you to play against another human, with faults and failings just like you. In my case, I've won one game thus far, and I think it was against a paraplegic. Otherwise, I've been getting my virtual ass handed to me by persons unknown.
I have but two complaints about online play: First, and perhaps most importantly, I have no way of talking or typing to my opponent — or even a way to retrieve his Friend code to play him in the future. Secondly, if you match someone with a horrible connection (2-3 stars), one of you will be at a grave disadvantage. Each time I played someone with 2-3 stars showing for their connection quality, I ended up experiencing lag and was beaten 16-0.
Bottom Line
If you lack internet connectivity for your Wii, then you may want to wait until this game comes down in price. While it offers a fun experience for Mario fans, it doesn't offer the single player replayability that the juggernaut Mario Kart (in all its various forms) does. However, if you have the ability to play this game online, then I suggest you stop reading this review now and go pick the game up. Go.
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Graphics by: Ruin | Editing by: tychon
Post edited by Gortok at 8/17/2007 5:44:57 PM