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Mario Strikers Charged Football Review - Wii

Introduction

As the Gamecube grew older, Mario became quite the athlete. He played golf. He played baseball. He played tennis. And, most recently and relevantly, he played soccer. I, like most people, ignored Super Mario Strikers when it arrived in 2006, because it just didn’t seem very interesting. This didn’t stop Next Level Games from collaborating with Nintendo again to create a sequel, Mario Strikers Charged Football, which arrives at a great time for the Wii.

Gameplay

In Mario Strikers Charged Football, players choose a captain from the typical Mario lineup of characters, and then assign three more minor characters (Birdo, Boo, Monty Mole etc.) to fill out the roster. You have a goalie too, so it’s five on five. As you’d expect, each character has different attributes relating to speed, power of shot and the rest. Similarly, the other characters have stats and are classified as falling into categories like ‘power’ and ‘defence’ for ease of selection. Thus, the play styles of each team you face can be radically different.

The game uses the Wiimote and nunchuk setup, which works pretty damn well. You move your character around the field with the nunchuk, pass the ball with A, shoot with B, use items with C, slide tackle with a mash of the d-pad and hit with a waggle of the Wiimote, which incidentally is incredibly satisfying. If you don’t have the ball, A toggles between your players on the field, while when you pass your control will be switched to the person who receives the ball. That’s the basics. There are also pro techniques that aren’t explicitly spelt out, but which include lob passes between your characters and interceptions. It’s worth working them out, because you’ll be creamed online if you don’t!

One of the key techniques of the game is charging up the ball. The metallic sphere (ouch!) starts off glowing a deep purple, but a few swift passes between your teammates will soon turn is pure white. The more charged the ball, the better the odds that your shot at goal will go in. The other way to improve your chances is with skillshots. If you hold B to shoot, rather than just press it, your sidekicks will eventually let rip with a much more powerful attack. Boo will turn invisible and rush at goal – nearly always an instant point – while Hammer Bro will throw some of his weapons to take out the defence before powering the ball towards goal.

The equivalent move for the captain is called a Megastrike. If you hold B for even longer than with your sidekick, you’ll initiate a charging sequence. A meter appears by your character – you can let go of B now – and then time it as a line swings along the gauge. Your first press of B decides the number of balls you send towards goal – there’s a minimum of three, and a maximum of six, but it (continued next page)