Review: Mario Strikers Charged Football

In his first European outing on the Wii Mario brings a bunch of his pals to the park for a kickabout. However with electric fences for sidelines, environmental hazards, special moves, off-the-ball fowling (allowed), and no troublesome offside rule this is footie in its loosest definition of the word. This is to football as Hoops was to basketball.

The game kicks off with an extended and exciting introduction to all the characters and from the looks of them you'd think they're getting ready for Super Smash, rather than the beautiful game. Armoured chestplates and macho posturing abound, even from the (rather curvy) Peach and Daisy.

You then drop into a nice simple menu with the Wii-standard point'n'click interface. From the off you can see Training, Online, Career and Vs modes along with Options and Trophies. Training mode takes you through 10 simple lessons beginning with passing, lobs and shooting, progressing through special moves, power shots and power-ups and ending with a full 3-minute game to test your accumulated knowledge.

Each five man team has a main Nintendo character as its captain. You start off with ten or so playable captains and it looks like there are a few more to unlock through challenges and career modes. The usual suspects star: Mario; Luigi; Daisy; Peach; Bowser; Wario; Waluigi; Yoshi etc. Each has his own strengths and weaknesses based on running speed, power, accuracy and so on, and a selection of special moves. The captain is accompanied by three players selected from the Mario games' plethora of sidekicks and drones, such as Goombas and Koopa Troopas. Your goalie is mostly CPU-controlled except for kicking the ball out and saving special shots (see below). Your team is customisable at the start of a series.

The gameplay is simple and intuitive: direct your players with the stick on the 'chuck. A to pass, B (trigger) to shoot, Z to lob. String passes together to increase your chances of a shot hitting the back of the net. Hold the shoot button to build power, or trigger a special shot. Use the d-pad to trigger your player's unique on-the-ball move, which is usually an evasive manoeuvre. You can string pass and shoot combos together to some extent like the game's more serious brethren, but it's not as accurate.

On defence you can use the d-pad to tackle, or shake the stick for a more powerful (read dirty) tackle. But don't worry - there are no red cards in this game. Slamming an opponent into the electrified walls causes him to become stuck and temporarily disabled. Strong tackles, or powered shots will also grant you a power-up, frequently similar to the pick-ups found in Mario Kart: bananas; red shells; green shells; mushrooms, etc.

Each player has character-specific moves, different on defence and offence. There are nuanced differences on both types of tackles: Bowser will slam an opponent for six, while Yoshi can tackle from afar with his tongue. Each character also has a different special move and power shot triggered by holding C or B respectively. The captains' power shots trigger a short mini-game that can result in up to six goals from a single shot. A killer blow when used near the final whistle that caught me out more than once as I was relaxing, assured (or so I thought) of a 1-0 or 2-1 victory. Leaving the player quite defenceless during the build-up, holding Z brings up a swing-ometer similar to many golf games: as the needle swings round, press once to choose the number of balls you will fire, then again to select the power. If you manage to succesfully execue this attack without being tackled then the character leaps high into the air and fires the balls at high speed towards the goal. The goalie (who is usually CPU controlled) then has to use the wiimote to pick off the balls as they fly out of the screen. With good timing you can quite easily get 3 or 4 balls past the goalie completely changing the flow the of the game.

Dropping into online play is quick and simple. You choose a Mii to create an online account with and you're in. You get to choose a Friendly, for which you'll need to exchange friend codes, or a ranked series against a total stranger. Leaderboards are available which demonstrate quite how lowly you are in the grand scheme of things, even before release day. A quick series against my first human opponent demonstrated to me quite how nuanced and subtle the game is behind the manic and colourful action on the screen. There's far more to this than random button mashing.

Sound is, as you'd expect from a Mario game, accomplished and inoffensive. Each stadium features its own muzak and events are signified with a variety of sound-effects, some of which ring out of the Wiimote's speaker, such as when you're awarded with a power-up. Music, Effects and Voices are all variable in the Audio options screen for when it all gets too grating.

Graphics are generally bright, clear and colourful featuring largely primary and secondary shades, but the colours during the matches can sometimes get a bit muddy on screen and it can be hard to spot the ball, or tell who is on which team. One game I played online had green v yellow on a wasted brown pitch which made it very hard to see what was going on. Environments are interesting and well designed. Characters are drawn and animated with the high quality you'd expect from a Mario title, these are especially noticeable during goal and victory celebrations. Secondary effects are subtle and welcome, such as a nice holographic effect during team selection and to show off the winning captain.

Overall you've got a fast, furious and very fun game here. Each series is a set of three 3 minute matches with no breaks. At first it seems like there are a lot of buttons to remember but each has a very definite use in any given position and you quickly get used to what's going to happen. At it's simplest level learning to pass and shoot is enough to win you a game or two, but the skill lies in clearing space for your Captain to let loose with a six-ball power shot. Clever timing with pick-ups, observant use of environmental factors (wind-blown cows!) and combining the different characters' power-ups is paramount to mastering this game.

Nintendo have dropped a sure-fire winner here. This game is going to take over as the de-rigeur party game, and also provides more than enough depth for a single player. With the simple online play options provided on top I can see this staying in the Wii for a long time.