Name: Mario Strikers Charged
Genre: Sports
Platform: Nintendo Wii

To date some of the most popular sports games on Nintendo’s systems have been the Mario Sports titles. Each brought some new feature to the table to make it different from the typical sports game. While many of them try to be cutesy, Mario Strikers does not dabble in such follies. It is gritty, dirty, and as much as I hate to use this buzzword to describe something, extreme. The original for the Gamecube sold fairly well and received good reviews so a Wii excursion was an obvious path.

It is very simple: if you enjoyed the original you will love this game. Everything is improved. Gone are the days of just picking your captain and having a team of Koopas. Now you pick exactly which forms of lesser beings you wish for your team. This brings a deep mechanic to the game, as each one of the choices is very different. Do you put Monty Mole on defense, with his slow speed but good handling? Or do you put him on offense for the same reason? The choice is yours and it makes the game more than a typical sports title.

The Wii controls are perfect. Instead of relying on gimmicky motion it embraces it. The game doesn’t make you swing your remote to kick the ball or any goofy feature like that. Instead you play it as if you were using a normal controller with a small difference. Sliding is mapped to general motion, so a swing of the remote will make your character tackle the opponent. This feels completely intuitive and never gets in the way of anything else. The pointer sensor isn’t used at all during the game – until someone does a special kick.

In the original game when your captain charged up a kick they automatically scored and received three points. This was a fun thing to do but not to have done to you – it almost felt cheap. A feeling of utter uselessness flooded over the player as their opponent charged up and they were out of range to block. Mario Strikers Charged fixed that by allowing the goalie to *gasp* block and your other teammates to *gasp* charge as well. Using the pointer controls the defender can point at the screen and block the flying soccer balls. The better the charged kick, the faster they fly. The balls missed all count as goals. It allows the player to get up to five points in one kick, but also allows them to get none.

Online also works without fail. Records are tied to your Miis and the connection is fast. It uses friend codes, which is full of suck, but it gets the job done with automatically choosing opponents. In the games I have played and seen played there was no lag or any other issues. Slowly but surely Nintendo is learning its lesson.

I suggest this game, even if it does have a few kinks it could have worked out and a few more months worth of graphical polish. This is a worthy addition to any wii owners collection and a fantastic game.