Mario Strikers Charged

European football is known worldwide as "the beautiful game." Legions of fans flood stadiums to sing songs of support for their favorite clubs, and entire countries seem to come to a halt in order to admire the athleticism of their players. The sport's popularity is immense everywhere but in America, it seems, where soccer's detractors routinely complain about a percieved lack of action. People who think they would find more satisfaction in using the Wii Remote to make Daisy smash Princess Peach into an electric fence should embrace their inner hooligan and take a look at Mario Strikers Charged.

Charged is a sequel to Super Mario Strikers, which released on GameCube in 2005. Those unfamiliar with the series can think of it as Mario Kart applied to soccer. The "beautiful game" here is loose and frantic, featuring explosive items, colorful characters and stages that are more battleground than playing field. The art style and attitude is more rugged in the Mario Strikers series than the pudgy plumber's other sports titles, which is suitable for series' fast-placed gameplay. Charged incorporates futuristic overtones into the established style - evident in the characters' battle suits, their teleportation into matches and their ability to spring hundreds of feet into the air - making the series even more unlike any soccer title on the market.

This qualifies as rugged, right?

Like other Mario sports titles, Charged is accessible to those who normally wouldn't play the sport. That basic controls are: analog stick for movement, A button for pass, B button for shoot. Players should feel comfortable with the controls in just a few minutes, and the optional Strikers 101 tutorial helps to ensure this. The basics are relatively easy to learn, and so are the motion controls - though they are hardly innovative. Players can flick the Wii Remote during gameplay to have the character they are controlling ram into a nearby opponent, as well as point the device at the screen and block incoming MegaStrikes. The Nunchuk can be flicked to switch between the two held items and disrupt an opponent's MegaStrike attempt.

MegaStrikes are only available to team captains. After successfully charging a shot, team captains can strike the ball so hard that it splits into as many as six separate balls for the opposing goalie to block. Opposing players will then take control of the goalie and use the Wii Remote to swat away the individual balls. The design still feels solid despite the minimal use of motion controls, but newcomers to the series will likely take more value from the gameplay adjustments than fans already well-acquainted with the core mechanics.

Stop those balls with your Wii Remote!

After becoming acquainted with the controls, players can take on the Strikers Cup, participate in 12 Striker Challenges, engage in a free-for-all in Domination mode or find opponents via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The Striker Challenges are a series of matches of varying difficulty that players can take on in any order they choose. Each challenge is based around a particular character with a brief side-story and a specific goal. For instance, one challenge has Donkey Kong facing Petey Piranha in a final cup match, but players have to win while trailing by three goals. Winning a Striker Challenge opens up the Players Card for that character, which will simultaneously unlock new modes and cheats.

Gamers following the road to Strikers Cup will choose a team captain (the lists consists of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, Bowser, Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong and a trio of unlockable characters) along with three teammates (Koopa, Toad, Dry Bones, Boo, Birdo, Hammer Bros., Monty Mole and Shy Guy). Stats for movement, shooting, passing and defense differ for each character, with the exception of some teammates (like Toad and Shy Guy) that oddly share all of the same attributes. Balancing out the qualities of the captain with team member abilities is a crucial component of strategy.

The Strikers Cup consists of three sections that players must conquer: the Fire Cup, the Crystal Cup and the final Strikers Cup. Each cup is comprised of a number of qualifying rounds, followed by a few elimination rounds, and then the final match. Once players begin a cup run with a certain captain and team, they will be unable to switch characters until they finish, lose or forfeit. Players can save their progress after each match and participate in other modes. Trophies can be earned during each cup depending on how well gamers play; new characters can also be unlocked. Each match in this mode lasts for only three minutes, but players eager to win with every character could spend days playing just Strikers Cup.

Striving for that accomplishment is made easier by enjoyable gameplay and balanced AI. The computer opponents progress in skill just as players do in the Strikers Cup, up through five difficulty settings. Strategy won't be as important in the early matches, but fairly soon players will need to begin making split-second decisions. Do you pass the ball to your speed player as soon as possible and risk the goalie being able to handle a weaker shot? Do you repeatedly pass the ball to disorient the opposing side and attempt a shot from farther out in the field? Do you go for a big slam, or a simple slide tackle? Slamming a player without the ball awards the opposing team with items to be used against you, but simply stealing the ball with the weaker slide tackle won't slow opponents down as much or provide the satisfaction of ramming them into an electric fence.

Successful players will also need to learn how to effectively "charge" their shots by passing the ball. Completing successive passes will change the ball's power level, as indicated by its color. When charging, the ball will glow from yellow, to orange, to red and, finally, to white. The ball will fly harder and faster the more the glow approaches white, which changes the pace of the game almost as dramatically as MegaStrikes.

There's something ironic about Peach's MegaStrike.

MegaStrikes are performed by holding down the B trigger while the captain has the ball on the opponent's side of the field. From there, an on-screen guage appears and players will have to press the B button twice to determine the speed of the shot and the number of balls to be deflected. Performing successful MegaStrikes takes a bit of practice, but the bigger concern is that being hit by an opponent while attempting a MegaStrike will cancel the move, so players need to create sufficient space for the captain. Teammates also possess unique SkillShots - like Birdo firing a giant egg with the ball inside or Boo invisibly slipping into the goal - which can be charged more quickly and don't use a gauge. For the sake of balance, SkillShots don't provide the potential for multiple goals at once like the MegaStrike.

A total of 17 arenas are available, with seven of them being classic courses from the first Mario Strikers. About half the fields feature environmental hazards that affect gameplay, but all of them look exciting to play on. Character models still seem deformed - a problem carried over from the original Mario Strikers - but they are noticeably more detailed and very well animated in Charged. Characters that are burned or frozen will also wear their scars proudly throughout a match. The generational jump from GameCube to Wii hasn't brought the visuals terribly closer to matching the amazing CG mini-movie that Charged opens with, but the game's graphics are more polished than many Wii games currently available.

Kudos to the team that makes the CG intros for Mario Sports games. Charged features the coolest one yet.

The variety of music in Charged is also noteworthy. Every stage has a unique musical theme, ranging from a flighty piano solo, to catchy jazz and techo combinations, to Western-style desert sounds and more. Attentive players will hear classic Mario themes subtly built into some of the compositions. Additionally, all captains and teammates have their own theme music. There also seems to be more voice acting in this game than previous Mario sports titles. Captains have signature statements for when they dramatically enter a match, they'll call out some variant of "pass me the ball!" in matches, and they'll make commentary to teammates, themselves or the audience during the brief cut-scenes between goals. The sound effects, save for those coming from the Wii Remote's speaker, are well implemented and often times funny, like Thunder Island's nod to the movie Twister. The 10-15 second load times between matches are the biggest strike against an otherwise successful presentation.

Charged is the first Mario sports title to feature online play. Will Mario succeed where Pokemon Battle Revolution did not? Come back for Stage 2 to find out.