Mario Strikers Charged

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Mario Strikers Charged
PAL box art
Developer(s)	Next Level Games
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Series	Mario Strikers series
Platform(s)	Wii
Release date	EU May 25, 2007[1] AUS June 7, 2007[2] NA July 30, 2007[3] JP September 20, 2007[4]
Genre(s)	Sports game
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer, online
Rating(s)	CERO: A[5] ESRB: E10+ OFLC: PG PEGI: 7+
Input methods	Wii Remote and Nunchuk

Mario Strikers Charged, known as Mario Strikers Charged Football in Australia^[2] and Europe,^[6] is a sports video game developed by Canadian developer Next Level Games and published by Nintendo for the Wii. This game was announced at the 2006 Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany as the sequel to Super Mario Strikers for the Nintendo GameCube. It was released on May 25, 2007 in Europe, June 7, 2007 in Australia and July 30, 2007 in North America. This is the first Mario title with an ESRB rating higher than E for Everyone.^{[citation needed]}

The game supports the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, through which players can participate in online matches and tournaments. Upon its European release, it became the first Wii online game to be available outside of Japan.

Contents 1 Gameplay 1.1 Items 1.2 Mega Strikes and Skillshots 1.3 Dekes 2 Online features 3 Characters 3.1 Captains 3.2 Sidekicks 4 Stadiums 5 Trick shots 6 Reception 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Gameplay

Two teams of five players each battle for the possession of a metallic football. The player controls the character with the ball, if his team has possession, or may switch between characters if it does not. Normally purple, the ball quickens and brightens in color as it is passed around the field, eventually becoming bright white. A brighter ball has a better chance of scoring a goal when shot to the net. Opponents can attempt to hit or slide tackle the player with the ball to gain possession.

[edit] Items

When a character is hit without the ball, or when a character takes a powerful shot on net, that character's team gets an item. These perform various functions, such as knocking out other players or giving a temporary boost of speed. All items from the previous game, such as the various Koopa Shells and the Chain Chomp reappear, except for Bowser, who is now a playable character. Captains may get a special item that creates a unique effect, such as removing other players from the field or knocking out all players in a large radius.

[edit] Mega Strikes and Skillshots

If a player holds the "shoot" button, a shot will charge up and eventually become a special shot. If the character is a sidekick, he will perform a Skillshot. Each sidekick has its own unique Skillshot, but all have the ability to either disable or bypass the goalie, making a goal much more likely.

If the character is a captain, the shot will be a Mega Strike. The Mega Strike splits up into 3-6 individual shots which all fly toward the goal at a certain speed. The number of balls and their speed depend on the player's timing in executing the Mega Strike. To defend against the shots, the opposing player must target and block the balls with the goalie. For every shot the player successfully makes, a goal is awarded to their side.

[edit] Dekes

A deke is performed by using the tackle button on the Wii Remote. When in possession of the ball, a character will perform a specific move instead of tackling.

Characters such as Mario and Luigi will jump forward a short distance. Other characters, such as Boo and Dry Bones can teleport, to avoid being tackled. These characters are mostly used to perform a trick shot. Others will damage their opponent. Characters like Birdo and Hammer Bros. will hit their foes, usually when another player is attempting to tackle them.

[edit] Online features

This is the second Wii game to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection features (with Pokémon Battle Revolution being the first). In Europe, it is the first Wii game to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The online modes feature ranked random matches and unranked friendly matches.

Ranked matches puts players up against a random opponent and are restricted to players in the same region in order to maintain connection stability. A billboard showing the player's Mii will be shown along with the "Striker of the Day". The Striker of the Day is the player who earns the most points in one day. Players earn 10 points for winning a match or 1 point for losing a match, and also 1 point per goal scored, with a limit of 10 points earned for goals making a total limit of 20 points. The ranked matches do not use friend codes, are region specific, and support 1 vs. 1 and 2 vs. 2 player matches.

Friendly matches are casual matches in which players can go up against their friends. Unlike the ranked matches, the unranked matches use the friend code system and there is no points system. While originally planned to support world-wide play, support for friend code matches was later restricted to local regions due to concerns about lag and playability.^[7] Players are able to import their Mii; each Mii has its own friend code so that each user can have a separate friend list.^[8] The unranked matches support 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, and 3 vs. 1 player matches.

[edit] Characters

There are a total of 12 captains and 8 sidekicks to choose from to form a five-player team, which consists of a captain, three sidekicks, and a goalie. All characters, except for the goalies, are separated into 5 categories: Balanced (balanced in all areas), Playmaker (speedy with good passing ability), Power (good shooting and defensive ability), Offensive (good shooting and passing ability), and Defensive (speedy with good defensive ability). A team may consist of any combination of different sidekicks (e.g. 2 Koopa Troopas and a Shy Guy).

[edit] Captains

• Mario
• Luigi
• Yoshi
• Donkey Kong
• Bowser
• Peach
• Daisy
• Wario
• Waluigi
• Bowser Jr.
• Diddy Kong
• Petey Piranha

[edit] Sidekicks

• Koopa
• Shy Guy
• Monty Mole
• Birdo
• Boo
• Toad
• Hammer Bros.
• Dry Bones

[edit] Stadiums

All 7 stadiums from Super Mario Strikers return along with 10 new stadiums.

Many of the newer stadiums have certain characteristics. Thunder Island has blowing wind, which can blow players off the field. Other stadiums have obstacles such as Thwomps and lightning strikes to make scoring more difficult, and some even have terrain obstacles.

[edit] Trick shots

The game has a variety of trick or special techniques that may be used to score goals. Methods include teleporting through the goalie, jumping over the goalie, chipping the ball into the wall, passing, shooting, and various others.

A glitch that is well-received among many players is chipping the ball directly into the goal. The game's "shot" recognition does not detect "chips" as shots, thus making no motions or improper motions to defend against a "chip shot". This is very evident when you perform a certain chip and the goalie will just stand there or get stuck in certain frames.

[edit] Reception

Currently, reviews of the game have been generally positive with an average critic score of 80% at Game Rankings^[9] and 79% at Metacritic.^[10] Official Nintendo Magazine praised the pick-up and play feel of the game, giving the game 91%. Eurogamer also favored the added strategy and feel to game, giving it an 8/10.^[11] UK magazine NGamer criticized the game for its low amount of game modes, but overall felt that it was a definite improvement over the GameCube original, giving it 78%. Edge magazine was concerned about the overwhelming power of the Mega Strike feature, also citing "The eventful, minute-long matches and frantic to-and-fro make Mario Strikers a suitable curtain-raiser for online gaming on the Wii, but a balanced and deep extreme sports game this is not.", giving it 6/10. IGN UK gave the game an 8.7 out of 10 and an editor's choice award.^[12] UK based website Mansized scored Mario Strikers Charged a full 5 out of 5 stars, particularly praising the game's enjoyable multiplayer options. GameSpot gave the game a score of 7.5 out 10.^[13]

GameTap has cited "The reason why it’s not fun at times isn’t because it doesn’t replicate the craziness--but rather that the AI becomes so incredibly cheap in the later tournaments and that there really isn’t much to the overall game aside from just beating the crap out of everyone to make way for a shot on goal", giving the game 7/10.

GamingTarget gave the game 7/10,citing: "To sum things up, Mario Strikers Charged is a fun, yet brutal anti-soccer game for all ages, but unfortunately the graphics leave something to be desired".

Nintendo Power gave the US edition 8.5 out of 10, criticizing the limited single player modes while praising its online and offline multiplayer capabilities.^{[citation needed]}

GamePro gave Mario Strikers Charged 5 out of 5, praising the great online support, lots of game modes, and its fun battles.^[14]

As of September 30, 2007, 1.33 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide, with 240,000 being sold in Japan.^[15]

[edit] See also

List of Wii Wi-Fi Connection games

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Mario Strikers Charged Football at Official European Site
• Mario Strikers Charged page at wii.nintendo.com
• Mario Strikers Charged at Metacritic
• Mario Strikers Charged at GameSpot

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