Mario Strikers Charged
by Nintendo
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List Price: Buy Used: from $19.92 (click here) Category: Video Games See more product details |
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Video Game Reviews of Mario Strikers Charged
Customer Review: Another solid Mario game
Summary: 5 Stars
Mario Strikers Charged is a vast improvement on its original predesesor with more strategy, better Mega-shots, improved sidekicks, and stadiums that fight back.
the basics from the original are still here. you got your captains with their Mega-shots, the sidekicks, tournements, and stadiums but each one is tweaked slightly. for one, new captains are introduced and new sidekicks come into play, each with their own skill rating that adds onto the strategy of building the perfect team. each sidekick also comes equiped with their own little powershot that can have an array of effect and the Mega-shots can now shoot up to six times which means if your the goalie, you have to quick with your pointer to stop the oncoming balls.
another cool feature is the ball, which changes color the more times you hit it or charge it. purple being the lowest and white being the highest, which means you have a better chance to score.
a very cool bonus feature is the inclusion of Wi-Fi, so you can play other players online. great add on but make sure your opponent has a good connection otherwise the game play becomes very sluggish and you could lose connection. other then that, great new feature!
and just like before, you have your tournements composing of the Fire cup, Crystal cup, and Striker cup. this is where my one complaint comes in. while the first two tournements are pretty simple to get through, the Striker cup is near impossible! for one, the enemey AI goes up drastically, not giving players a chance to adjust to the sudden change in gameplay. but what really frusturates me is not the enemy AI but the knock-out round of the competition where one lose and you have to start the tournement all over again. it is so frusturating when you make it to the final knock-out round, only to get sent packing and having to start the tournement all over again! and what makes it worse is you can't simply restart your Wii, otherwise its an automatic lose.
so kudos to the makers for improving the game but they could have at least made the Striker cup a bit fairer, i mean, i don't remember the Star cup being this difficult.
Customer Review: Pretty and plays well, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
This game quickly becomes mind-numbingly frustrating. The first two tournaments are completed quickly and painlessly. But the third, the strikers tournament, is like repeatedly getting stabbed in the eye. The enemy AI is quick to use defensive tackles and steals but all your sidekicks can do is watch and crowd around the ball. Pretty soon you realize that you have to watch your captain (1 person) keep track of three of your sidekicks (add 3 to make 4) all four of your opponents (plus 4 makes 8) and the ball (I don't have nine eyes) in order to make any kind of movement that doesn't result in your opposing captain scoring 6 mega-strike goals because your sidekicks are too stupid to stop him. you'll end up switching characters by button mashing A just to try to get the right character and maybe you'll be lucky and stop the first goal attempt but it doesn't always work out so well. Pretty soon you will be erupting from the mouth with more 4-letter words than...well, you'll swear a lot.
All I can say is thank goodness I got this game used. Save your breath and your sanity and RENT IT. I give it 2.5 stars upped to 3 because even with all these flaws it is great to play in multiplayer and does look pretty good with some nice particle effects and focus blurs. It's just too bad they can't put the sidekicks through brain age or something.
Customer Review: Way cool!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you're like me and think actually playing soccer is like being a euro-trash wannabe and the traveling, cost, type A loser parents living their life thru their kids and ugly jerseys just get you down, then this is the way to go!
Just kidding, of course, the jerseys are actually kinda cool...
Man is this a nice upgrade to the Mario Soccer series. Not much hopping and jumping around like a lot of Wii games. Although the graphics are great and the sounds are very funny. Better players moves and the Captains Special Kick is...well...don't let your kid figure it out before you do...You can score up to six goals in one shot...
Highly recommended.
Customer Review: Wii Reviver
Summary: 5 Stars
I was skeptical at first with this game, I had read reviews and they were certainly mixed. My Wii had been gathering dust for a while since no games that tickled my fancy had come out, so I decided to go out on a limb and buy this. I have to say, I made the right decision. Don't buy this game if you're looking for a realistic soccer sim. Do buy this if you're looking to have a blast with your favorite Nintendo characters.
While the single player is fun, the online play is what makes this game shine. When I boot up this game, I don't even think about playing the single player. I go straight to the online play. The friend codes might be a drag, but I prefer to simply play a ranked match against a random player.
The Wii might have had a dry spell, but this game certainly brought back my admiration for the console, and I don't see myself putting this game down anytime soon.
Customer Review: Better than its predecessor, but still has room for improvement
Summary: 4 Stars
FINALLY! A game for the Wii that consists of more than a collection of mini games that hardly contain more polish than a tech demo!
This game improves on several of the short comings found in its predecessor, we now have well defined diversity amongst the character's skill sets, the ability to mix and match the "side kick" characters, along with the wii-centric mega shot (a welcome evolution of the "super strike" found in the cube version that was beyond cheap).
Not to mention that each side kick has a unique power up shot and deke (which, as you may have guessed, are used best in unique circumstances)! It actually appears that some thought and effort was put into this edition of Mario Soccer!
That being said, there are still some annoying things about the game that carry over from the cube version such as the apparently random goalie AI (better shots off the feet of better shooters don't always yield as many goals as poor shots by poor shooters... this is beyond frustrating), and then some of the new "improvements" really aren't that great. The new fields that add obstacles... they don't really add an element of strategy, just an element of getting bent over a barrel from time to time (when the "unique obstacles" occur at random there isn't really a way to prepare for or avoid them... you just have to hope that the random lightning strike will not paralyze your entire team at once, or disrupt a nice passing sequence... very frustrating), and then the new tournament format where you have to restart all the way at the beginning if you wish to change your roster. I don't mean at the beginning of one particular tourney, I mean you have to replay the easier tournaments that you have already cleared... I honestly don't understand why they would do this, it is sadistic.
But now on to the best feature of all. ONLINE PLAY!!! Now when I say best, I mean that under the condition that you don't randomly draw one of the lagalicious new fields (those pretty lightning bolts come at a hefty bandwidth price!), or an opponent who is too immature to take the beating you hand down and withdraws from the game before you can be declared the winner. But ignore all of that. This is a major step for Nintendo, and hopefully a sign of things to come. The only real gripe that I have about it is the lack of a good "matching" sort of service, and a few options that would be as simple as "check boxes next to fields you won't play on".
A practice mode where you can just focus on a single element of the game would be nice too. The 101 skills training courses don't count as they are all on retard difficulty. But now I am nitpicking.
Overall Mario Strikers: Charged is a very nice multiplayer game. It is a blast to play with friends, and the online play allows you to find 1 on 1 opponents that are more enjoyable than the cheating AI. The graphics are pretty blah blah blah, does that honestly influence your decision to buy this game? You want it because it is the first legitimate title to be released on Wii since Paper Mario (which barely counts, honestly, as it was originally plotted for a cube release).
You should get this game if you have friends to play with, or if you enjoy chaotic sports games with a hint of team building strategy. If you both of these describe your current situation, I honestly cannot think of a better way to spend $50.