Mario Strikers Charged Hands-On

LEIPZIG, GERMANY--If you're not a fan of queues (who is?), then stay far away from Nintendo's cordoned-off Wii area at the Leipzig Games Convention. It's not that there are millions of people waiting outside to get a play on the new console, it's that the Japanese manufacturer is incredibly slow at letting people in. That doesn't seem to be affecting the people in the queue that are armed with the required press or exhibitor pass--most gamers would give their right arm to have a play on the innovative new console. But it does hint at the pandemonium that may have broken out if the console had been shown on the main floor to the general public. So while consumers will unfortunately have no chance at playing the console in Germany before launch, we had no choice but to grit our teeth and endure an hour-long wait to play the Italian plumber's football game, Mario Strikers Charged.

Played with both the Wii controller and nunchuck, Mario Strikers Charged follows the over-the-top, arcade approach of the original Super Mario Strikers on GameCube. This means that through-balls and cheeky flicks are replaced with power-ups and slamming body tackles. It's basically to football games what Mario Kart is to driving games, which is no bad thing, of course.

From what we've seen, the game looked incredibly polished. Aside from the limited number of characters and stadiums to choose from, the game looked like it was in an advanced form. With four characters to choose from--Mario, Donkey Kong, Princess Peach, and Bowser--we opted for the star of the game, Mario. Our opponent, a fellow journalist who was nearly as excited about the gameas we were, opted for the rather more bulky Donkey Kong. Each of these characters became our captain (with skills that we'll go into a bit later on). From here, we had to choose the four characters to make up the team. We went with the defaults, a set of Mario characters that were small and nimble, and a rugged goalkeeper to defend the goal.

The stadium that we played in, which was one of two available in the demo, had the expected Nintendo vibrancy and a crowd that cheered along with the action. The pitch itself was surrounded by an electric fence, and when the characters were shoved into this, they ended up incapacitated for a few seconds. You see, tackling in Mario Stikers Charged isn't about an expertly timed sliding tackle or a polite toe-poke at the ball. It's all about smashing into the opposition with as much force as possible, sending them reeling backward and relieving them of the ball. This being the motion-sensitive Wii controller, you can tackle by quickly moving the remote control from side to side.

Like most Wii games, Mario Strikers is strangely alien through the controller, but within minutes it becomes intuitive and fun. The analog stick on the nunchuck is the basic way you move each player around, while the remote control's A button lets you pass and change players. The two Z buttons on the nunchuk allow you to shoot and initiate power attacks on your opposition. In the game we played, the power-up was a huge red turtle shell that dropped on the pitch, bounced horizontally across the pitch and then erratically all over the place to take out the opposition. Shooting isn't difficult, and while the majority of simple shots can be saved by the huge keepers, a little skill will result in high score lines. The captain of each team is also able to use a powerful supershot by holding the shoot button down, which will do a better job of screaming into the net, or sending the keeper reeling if he manages to get a hand to it.

Our all-too-short game of Mario Strikers Charged resulted in a 4-2 score line, unfortunately in favour of our very young opposition. While the game itself is incredibly similar to the original Mario Strikers on first impressions, the Wii controller helps freshen the game, and given the advanced state of the build that we played, it could even be a launch game for the console. Once the hubbub of the Leipzig convention has calmed down, we'll do all we can to bring you more on this exciting new game.