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Nintendo: Wii Previews

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 ^WII

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Preview

Mario Super Sluggers

Format: Nintendo Wii

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: Sports

30-Jul-2008 The Mushroom Kingdom's finest step up to the plate

26 Comments

It's fair to say that despite his somewhat podgy appearance, Mario's quite a sporty chap. Over the years he's tried his hand at almost every popular sport there is. Football, golf, tennis, basketball... the lad's even been to the Olympic Games. Usually the Mario sports titles are successful all over the world, but one of them was a bit of a non-starter in the UK.

Mario Superstar Baseball on the GameCube was actually one of the best Mario sports games. It was easy to play, had loads of different stadiums and featured more playable characters than any other Mario game (a record which stands to this day). And yet how many of you own it? The combination of the fact that it was a baseball game (meaning hardly anyone in the UK cared) and the fact the GameCube was pretty much dead by the time the game was finally released here meant that Mario Superstar Baseball arrived in the UK in pitifully short supply, resulting in minuscule sales. Thankfully, no doubt due to the arrival of the Wii and the success of Wii Sports and its baseball game, Mario and co. are back for another swing of the bat, promising a sequel that improves on the original in every way.
Naturally, it's not too tricky to imagine how the game is controlled. When you're batting all you do is simply hold the Remote to the side and swing it when the ball comes towards you. The better your timing, the more accurate your hit.

Bat's Entertainment
You'd imagine that the harder you swing, the further the ball goes but this isn't actually the case in Mario Super Sluggers. In order to even the playing field a bit (and no doubt in order to avoid injury), the power of your shot is instead determined by the timing of your backswing. When waiting for the throw, if you swing the Remote back and keep it held there your batter will start to charge up a swing and two circles will appear below them: a small one and a larger one which starts to shrink (think Elite Beat Agents with a baseball bat). If you swing the Remote forward when both circles are the same size, you'll hit the ball a lot harder than you would with a regular swing.

All In The Wrist
Pitching is a similar business. Normal throws are performed by flicking the Remote forward, while faster ones are thrown by holding the Remote back until the circles match up and then throwing forward. There are also some different types of throw on offer. To throw a curveball to the left or right, you simply twist your wrist in that direction after throwing forward. If you're not aware of the rules of baseball, if you throw the ball in a curve and
it doesn't go over the plate in the middle, it doesn't count as a strike unless the batter swings. So the trick is to throw in the odd curve now and then (which is much harder to hit) to try to force your opponent to swing and miss. Alternatively you can also put your opponent off their timing by holding A as you throw to chuck a lob ball instead, which takes longer to get to them. It's all pretty straightforward.

Less simple are the special moves you can perform when your special gauge has filled up. This meter fills up during the course of the game and when it's maxed out you can trigger a move that can change the course of the game. This can be done regardless of which player on the field you want to do it with, and naturally changes depending on the situation. If you're batting, for example, your player will do a signature move unique to that character. Peach draws a love heart in the air with her bat and hits the ball, causing it to leave a trail of hearts which stun the opponents and stop them from catching it, while Bowser hits a powerful shot which sends fireballs across the field.
Pitching is the same sort of idea. Do it with Donkey Kong to throw a ball that's encased in a huge barrel, making it much harder to hit, or do it with Bowser Jr to make him use his paintbrush to cover the screen with paint, completely blocking the opponent's view of the ball.

Swing When You're Winning
You can also use these special moves at other times during the game to stop your opponents from scoring points. If they hit a cracker of a shot and it's well on the way to becoming a home run, you can activate a special move to make your player leap miles up into the air and pluck it out of the sky.

Naturally, this being a Mario sports game, there are loads of characters to choose from. The previous GameCube game had a massive 32 playable characters you could choose from to make your team of nine players, and the Wii sequel promises to feature even more than that. Already we've seen the likes of Baby Donkey Kong (from Yoshi's Island) added to the mix,
as well as other newcomers like Baby Daisy, Wiggler and Blooper (the white squid from the Super Mario Bros. games). Nintendo is also continuing its odd Donkey Kong Country phase by bringing back Funky Kong (who appeared in Mario Kart Wii), along with other Country characters such as King K Rool and Tiny Kong.

The reason for this is the game's story mode, where you play against themed teams. So expect to go to the DK Jungle stadium and play against a team of Donkey Kong Country characters, for example. The GameCube characters will still be there for the most part too, so if you have a soft spot for the Pianta people from Super Mario Sunshine you can still play as them should you so desire.

If for some odd reason however you decide that you don't like any of the characters on offer (though why you'd buy a Mario game if you don't like Mario and his mates is beyond us) then fret not: you can also play as your Mii.

It looks like the development team at Namco-Bandai is pulling out all the stops to make sure that Mario Super Sluggers not only captures all the personality and chaos of the Mushroom Kingdom, but also provides a damn good baseball game to boot. If you don't understand the sport, we recommend swotting up now. It's simple to learn and it'll be worth it to be able to play this properly

Chris Scullion