I don’t know if this is a sequel, an expansion or a whole new soccer game with familiar characters. Next Level Games, a Canadian developer located in British Columbia, introduces Mario Strikers Charged just two short years after releasing Mario Strikers for the Nintendo Gamecube and I have to ask myself, was it really needed?

For those unsure of what a striker exactly is or why it would be charged, this is the second installation of Next Level’s view on soccer (or as you UK blokes call it, football) with all your favourite Mario characters from Donkey Kong to Wario. Complete with power-ups like shells and Wii specific motions this is more of an upgrade then anything new or overly exciting.

The game’s presentation fits the bill, and with the use of the Wiimote, it makes selecting your game types and options a lot easier and somewhat more involved then with just the analog stick or D-pad. However, selecting between options, screens and pretty much any time the screen menu changes, it feels cut off and doesn’t seem to have a very smooth transition. Selecting characters and now their sidekicks (with their own special moves as well) can be decided upon by using the Wiimote to see their strengths, weaknesses, and playing style and with 12 captains to choose from the Mario universe, 8 sidekicks, and at least 17 arenas, selecting your game may take the longest amount of time to decide upon.

There is definitely a lot to keep you busy in this game, the sheer amount of players to try out, tournaments in which you win different trophies as well as little extra achievements like the brick wall award or the golden foot award, which unlock new arenas to play in, a detailed and expansive tutorial system, various challenges in which you may have to do something fairly easy such as score 2 goals in 2 minutes with an easy computer opponent, to the extremely hard scoring 7 goals in 2 minutes AND win the game against an extremely tough AI opponent, completing these challenges unlocks cheats to use in the game. On top of all these options, you still have the normal versus mode, AND a fully functional online play mode. This option allows you to play against a friend or a random person from anywhere in the world with little lag noticed and stats to back up your trash talk. The only downside to online play is that you cannot actually trash talk, it would have been nice to chat online, or even text chatting before or after a game.

The graphics and sound are more or less a slight improvement over the Gamecube original, however there are still improvements. The colour and animation style are a lot more vivid and smoother. When your character gets blasted with a fireball or electricity, you see it on their bodies in cut scenes after goals and games. When captain super-shots are done, there occurs a little 5 second animation in which they become supercharged (hence the name) and do their personal power shot. It’s very pretty and fun to watch, but after a few of these shots, and not being able to skip the animation, you may start to tire of them. The stage designs are truly stunning, with crowds cheering on the sidelines for some levels, tractors being blown over the field in others and just all around chaos occurring in most stadiums with no signs of slowdown the game is a visual treat to play as long as your not looking for the best graphics in this next generation system. As for the sound, the music is where it’s at; each character has their own theme music, from Bowser’s heavier beats to Luigi’s salsa-western fusion, each captain has their own style of entrance and knows how to work their fans. The sounds in the game usually consist of characters yelling for the ball, explosions, and roars from your crocodile goalie.

As a Nintendo Wii game, you would assume the controls to be very motion sensitive, this is not the case with Mario Strikers Charged and I feel this is a good thing. So many developers these days are trying to use as much motion as possible in their game to justify the Wii’s capabilities, but Next Level Games knew better than to do this. Instead they only infused the motion sensitivity when it would enhance the game. It’s used for menu selection to change your item you flick the nunchuck, to hit your opponent when you don’t have the ball, and my personal favourite and an improvement from the original title, when a power shot occurs, instead of it being almost always a guaranteed goal, the setup is more like a Mario Golf swing where you charge up, push B near the end of the ‘swing’ to select how many balls to shoot (from 3 to 6), then B again to determine the speed of the balls. From here the goalie takes control in which a set of hands show up on the screen and you control it entirely with the Wiimote, blocking balls as they appear on random spots on the screen. The benefit to this is that if you’re good enough, you can easily block all 6 shots, or if not, totally miss and have 6 goals hit you like a hurricane. The controls are tight and responsive, and the layout for each button, although you cannot alter them, works well for this fast paced, chaotic game.

The gameplay itself can be both amazingly fun and intense or extremely annoying at times, depending on your playing style you could be winning 20-0 or 2-1, on the other side of the spectrum, you could be losing 0-20 or 2-1. If you can find the perfect opponent online you could be seeing a 10 minute sudden death overtime period, which can keep the average player on the edge of their seat the entire match. Sidekicks are also a lot more to worry about as they each have their own special moves, which when done correctly can almost guarantee a goal. From the hammer brother’s hammer toss to the toad’s fireball shot, each can leave the goalie stunned for enough time to hit the rebound with no defense. The items in the game have pretty much stayed the same with one new exception and that is each captain now has their very own special item, Mario and Luigi grow to super sizes, Bowser gets a blast of fire breath, Diddy Kong and his red card attack and more.

If you’re a fan of the original Mario Strikers, or Mario sports games in general and want a game that’s quick and easy to pick up with a friend, either in the same room or across the globe, Mario Strikers Charged is the perfect Mario driven soccer follow-up. Then again, it would have been nice to have more than one save slot for career mode.

Graphics: 3.5 / 5.0
Gameplay 4.0 / 5.0
Sound 3.0 / 5.0
Replay value 4.0 / 5.0