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October 21, 2005 | 6:33 PM PST
by: Phillip Levin
Nintendo recently shipped a new GameCube demo disc to retail stores equipped with GameCube kiosks across the nation. The demo features a number of new videos and playable demos for Nintendo’s little Cube, with the most exciting being Super Mario Strikers, the upcoming soccer game starring none other than Mario and the gang.
GameCube Advanced Editor-in-Chief Phillip Levin stumbled upon the new demo disc – which has actually been in stores for several weeks now – when he was raiding his local EBgames. He regrets to inform the world that the EBgames employees were not too happy when he asked if they could turn on the GameCube, so he was absolutely too gutless to ask for an extra controller so he could experience some of the multiplayer goodness the demo seemed to offer. That said, below are his quick impressions of the demo’s one-player experience. Read at your own discretion.
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Super Mario Strikers, in case you haven’t been following it, is Nintendo’s premiere Mario soccer title. Much like Mario Baseball, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf and any other Mario sports or spin-off before it, the title features the same basic ground rules for its sport. Two teams of five square off on a medium-sized field with two goals at opposite ends. The idea is to use your team’s characters to kick around the ball, trying to score points on the other team and keep them from doing the same to you. Of course, since this is Mario soccer, there are some expected twists to the game, but we’ll get to those in a moment.
Nintendo’s new GameCube demo of Super Mario Strikers only allows you to play through one of its many modes (all of which are all highlighted on the main menu), Grudge Match. Unfortunately, the Battle Mode, which is the game’s main championship mode, was locked out along with Custom Battle, so we didn’t experience customizable gameplay at all. Grudge Match is the game’s quick play mode, if you will, letting you instantly start a game without having to tamper around with options of any kind.
In the demo, you play as a team led by Mario and take on Luigi and his team. Control is good. Strikers feels like it has been designed to be a pick-up-and-play title, and that’s totally fine with us. It makes the experience all the more intuitive and ultimately enjoyable. You move your character around screen using the left analog stick. Mario and his team run animatedly across the screen, following your orders responsively. When controlling a character leading the ball, the A button causes you to pass the ball to your nearest teammate. Otherwise, A lets you switch between team members whenever you want. The B button causes you to kick the ball in whatever direction you’re running. On top of that, there are some other ways of passing and scoring.
For instance, holding L while pressing A executes a volley pass, while holding down L and B lets you use a more powerful kick. The R trigger, on the other hand, can be used to make your character run at much faster speeds. When running with the ball, you can press Y to fake out your opponent, causing your character to juggle the ball between his feet in different manners. Most impressive is the Mario twist on soccer - the X button is used to activate different special moves. For example, one power-up we saw shot a huge turtle shell across the field, crashing into the opposing team. Another blew up bomb-ombs on the field. These special moves will no doubt play a large role in the final game, making it something unique in a field full of sports games.
Super Mario Strikers
But that’s just how controls play out when you're on offense, in control of the ball. On defense, things are somewhat similar. You still use the analog stick to make your way across the field, but instead of trying to score, you must keep the other team – in our case, the computer-controlled team, who’s AI seemed more than decent – from scoring. You can do this by stealing the ball away from the other team. The B button makes you slide, kicking the ball out from your opponents feet, while the Y button runs you into your opponents, and sends them flying. When you're in control of the ball, you also have a number of special moves that can be used by pressing the X button.
Though control seems simple – and it actually is – Super Mario Strikers still feels deep enough to be addicting if not pure fun. The number of different mechanics blur together exceptionally well, allowing plenty of variety in how you can play. When playing against the AI-controlled team, we saw that there should be a lot of challenge to the title. AI isn’t over-the-top or anything, but it gets the job done. It’s smart, responsive and challenging for the most part. We can’t wait to dig our teeth deep into multiplayer modes of Strikers later this year.
Visually speaking, Super Mario Strikers doesn’t look bad, but it doesn’t knock your socks off, either. Graphics are very Mario sports-esque, meaning if you’ve played Mario Tennis, Mario Gold or Mario Baseball, then you should expect visuals of about the same quality. In typical Nintendo fashion, high framerates are favored over a high polygon count and texture quality, but the cartoon-quality animation and general art style make up for any technological downfalls.
The opening cut-scene for the game played in the demo sports an attitude pretty different than anything seen in past Mario affairs. Mario looks downright edgy, and he isn’t smiling. The used-to-be-plumber can be seen waving to the crowd, then turning to snarl at the other team. It’s downright opposite of what we’d expect to see in a Mario soccer game. Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s kind of refreshing, it a weird, appealing kind of way.
On the audio side, nothing particularly stands out. The little voice work in the demo was slightly wonky. Its quality felt a little below par, though this could be because of the TV we were playing on. Music, meanwhile, seems adequate, stopping there and not going beyond the call of duty.
Super Mario Strikers
The demo, at the end of the day, is pretty vague when it comes to what exactly we can expect with the final version of the game. After all, only one mode is accessible and we couldn’t really see what kind of true single-player experience the sports game will offer. But what’s here is pretty fun, and if anything, we’re more excited about Super Mario Strikers after playing with it again since May at E3.
GameCube Advanced Editor-in-Chief Phillip Levin stumbled upon the new demo disc – which has actually been in stores for several weeks now – when he was raiding his local EBgames. He regrets to inform the world that the EBgames employees were not too happy when he asked if they could turn on the GameCube, so he was absolutely too gutless to ask for an extra controller so he could experience some of the multiplayer goodness the demo seemed to offer. That said, below are his quick impressions of the demo’s one-player experience. Read at your own discretion.
Super Mario Strikers, in case you haven’t been following it, is Nintendo’s premiere Mario soccer title. Much like Mario Baseball, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf and any other Mario sports or spin-off before it, the title features the same basic ground rules for its sport. Two teams of five square off on a medium-sized field with two goals at opposite ends. The idea is to use your team’s characters to kick around the ball, trying to score points on the other team and keep them from doing the same to you. Of course, since this is Mario soccer, there are some expected twists to the game, but we’ll get to those in a moment.
Nintendo’s new GameCube demo of Super Mario Strikers only allows you to play through one of its many modes (all of which are all highlighted on the main menu), Grudge Match. Unfortunately, the Battle Mode, which is the game’s main championship mode, was locked out along with Custom Battle, so we didn’t experience customizable gameplay at all. Grudge Match is the game’s quick play mode, if you will, letting you instantly start a game without having to tamper around with options of any kind.
In the demo, you play as a team led by Mario and take on Luigi and his team. Control is good. Strikers feels like it has been designed to be a pick-up-and-play title, and that’s totally fine with us. It makes the experience all the more intuitive and ultimately enjoyable. You move your character around screen using the left analog stick. Mario and his team run animatedly across the screen, following your orders responsively. When controlling a character leading the ball, the A button causes you to pass the ball to your nearest teammate. Otherwise, A lets you switch between team members whenever you want. The B button causes you to kick the ball in whatever direction you’re running. On top of that, there are some other ways of passing and scoring.
For instance, holding L while pressing A executes a volley pass, while holding down L and B lets you use a more powerful kick. The R trigger, on the other hand, can be used to make your character run at much faster speeds. When running with the ball, you can press Y to fake out your opponent, causing your character to juggle the ball between his feet in different manners. Most impressive is the Mario twist on soccer - the X button is used to activate different special moves. For example, one power-up we saw shot a huge turtle shell across the field, crashing into the opposing team. Another blew up bomb-ombs on the field. These special moves will no doubt play a large role in the final game, making it something unique in a field full of sports games.
Super Mario Strikers
But that’s just how controls play out when you're on offense, in control of the ball. On defense, things are somewhat similar. You still use the analog stick to make your way across the field, but instead of trying to score, you must keep the other team – in our case, the computer-controlled team, who’s AI seemed more than decent – from scoring. You can do this by stealing the ball away from the other team. The B button makes you slide, kicking the ball out from your opponents feet, while the Y button runs you into your opponents, and sends them flying. When you're in control of the ball, you also have a number of special moves that can be used by pressing the X button.
Though control seems simple – and it actually is – Super Mario Strikers still feels deep enough to be addicting if not pure fun. The number of different mechanics blur together exceptionally well, allowing plenty of variety in how you can play. When playing against the AI-controlled team, we saw that there should be a lot of challenge to the title. AI isn’t over-the-top or anything, but it gets the job done. It’s smart, responsive and challenging for the most part. We can’t wait to dig our teeth deep into multiplayer modes of Strikers later this year.
Visually speaking, Super Mario Strikers doesn’t look bad, but it doesn’t knock your socks off, either. Graphics are very Mario sports-esque, meaning if you’ve played Mario Tennis, Mario Gold or Mario Baseball, then you should expect visuals of about the same quality. In typical Nintendo fashion, high framerates are favored over a high polygon count and texture quality, but the cartoon-quality animation and general art style make up for any technological downfalls.
The opening cut-scene for the game played in the demo sports an attitude pretty different than anything seen in past Mario affairs. Mario looks downright edgy, and he isn’t smiling. The used-to-be-plumber can be seen waving to the crowd, then turning to snarl at the other team. It’s downright opposite of what we’d expect to see in a Mario soccer game. Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s kind of refreshing, it a weird, appealing kind of way.
On the audio side, nothing particularly stands out. The little voice work in the demo was slightly wonky. Its quality felt a little below par, though this could be because of the TV we were playing on. Music, meanwhile, seems adequate, stopping there and not going beyond the call of duty.
Super Mario Strikers
The demo, at the end of the day, is pretty vague when it comes to what exactly we can expect with the final version of the game. After all, only one mode is accessible and we couldn’t really see what kind of true single-player experience the sports game will offer. But what’s here is pretty fun, and if anything, we’re more excited about Super Mario Strikers after playing with it again since May at E3.
November 20, 2009
