This review originally appeared with our friends over on First Penguin

Way back at E3 2005, I was wandering around the Nintendo booth, and there was a huge banner with Mario kicking a soccer ball drawn in an exaggerated comic book style that sucked me in. I went over to play the demo, and after finishing the short match, I immediately went to seek out Dan and Gresh so they could play it as well. When all was said and done, we had played the demo 6-7 times over those three days and I came home raving about how much fun it was. All I had to do was wait another seven months before I could get my hands on the final release.

In Strikers, you have most of the normal Mario sports objectives: Mushroom Cup, Star Cup, Bowser Cup and so on. Each tournament gets bigger and harder as you go along. You can choose from any of the normal Mario regulars and each has slight differences in play style, but none seem to have any true advantage over the others. I just happen to almost always use Luigi in whatever Mario game I play and this was no different. The difficulty seems to curve pretty steeply rather quickly as you beat each cup. The selectable difficulty levels also have some dramatic changes in the way the AI plays against you. If you start off too high it can be frustrating, so you should take the time to work on your skills before you advance.

Super Mario Strikers is extremely easy to pick up and play, as it should be. Of course the more you play, the more you can develop strategies and learn the ins and outs of how the computer plays. It's quick-paced and mostly high-scoring, although I did have a couple of 2-1 or 1-0 matches, but they are the exception. Also, since this is a Mario game there are plenty of power-ups to go around although they seemed a little unfairly balanced in the way they're given out. I frequently found myself without any while the computer always had a healthy inventory. Learning when to use the different power ups is very important to your success against either the computer or another player.

There aren't a ton of game modes, which is one of the few bad things I can say about this game. I would have liked to have seen a deeper and more varied single player experience but as with a lot of games, the mulitplayer promises countless hours of fun for anyone who picks up the Wavebird. I can definitely see myself getting into marathon sessions that would rival the old Sega NHL '94 and Mario Kart days.

The graphics and sound are average, with the graphic highlights being some of the effects used for a Super Strike kick. For all intents and purposes, it looks like a Mario game. I had heard reports of major slow down on some of the fields, but I never experienced this.

For multiplayer the replay value is extremely high, and I would say that due to the lack of depth and variation in the single player that the replay value is moderate.

I can't stress enough how much fun this game is when you play with other people. It's a great way to get introduced to the unique gameplay style of Strikers before Charged hits the Wii.

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