Super Mario Sluggers

Rating: E

Score 7.5/10

It’s time for Mario and the gang to step up to the baseball diamond for the first time on the Nintendo Wii. Will it be as addictive as the prequel?

When you first step up to the plate in this game, you’ll see the first, and worst, problem. The game is too easy. It is intended to draw in new gamers but core gamers find themselves beating “Pro” difficulty their first time playing. If you have good aim, you’ll find yourself leading by numbers way in the double-digits (as long as you take off the Mercy Rule).

From a beginner’s perspective, though, it’s very easy to pick up and play. You’ll be hitting home runs – you’ll need to force yourself to pity your opponent. Fun at first, but the entertainment value quickly dies.

The single player features the same story as always, but with a new twist. Beat Bowser at baseball. Sounds simple enough. You collect players for your team. You start with Mario, and can recruit from Yoshi, Koopa Troopers, or Shy Guys. Despite Koopa Troopers and Shy Guys being Bowser’s minions, you can gather them up to beat Bowser anyway 9oh, the irony).

Before you can get someone new on your team, you need to prove yourself. You’ve been saving them for over 20 years, but you need to prove yourself nonetheless. These challenges don’t range all that much nor are they hard. Hit the ball to the left, hit the ball or get an out. Unless your hand-eye co-ordination is horrible, you’ll easily have great players on your team in no time.

After you gather characters from the single player, you get those characters in multi player mode. Unfortunately, there is no online play. Your friends need to be in the same room for you to play. It’s not an extremely bad thing, but this feature should have been included.

The multi player is great, other than the already stated difficulty (well, lack of difficulty). You have, as I also already stated, a bunch of characters. Some characters new fans likely won’t recognize, but long time gamers will remember Wiggler and Fire, Hammer and Boomerang Bros. You can also use your Miis but they lack any amazing stats. They’re completely well rounded, as opposed to someone like Bowser who can get homeruns easily with Superman-like strength, but who has turtle-like speed.

Courses can now be played in day or night. Some courses, like the new Luigi’s Mansion, are only available at night. Another new feature is “error items’ which work a lot like a Mario Kart item. If you (the batter) have “chemistry” (as in, are friends with), the next batter, you can throw an item at the fielder to screw them up and give you more time. It’s an unorthodox thing to do, since dashing is done by shaking the Wii Remote and aiming the item is done by pointing at a screen. This makes it your choice to either use the item but not dash, or sprint without using the item. Items are usually green shells so it’s sometimes better to sprint to the nearest base and not risk missing. You do risk the ball getting to the base before you. That would get you called out.

Super Mario Sluggers is not the best sport game out there. The game designers didn’t strike out but this game’s no slugger either. The multi player is fun but way too easy controls and repetitive single player stop Mario from making this a home run.