Mario Superstar Baseball

Over the past couple of years, the Mario series main focus has been on sports games. Titles such as Mario Power Tennis, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour have made it big on the GameCube, just like they did in their previous installments for the N64 and even Super Nintendo(SNES). But with E3 comes the announcement of 2 totally new Mario Sports games: Mario Superstar Baseball and Super Mario strikers. Were here to talk about the more-known of the two, batter up!

The amount of Mario characters has grown from a small amount to a parade over the past couple of years. With this title Nintendo has gathered all the most popular of the hundreds for one big round of baseball. Mario Superstar Baseball will top it all off with over 50 characters, Each ranked by fielding, pitching, batting and base running. Some are all-around type of guys while others like Waluigi for instance would be better at pitching and base running as his arms and legs just seem to keep getting longer longer over the years.

Just like in Super Mario Strikers, you’ll be prompted to choose your team captain and a number of other characters to serve as your baseball drones. This includes the basics that have been in every Mario title along with ones you might not be familiar with like Dry Bones, Paratroopa and goomba, Shy Guy, Pirahna Plant, Hammer Bro, Pianta, Noki and much more.

Well, you know how Mario roles when it comes to graphics, simply amazing to put it into words. “Mario gets his specialized red bat out from the box and steps up on to the plate, surveying the Sunlight as it streams into the arena and reflects off a koopas shell. He hits it, fire surrounds the forever-spinning ball, hundreds of crowd members cheer, each with a different personality.” You know how it is, they pay attention to the little stuff to get you into the game, and that’s exactly what they’ve done here. The venues are beautifully designed, which include Isle Delfino, Peaches Castle and Donkey Kong land. Hey, you can even tell that the grass mower has been doing his job well when it comes to cut scenes, and that the baseball was laced to the last strand.

OK, you’ve got three friends over, they’re looking bored with the ongoing VS. Modes you keep setting up. No problem, change it up a little, there are tones of modes to choose from including Challenge, Bob-omb Derby and a Toy Field. The challenge mode has you wondering around completing baseball-related tasks. The Bob-omb Derby will run just like a home run contest, and the toy field mode will get you trying to hit rings floating in the air (or on the ground) around the arena to earn coins and such (like Mario Golf: Toadstool tour).

Well, to hit you with an even bigger bomb, each of the 50 or more characters has a different special ability. So finding your perfect character is definitely a lot of incentive to play the game for a bit, to be exact 50 games since your Captain is the only one that can use a special ability, and there are 50 characters. Along with that, it’ll be fun to find out the little extras some characters do. Like the design of their bat, or if they have a bat (DK, the animal that he has been known to be uses his fist, which apparently does not hurt one bit when you have a pitcher like Bowser). Other characters like the hammer Bros. will use…well…guess…YES! A hammer.

Well, once you’re done shining/admiring your bat and testing out your special abilities you might want to actually learn how to bat. You use the analog stick to add supercharge to the pitch if you can time the up and down motion. Once you do that, you press the A button to throw the pitch, which acts a little like the start of a race supercharge you can get in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! With the Mario Twist that Nintendo throws on the game, batting could be hard. Judging as some characters such as a Bob-omb have no arms to even hold a bat….Mechanical Arms anyone?

The game of baseball is very complex, so be sure to expect a lot more features pressed into this already good looking game. All Nintendo needs to do is make a volleyball, basketball and hockey along with Super Mario Strikers to cover all the main sports of the world. Its a great idea, and it just keeps working and selling, so be sure to expect more Mario Sports games on the way.