Let’s get this out of the way right now. I loathe soccer. As far as I’m concerned, Polo or whatever the hell his name is can rot in his magic hole of no-hands rules and hitting balls with your head. That said, this game freakin’ rocks. It’s not so much “soccer” as it is full contact kill-the-carrier with a couple of goals on either side. Anything goes in this game, including decking somebody in the face and walking away with a ball that, until recently, happened to be in their possession. It’s more like a cross between rugby, hockey, and tactical warfare than soccer.

The visuals of this game are pretty much on par with the rest of the recent Mario Sports titles. It appears that Next-Level Games has stepped nicely into the shoes of Camelot as far as the sports titles go. Why Camelot themselves aren’t developing this game is beyond me, as I, and most others, I’d assume, had pretty much taken it that Camelot were Nintendo’s official go-to guys for Mario Sports. At any rate, it appears that Next-Level has used the same basic models of characters that Camelot used and then some. They’ve taken the next step, and added characters from all over the Mario universe, and even at least one character from another universe. In addition to the general Mario group, including Mario, Donkey Kong, several assorted Toad characters, Shy Guys, and the rest of the gamut, the goalies are the foreign exchange students of the sport, those being Kremlins featured in Donkey Kong Country. I’m sure there are many more characters than what I saw, as I saw no sign of Luigi, Peach, Daisy, or the Wario Bros.

The game borrows heavily from the latest incarnation of Mario Sports, that being Mario Power Tennis. Power Shots feature prominently, as if you hold the shoot button (B) for the appropriate amount of time, your character will enter into a very cool, very powerful goal shot that will either blast its way past the goalie or knock him out for a few seconds, opening you up for a clear shot, assuming you can get to the ball and shoot in time. This is only the start of the fun, though.

Like I said before, soccer has now become a full-contact sport. In addition to the standard steals and slide tackles, you now have the option of punching, shoving, and crushing your way to the ball. Should you decide that you don’t want your opponent to have the ball, as is quite common in a game such as this, you can simply run up to them, hurt them in whatever way seems best to you, and walk away happily with your newfound plaything. The game becomes very much a match of kill the carrier, which we all recall so fondly from our childhood, and perhaps some of us in our adulthood. In short, this game is lots of good, old-fashioned fun. Coming from a long-time hater of soccer, Super Mario Strikers put a new appreciation in my heart for the bastardization of boring sports. Perhaps it’s time to consider a Mario Cricket. Keep your eyes on the news and media page for any screens and video we come across and share with you guys, and as always, don’t forget to preorder your DVD now!

Carl DeNovio