Strikers Impressions

I just picked up Super Mario Strikers: Charged today, and thought I’d share my thoughts so far on the game with you.

The game is very fast-paced, and it only gets faster online. There’s a good group of characters to choose from, and the ability to choose your 3 sidekicks adds a whole other level of strategy to the game.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun, but it can be frustrating. For example, when your opponent does a “megastrike” (where they shoot up to 6 balls at you), you need to point and click your goalkeeper’s gloves at the balls to save the shots. But the controls aren’t that great for this – I’ve clicked right over the ball numerous times, only to have it end up being a goal. Controls are probably the biggest issue I have with the game.

One other problem I have is the online play. Don’t get me wrong, it’s way better than the early DS online games, but there’s still quite a bit of room for improvement. My second match, I was matched up with someone who had already played over 200 matches… proving there is no system to match up people by skill online. Also, I played a guy who must have been using dial-up… after 2 minutes the clock had ticked off about 6 seconds… and I finally disconnected on the guy.

Very fun game all in all, though. I’d highly recommend getting it if you have some time and $50 on your hands.

Star Trek to Land on Planet Wii

Star Trek: Conquest, a new action/strategy game, was just announced for the Wii today. It will be released towards the end of this year, for the low price of $30.

I’m surprised that it isn’t coming out earlier, since a lot of the non-Star Trek fans who may have been interested in the game will probably just buy Batallion Wars 2 at the end of October. Yeah, Star Trek will provide different scenery, and spaceships rather than tanks, but ST:C seems pretty similar to BW2 to me.

It’s good to see there will be new games coming out for $30, though… that never hurt anyone.

Wii is Ballin!

It’s all coming together for Nintendo with the Wii, after a dismal era starring the Gamecube.  But not just for Nintendo – the Boston Celtics of the NBA (pro basketball, for all of you who sit on the couch and play video games all day long) are doing something quite similar to Nintendo.

Boston had the 2nd worst record in the league last year, but they’re bringing in some all-star players to get better.  They’ve had Paul Pierce for years, and have recently brought in Ray Allen and one of my favorite athletes, Kevin Garnett.  But how are these guys similar to the pieces of the puzzle Nintendo has put together?

 

Ray Allen is a suave player – he hits three-pointers from long distance, and his shots look nice… just like Nintendo realized they needed to create a sleek, sexy system, which they most certainly have done with the Wii.  The Wii’s good looks might not be the main reason it’s selling so well, but it is surely helping.

Then there’s Paul Pierce – he drives down the lan, swerving around opponents to get the 2 points.  Every single night, he goes out there ready to drop 20 points.  This is exactly like Nintendo’s marketing approach – keep telling everyone why the Wii is the best, and never give up.  This bombardment of Wii promotion has been a key to the amazing Wii sales.

And finally there’s Kevin Garnett, the “Big Ticket” – he gets the job done.  Period.  He’s averages 20 points a game, 10 rebounds a game, and 4 assists a game for 9 straight seasons – something no one else in the history of the NBA has even come close to doing.  The Celtics had to trade quite a bit to get him, just like Nintendo had to give up on some gamers (the ones who are convinced the Wii is not high-quality) in order to gain a ton of new supporters.  KG gets the job done, just like Nintendo is doing right now.

Nintendo has put the pieces of the puzzle together, allowing them to lead the console market in sales week in and week out, and the Celtics have put together the pieces of their puzzle, hopefully leading them to a championship.