'Super Sluggers' an average game
Mario Super Sluggers
PLATFORM: Wii
GENRE: Sports
PRICE: About $49.99
ESRB RATING: E (everyone)
REVIEWER’S RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
GENRE: Sports
PRICE: About $49.99
ESRB RATING: E (everyone)
REVIEWER’S RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
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Mario Super Sluggers brings Nintendo’s hefty plumber and his friends to the baseball diamond for the second time, with less than stellar results. Sluggers has moments of fun, but is brought down by control issues and a lack of any real sense of cohesion.
The game of baseball represented in Sluggers is a good deal more complex than in Wii Sports, but it’s still pretty simple. You use Wii remote gestures to control pitching and hitting. You can use the Nunchuck to control stealing and a few other things (and you really should, since this adds some much-needed depth to the game).
Any game that lives by the Wii remote stands a good chance of dying by it if the controls aren’t implemented perfectly. Unfortunately, Sluggers runs into two problems pretty quickly. First, the basic motions involved get old quick. You lift the remote or pull it back to charge up, then drop it to pitch or swing. In any but the shortest play sessions, this quickly starts to feel like an unnecessary gimmick.
The other, larger problem is the fact that the Wii remote frequently registers small motions as starts or stops, causing it to throw a ball without charging or swing when you don’t mean to. This can be extremely frustrating at first, and when combined with the overall annoyance of the gestures, results in most players trying to make the smallest motions possible. This directly contravenes the spirit of the Wii remote, but leads to a much more playable game.
The variety of game modes available is nice, though the single-player challenge mode, a sort of baseball RPG, features so many very short challenges that there are stretches when you spend more time watching loading screens than playing. You’ll have to slog through anyway, as the challenge mode is the only way to unlock everything. It’s not all bad, but unless you love the idea of being repeatedly challenged by Bowser’s henchmen to hit five balls into left field, it’s not all good.
Some of the minigames are a lot of fun, particularly in multiplayer. Given that most Wii games and most Mario games are best played with a group of friends, it’s not surprising that multiplayer is where the game really clicks. No online options, as Nintendo’s outright fear of the Internet continues, but if you can get two or three other people together who don’t mind looking like idiots when it’s their turn, Sluggers is probably worth a rent.
Sluggers is a decent game with a pretty good multiplayer component, but that describes 75 percent of what’s available on the Wii right now. The only thing that might make this a good buy is if you have a kid who likes baseball and Mario. All others, steer clear or rent first.
The game of baseball represented in Sluggers is a good deal more complex than in Wii Sports, but it’s still pretty simple. You use Wii remote gestures to control pitching and hitting. You can use the Nunchuck to control stealing and a few other things (and you really should, since this adds some much-needed depth to the game).
Any game that lives by the Wii remote stands a good chance of dying by it if the controls aren’t implemented perfectly. Unfortunately, Sluggers runs into two problems pretty quickly. First, the basic motions involved get old quick. You lift the remote or pull it back to charge up, then drop it to pitch or swing. In any but the shortest play sessions, this quickly starts to feel like an unnecessary gimmick.
The other, larger problem is the fact that the Wii remote frequently registers small motions as starts or stops, causing it to throw a ball without charging or swing when you don’t mean to. This can be extremely frustrating at first, and when combined with the overall annoyance of the gestures, results in most players trying to make the smallest motions possible. This directly contravenes the spirit of the Wii remote, but leads to a much more playable game.
The variety of game modes available is nice, though the single-player challenge mode, a sort of baseball RPG, features so many very short challenges that there are stretches when you spend more time watching loading screens than playing. You’ll have to slog through anyway, as the challenge mode is the only way to unlock everything. It’s not all bad, but unless you love the idea of being repeatedly challenged by Bowser’s henchmen to hit five balls into left field, it’s not all good.
Some of the minigames are a lot of fun, particularly in multiplayer. Given that most Wii games and most Mario games are best played with a group of friends, it’s not surprising that multiplayer is where the game really clicks. No online options, as Nintendo’s outright fear of the Internet continues, but if you can get two or three other people together who don’t mind looking like idiots when it’s their turn, Sluggers is probably worth a rent.
Sluggers is a decent game with a pretty good multiplayer component, but that describes 75 percent of what’s available on the Wii right now. The only thing that might make this a good buy is if you have a kid who likes baseball and Mario. All others, steer clear or rent first.
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