Mario Superstar Baseball Review

Publisher: Nintendo

Is there any sport Mario and his cohorts don’t play? Kart racing, tennis, golf: the only things left are competitive eating, bartending and baseball. Wait, they do play baseball. Nintendo releases the next Mario and friends sport game in their continue line of Mario and friends sports game called Mario Superstar Baseball for the GameCube.

First Base (Pitching and Batting)

Within the first few minutes of the game you’ll notice an old arcade feel. The pitcher/batter interface on Mario Superstar Baseball is relatively simple, allowing you to jump into the game without learning analog spins, batter aim, or mid wind-up changes. Just pitch and bat. It’s easy to pitch strikes in this game, but you can throwing breaking balls and curves. Some characters have better attributes added to their pitches, making it a little more versatile. If only Roger Clemens was so versatile. The meat of the pitching game is charged pitches where each characters has a special “Star Pitch”, which uses up your stars. The star pitches seem to be unhittable. At least I wasn’t able to hit them and I used Donkey Kong (who looked like Jason Giambi after using…well, you know). Bowser had the most annoying Star Pitch. It jerked along and bobbed up or down right before it hit the plate. Bowser always had the cool moves.

Don’t worry batters, you also have a charge maneuver that you can use right before you swing. This gives you more power, but less accuracy. Guess what the opposite of “Star Pitch” for pitchers is? If you guess “Star Swing”, then I’m jealous of your association skills. The worst part of the batting game is timing. For regular pitches and regular hitting, you can judge the speed and direction of the ball pretty well and make an adjustment accordingly. But if you use a power swing or a Star Swing, then you better practice for a while to get your swing down. The Chicago Cubs should take that advice: practice.

Second Base (Baserunning and Defense)

One of the worst parts of Mario Baseball is base running. You barely have any control over them. As soon as you hit the ball, any runners on base take off. You can send them back on an obvious fly-out, but most other baseball games let you take the option right away on sending them. Once I hit the ball, I didn’t have time to send 3 base runners back to their original bases. Instead, I got a triple play because my fingers just weren’t fast enough.

The second irritating feature is when you're on defense. When a ball is hit, the closest player automatically is chosen and runs towards the ball. What slows you down is the camera change. Sometimes it’s not very easy to pick out who should get the ball and if it goes by your player(s), then the next closest on the tier starts for the ball. After a few hours of gameplay, I actually got use to the camera change and made quick decisions on who should chase down a ball.

Third Base (Stadiums and Modes)

I really enjoyed playing in the unique stadiums. Don’t expect plain old grass and walls and stands. Be prepared to overcome obstacles (like ball-chucking plants) in order to throw a guy out at first or even to catch a fly ball. Each stadium, like Bowser’s Castle and Donkey Kong’s Jungle, have their special obstacles that can be hindrances or just fun to play.

In any sports game, the main game is single player mode and Mario Superstar Baseball is no different. You can play your standard Exhibition game or jump into Challenge mode, where you have to beat other baseball captains (after choosing yours from Wario, Mario, Peach, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong) and play mini-games to win coins to get Team power-ups.

Speaking of mini-games, there are a number of these that one to four players can play -- kind of like Mario Party 6.5. You can play a multiplayer game of baseball, but only against one other player. To be honest, I played a friend, but found it was the same experience as playing the single player mode.

Home Base (Graphics and Sound)

Mario Superstar Baseball looks like every other Nintendo brand game staring their cast of famous characters. That’s not a bad thing. Colors are crisp, backgrounds have nice animations, and each character has their signature move, like Yoshi sticking out his tongue to snag a ball.

The sound effects are pretty standard for a baseball game. You’ve all heard a bat hitting a ball, the ball hitting the mitt, and cheering crowds and Superstar Baseball doesn’t offer anything new. The stadium music is pretty fun to listen to while not getting annoying: the songs are catchy and reminiscent of old school Nintendo.

Thompson's Two Cents

Nintendo may be over-extending the Mario universe with cookie cutter sports games, but Mario Superstar Baseball elevates itself above the others with fun gameplay and familiar graphics. Some fielding control issues and base running annoyances plague the game, but a healthy offering of mini-games keeps you occupied so you won’t get board of the regular baseball modes. If you’re a hardcore Nintendo fanatic or a baseball game fan looking for something other than simulation or franchise play, then this game is for you.

Now, who wants to sign a petition for Nintendo to make a game based off of competitive eating called, Mario Bellybuster Champions?