Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Following in the footsteps of last generation's Mario Superstar Baseball, Mario Super Sluggers for the Nintendo Wii takes most of the best aspects of its predecessor and grafts the Wii remote's capabilities onto the experience. Join the Mushroom Kingdom's finest at Princess Peach's newly constructed baseball island resort for just-for-fun exhibition games, a single-player RPGesque challenge mode in which Bowser Jr. is stirring up trouble, mini-games based around basic baseball skills, and the returning Toy Field which adds a dash of darts to the pitch-and-hit experience.

What's Hot
Anyone who was pleased with Mario Superstar Baseball will feel right back at home in this new installment. Just about everything from the previous game is back in some form from the character-based special moves to the gimmick fields to the special items to the mini-games (Bob-omb Derby, anyone?) to - how's this for completeness? - the "Let's play a baseball game" theme song. There are some new tweaks thrown into the experience, most of which are new mini-games and some simple puzzles mixed into the Challenge mode. Chemisty between characters has been expanded into new buddy moves, too, and a new day/night dynamic allows for games to be played in a sparkling stadium lit by bright lights.

Speaking of the Challenge mode, anyone playing alone will most likely spend the bulk of his or her time here at first. Players begin with a team of one - Mario - and are left to explore the island and recruit new teammates. At first the only ones who will join Mario on his quest to kick Bowser Jr. off of the island are generic characters like Nokis and Piantas, but over time big guns such as Princess Daisy, Petey Pirhana, Waluigi, and King K. Rool will join up provided that Mario can solve their problems and show off in tests of baseball skills. Very few characters just volunteer to join the game. Most need to be convinced that players can strike a character out or hit a home run or some other such task. There are only a few actual full baseball matches to be played during Challenge mode, and in actuality this mode is best used to get in a little practice time before challenging real live human opponents in the Exhibition mode.

The controls have changed quite a lot since Mario's last baseball outing. Sluggers is one of Nintendo's crossover titles intended to attract both the core gamer and the casual audience; the casuals can play the game with just the Wii remote and let the Wii control actions such as running bases and racing after fly balls while the core gamers can attach a nunchuk and use the control stick to take manual control for some extra precision. Pitching and hitting are controlled by swinging the Wii remote in both control schemes.



What's Not
The Challenge mode runs a little shallow, unfortunately. When I wasn't completing simple pitching or batting tasks on the first try I found myself wandering around the Mario Party-style overworld. Each of the game's major stadiums are surrounded by a little world full of hot spots to explore, and each of the game's five team captains (Mario, Peach, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Wario) have unique abilities needed to search those hot spots. Only Wario can open treasure chests, for instance, while it's up to Donkey Kong to smash open suspicious barrels. Searching every hot spot means switching back and forth between captains which gets ridiculous when I have to switch to Mario to call out for a hidden Noki who will otherwise not appear if I were to call out with, say, Peach. There are a few pull-the-switch or turn-the-crank Wii remote puzzles that bring to mind some of the push-and-pull puzzles from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption et al, and at this point that sort of thing just feels tacked on to the experience.

There are dozens of playable characters to unlock, but the roster feels padded by duplicates of generic characters. Part of the fun of the various Mario sports games is to see unique characters such as Diddy Kong and Birdo bring their unique talents to the experience. Expect to have to deal with scores of different colors of interchangeable Piantas, Nokis, Yoshis, and Kritters that bring little personality or special skills to the game. A single Noki or Kritter would be alright, but do we really need multiples of each species? And I suppose it just wouldn't be a modern Mario spin-off game without including five of the Mushroom Kingdom's bawling babies on the team.

I also can't let this moment pass without questioning why the casual-oriented controls handle most of the gameplay automatically, and while I understand Nintendo's desire to attract players who can't quite handle controlling the entire baseball experience, playing without the nunchuk is dangerously approaching the old "Press the Win Button to win" gag. There's not a lot of difficulty to be found here as it is. At least plug in that nunchuk and give yourself a little challenge.



Final Word
It's difficult for me to recommend Mario Super Sluggers as a purchase to someone planning to play the game alone most of the time. The Challenge mode is good for a few hours, but I feel little need to return to it. It's necessary to explore the single-player mode to unlock the more impressive characters for the multiplayer modes, so anyone looking to pick this one up just to play with friends will still have to slog through the single-player stuff to get the most out of the game. It'd make a great rental though. Take it for a test drive and see if the experience sticks for your preferred control method and number of available players.