Mario Superstar Baseball for GameCube

Wario is releasing a tell all book about the corruption that as set up on the Mario Sports world. It seems like Bowser and DK are shooting up steroids in the locker room. Mario and Luigi are threading to go on strike inless they get a billion coin a game raise, in a statement they told the press "what does the owner of this team think we are, plumbers" and Peach and Dasiy are being indicted for lying to congress. So what has Nintendo done to unleash this cloud of darkness around Mario's World, why they made a baseball game of course.

Ok enough of the silliness and the satire I rented this game yesterday after hearing from my brothers that it was a great game. I had reservations after hearing the reviews for it weren't so hot. After playing it Mario Baseball isn't a bad game but it's just not worth the 50 dollar price tag Nintendo is asking for.

Story.
Baseball as become the Mushroom kingdoms past time and Mario and the gang are building teams and entire stadiums to challenge each other in. Of course there happy fun is ruin when Bowser sends them a challenge to play against him on his own field. Now the teams are out to challenge and recruit one another so they can challenge Bowser.

Graphics.
The graphics are the same as in other sports game and a few of the animation for the victory dances as been seen in Mario Power Tennis and Mario Golf as well. Still there rather cute characters and there well detailed and animated. The fields themselves are also well made and each one having a different environment. Yoshi's court is more of a back field, Mario is a regular baseball field, and Peach as her in front of her castle in a park type setting.

Sound.
A few Mario remixes and a few other baseball type music that is nothing to write home about or complain about. The Mario voices are also hear to perform and there the usual overly happy self's, you can take them or leave them. There is one thing about the sound though that I absolutely hated and that is the VA for Lakitu's umpire. It's a high pitch nerdy voice, but unlike Steve Urkels it isn't funny just annoying. After awhile you wish you could reach through and strangle Lakitu just to shut him up.

Gameplay.
Ok I agree and disagree with Nintendo Reggie Ames when he says the Mario sports franchise as not hurt the Mario. Yeah they are all good games and would have helped if Nintendo made more Mario adventure games then sports 1 Mario adventure game= about a dozen Mario sports games anymore. And you can't make everyone of Mario sports games a hit and Nintendo strikes out on the gameplay big time in this one.

First I'll explain the mechanics of on the field.
The batting.
Pitching and batting is what Nintendo had in mind with this game and it goes back to the old school Nintendo routes of fast power balls and being able to control your own curve. Like a lot of NES games you don't select which way you want to it to curve, or even aim on a pointer. You can curve the ball at the plate just by pressing a direction on the control stick. There are also super moves the players can do to throw each other off while pitching. These are done by a star meter, each special moves uses up a star, you can get stars back when it announces a star chance for the team. In a star chance if the pitcher strikes out the player they get a star, if a player gets a hit and makes it to first or further they get a star.

Of course the batter as there own abilities. You can slide around the batter boxes easy enough with the control stick and you can charge your bat by holding A. Of course over charging can lead to easy to catch pop flies. Batters also have special moves where they can hit the ball hard do and this also uses star points as well.

Fielding.
If this was Mario Home run derby it would be an all right budget game, unfortunately there covering the whole sport and that would include out fielding as well. And this is where the game falls to pieces. Each field as a gimmick on the outfield to help the batter and screw up the out fielder. Barrels crash down DK's course making any person holding the ball drop them and become dizzy, Peaches as the ? blocks from days of old that the ball can bounce off of.

Characters on the out field are slow and sluggish and take forever to get the ball. And when it comes to throwing the ball to a particular base a lot of times the controls messed up and sent it to the wrong base. This is your team the AI is a little quicker on these things and often appears psych. Even if you're on a field where there are gimmicks that change the location of where the ball is going to land the CPU is able to guess where it's going to land and delivers easy double and triple plays doing this

Ok the basics of the one player quest mode is you choose a team by there team captain, you have Mario's team which is made from the characters seen in Mario Sunshine, you have Peach and her toads, Wario's villainous crew and so on. You move yourself around to other teams and then challenge them to a 4 inning game. If you win you clear that stadium but you also need to recruit players to build a better team.

To do this you have to complete challenges that come up during the game. Each character you can recruit as a certain number of flag challenges that must be completed. It can be to strike him out, strike 3 people out in a row, get a runner in, or get one of your characters to base. Once completed if you win that game the character joins your team. The opposing captains can join you if you can get there 3 flag challenges completed. At that point a white flag comes above there stadium.

While this might seem fun the game is short and after about 2 hours you'll beat it. After you beat it a flower cup comes up but it's pretty much the same thing. Beat everyone else's team and then beat Bowser. It get's old fast.

Final Recommendation.
Mario Baseball isn't a terrible game for those of you who are seeking an old school video baseball game. But the main one player game gets dull after the first time through and it doesn't have the addictive quality to make you go through it on different levels or with different teams like the other Mario Sports games. With Mario Golf,Mario Power Tennis, andMario Kart Double Dash out there and at cheaper prices you should skip Mario Baseball intill it at least hits the bargain bin.