The violent delights of EA Ice Hockey on the Megadrive may seem a strange place to start a football review, but this is really what first springs to mind when you fire up Mario Strikers Charged Football. The wonderful freedom that comes from the man-on-man rather than man-on-ball action is a breath of fresh air. Just as Ice Hockey turns a blind eye to the odd bit of violence, Mario Football also lets you foul and attack the other players to your hearts content. Before you even start to appreciate the controls and finer detail of the game, it is clear that this is a well weighted title that has been build exclusively for Nintendo’s new console.

To the game. It offers all the game modes you would expect from a football game. The battle mode enables you to play against either computer or human opponents. Introduce four human players into this and it turns into a wonderful party-esque two on two battles. You can even switch this up to play four of you on one side against a computer opponent.

The Cup mode is the main single player experience of the game. You work your way through an increasingly difficult field of players to win the various cups, and more importantly unlock more team captains for the multiplayer game. This is complemented by an online mode that is surprisingly solid for Nintendo’s first proper WiiConnect24 console game. The online experience integrates with your Mii, so you can picture who you are playing across the high seas of the interweb. There are a variety of daily and weekly leader boards for you to aim at, as well as a good number of rankings to work your way up. Although not as immediate as the local multiplayer, the online experience is easily good enough to let the game’s quality shine through, and it is so much better player a real person than the computer. And all for free, nice one Nintendo!

The biggest success of the game is its nuanced implementation of the Wii controls. As is important for any football game, these controls work on a number of different levels. Given an hour or two and you can initially get to grips with the basics. The A button passes, the B trigger shoots and the D-pad tackles. This all serves you very well in the early stages, or against other people of similar experience.

Before too long you start to notice a few more aspects of the game. You can charge up a power shot with your outfield players by holding the B trigger down and you can attack the nearest player by waggling the Wii-mote. On top of this a charged shot for your team captain lets off a mega strike that pauses the action and fires multiple balls at the opposing goal, whilst the other player wrestles with the Wii-mote to point to each one in time to stop them scoring. This really ups the speed to frantic levels as you pass and slide tackle your way around the pitch, and try and create enough space for your team captain to let off their mega strike.

Given a bit longer with the game and you start to notice the effect these moves are having on proceedings. Firstly, your violent sliding tackle attacks are awarding the other team with a variety of power-ups, enabling them to pull out the usual arsenal of shells, banana skins and bombs to hamper your progress. Also, your passing the ball around charges it up from purple to red to white, and means you have a much greater chance of scoring. This new information acts to temper your game and the matches become a tactical battle once again as you eek out both your power-ups and your attacks to keep the other side locked down.

After several hours of play you finally realise that you can combine some moves more creatively than it first appeared. You can hold B to charge a shot then press A to pass instead, with the added benefit of a rapid charge up on the ball. You can also use your D-pad evades on some characters with teleport abilities to warp past the goal keeper and score goals. Additionally, you notice that tactical use of power-ups can free up players to score the winning blow. Your play takes another turn and becomes more creative as you combine the various techniques to make a mockery of the other side.

Into this wonderful mix of controls enters the cast of players. All the usual Nintendo protagonist are present, split into the major and minor players. The majors form the team captains and the minors such as Boo, Stones and Bones, Toad and the like form the supporting team. Each of these major and minor characters has their own unique statistics and special moves. You can, and should, spend hours perfecting a team with the qualities that suit your style of play. You can then spend just as long getting used to employing their special shots, tackles and evasive moves. These moves are made all the more interesting by the fact that they are affected by how charged up the ball is. The warp forward moves for instance will travel a lot further when then ball is white hot, even enabling you to warp through the goal keeper.

The final home run (to mix our metaphors) is the game’s excellent music. And what turns out to be a rarity for games these days, there is actual album quality music to accompany the action. These are tunes that not only fit the on screen shenanigans, but also are songs in their own right, some of which you will no doubt recognise. These flesh out every aspect of the game from the title screen to the post-goal celebrations.

As you get tell from my write up, this is a great little game from Nintendo. If they are able to instil this sort of quality, depth and longevity in their third party titles then the Wii will have a long and happy life. As it stands this is a shining beacon as to what the Wii is capable of both on and off-line. Whilst not a serious sports simulation, there is as much depth here as found in some of the more heavyweight titles; it is only because it is so well delivered, in bit sized play friendly mouthfuls, that it seems so simple and childlike. Overall this is a must buy for me. Don’t be put off with the sports moniker, as its more akin to Smash Brothers with goals than football.