  Swing batta, batta! Swing! |
You gotta hand it to Mario. From carpenter to plumber to princess rescuer, the man has quite a resume.
He has flown through the air, shot fireballs from his hands, crushed endless Goombas and turned himself into sheets of paper, all in the name of making us happy little thumb-twitchers.
And he's not just a Renaissance man in the princess-rescuing/Goomba-splattering worlds, either. The portly little dude is a total jock, mastering golf and tennis (and even appearing in a street hoops game) before taking on the American national pastime, courtesy of the aptly named Mario Superstar Baseball.
While Nintendo may ruthlessly milk its moneymaking franchises, the results are generally of such quality that it's hard to complain. And so it is with the Namco-developed Mario Superstar Baseball.
As with the other Mario sports titles, Superstar Baseball takes the game's basic elements and juices them up with the usual Nintendo touches, from the cuter-than-cute characters to the themed stadiums to rule-obliterating power-ups, both for pitching and hitting.
But just as with Mario Power Tennis and Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, there is a strong foundation of sport-specific gameplay here. Sure, Donkey Kong may pitch bananas and "bat" with a boxing glove, but balancing your batting order and making quick fielding decisions on the fly are still very much part of the game.
And while the number of available baseball fields is relatively low, there are a ton of familiar Nintendo characters crammed into the game, each with his or her (or its) own strengths and weaknesses. Even the relationship between the characters comes into play, with those who are pals better able to execute double plays or set up runs.
Beautiful to look at, fun to play and packed with a host of out-there mini-games, Mario Superstar Baseball might not hit a grand slam, but it certainly puts one over the fence. Now please, Nintendo, can you give us a freakin' hockey game already?
BOTTOM LINES
Mix a basic but solid game of baseball with the usual hallucinogenic properties of Mario's special toadstools and you get this fun and frothy confection.
