:: Introducing Super Mario Strikers
May 18, 2005   11:46pm

A Mario soccer game had been rumoured weeks before the E3, but the rumour seemed so thin and unlikely that it didn't sound very realistic. Then, the rumour became more plausible when we announced that the Japanese name for Mario Baseball would be Super Mario Stadium: Miracle Baseball, prefiguring a line of Mario sport games. And suddenly, some days days ago, it all came true when a Super Mario Strikers game appeared on Nintendo's planning, followed by a fuzzy photo from Nintendo booth and finally the official confirmation yesterday along with ten irrefutable proofs: the screenshots you will see below.

Together with the announcement came another surprise, the game is not developed by Nintendo but by a nearly unknown company, Next Level Games, who has worked on succesful sport titles such as the NHL Hitz series, Sega Soccer Slam and even Wave Race: Blue Storm. Their game history goes as far as the Nintendo 64 with the two most famous racing games of the console Ridge Racer 64 and World Driver Championship. So far though, Super Mario Strikers is far from being impressive judging from the screenshots and could actually be the less interesting game of the GameCube line-up. Yet, the game is still under development and given Next Level Games high-quality portfolio, the odds are that they might eventually deliver a 4-player fantasy soccer game even better than Soccer Slam and the great classic Nintendo World Cup.


Click to enlarge