Mario Smash Football (GameCube)

Having played this game through, I can safely say it is seriously fun. You will enjoy this game. It is rough and tumble football action with all your favourite Mario characters and sidekicks. Playing through all the cups a couple of times is great fun, and multi-player mode is quite enjoyable. This is a superb Mario sports game.

Super strikes are executed brilliantly, with a nice little cinematic where the control pad rumbles violently to really give the player a sense of power. These are a little samey though between characters, with the same sound effect present on everyone and the animation very similar.

So why is it "Almost there", well quite simply because Nintendo aren't quite there yet with difficulty settings. With Mario Power Tennis the difficulty levels are fantastic as they work you up gradually to becoming a pro at the game. With Mario Smash Football however, this appears to have gone out the window. There are still four difficulties, but the gap between the first and second is just too great. You will yawn at Novice after the first few games, but you will scream at Professional, the next one up, because tackles, power-ups and goals become all to frequent on the enemies part. Suddenly you find yourself 10-0 up in the first minute.

Another irritation I found with the game is the unnecessary giant Bowser that comes in mid-match. Nintendo have probably thrown this in to mix things up a bit and sprinkle some "Nintendo-magic" over the game. All it does is spoil the flow of the game, and when you're playing on Professional or above its the last thing you want. This should have been left out simply to let us play some fluent football. Why not give us Bowser as a character instead of an irritation?

All the above said, the game is well worth getting if only for the multi-player mode, which, like every Mario sports game, is where the party really starts!

The game could be improved by having more characters such as Goombas or Shy Guys being able to play on your team, but there is some brilliantly deep gameplay with simple, easy to learn controls, especially for players of EA Sports games.

The only reasons this gets 4 Stars rather than 5 is due to the lack of depth of the single player and lack of options (making Super Strikes worth more or less goals, lack of choice of characters)

Overall this is a brilliant game, ESPECIALLY in multiplayer. Hearing Peaches scream, which actually sounds like she's in a lot of pain, makes it even better.