Nintendo Takes a Swing at Mario Super Sluggers

It has been a few months since the conformation of " Mario Baseball" We had that name and a picture of the game to hold us over. Well now at Nintendo's Media Summit, they played a bit of the game. From the screens that I have seen it looks like a really good game. Although the camera angle seems to have changed as far as batting goes. It is more zoomed is as you will see in the below picture.



A bit from Kotaku:

Nintendo kicked off its Media Summit this morning with a quick preview of its next mascot-filled baseball title, now known as Mario Super Sluggers. Nintendo of America's Bill Trinnen walked the gathered press through a single inning—much speedier than the real life thing—featuring the Mario Firebats team taking on the Peach Royals. Like Mario Strikers Charged, Mario Super Sluggers uses a similar coach character team set up, with second string NIntendo characters like Shy Guy and Baby Mario covering the field while the player handles pitching duties.

Mario Super Sluggers uses a control scheme built on the foundation of Wii Sports baseball, with only Wii Remote gestures required to play. With Mario as his pitcher, Trinnen demoed the game's controls, using Wii-mote swinging to throw fastballs, curveballs and, naturally, fireballs. Twists of the remote during your swing allows for curveballs, with a properly timed swing—performed just as a set of glowing rings centers on your character—adding extra heat to the ball.

Power moves can be pulled of with an A+B button combination, when charged.

Fielding appeared to be largely controlled by the game's AI, with a shake of the Wii Remote making your fielder sprint to the ball. Throwing to a baseman requires just a simple toss. A quick press of A will make your defensive player dive for the ball, for dramatic last second catches.

Batting used a similar control method, with a Wii Sports-like batting swing and timing for hits following the same ring indicator. Your character can use power-ups while at bat, with Mario delivering a flaming baseball to centerfield, which Donkey Kong obviously dropped when caught.

Nintendo was light on details during the brief demo of Mario Super Sluggers, but it looks to follow previous Mario-themed sporting events, with guest appearances from a big number of Nintendo mainstays. We saw Mario, Luigi, Peach, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Daisy, Shy Guy, Monty Mole, and Donkey Kong—who opts for a boxing glove instead of a bat—in the line-up.

Mario Super Sluggers was described as one of Nintendo's "bridge games", one that is designed to appeal to the Wii Sports crowd, and looks to aim for accessibility for traditional non-gamers. No one will mistake it for anything resembling a sim, but it's clear Nintendo is going for an even more casual audience-friendly look and feel.

As for me, I am glad they have the feeling largely controlled with the AI, because on Wii that would be difficult to control. But I do like being able to shake the Wiimote to let your AI controlled fielder run faster to get the ball. I also am glad they have that same coaching system that they used in Mario Strikers Charged, where you pick from Main characters to do main things, and use secondary characters to handle the fielding and other things. This is looking to be a great game. I just hope they get the motion right. If they do alls cool!