Here's some highlights of this week's game offerings. Although I'm not big into sports games, I really want to try Mario Strikers Charged. something about Princess Peach in a sports bra makes me curious, don't ask me why.

Mario Strikers Charged (WII)
Play as your favorite Mushroom Kingdom characters in a soccer showdown.

Brave Story: New Traveler (PSP)
A new RPG based on the Brave Story movie.

Glory Days 2 (DS)
The DS action strategy game supports up to eight way multi-player and even 3D (the glasses kind)

Attack on Pearl Harbor (PC)
Play as the U.S. or Japan for the first time in a Pearl Harbor based game.

Picross DS (DS)
Solve puzzles to create pixelated pictures.

Pet Alien (DS)
The next best thing to Pet Rock: The Game!

Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars (MAC) C&C TW gives the Mac some love.

Battlefield 2142 (MAC)
It's a good week to be a mac gamer!

If you're new to the Mario Strikers series, it follows the Mario Sports Formula fairly closely—start with Sport X, add Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Wario and a number of Nintendo B-listers like Boo and Shy Guy, throw out most of the rules, make it easy for anyone to control. Mario Strikers Charged not only perfects the Mario Sports Formula it kicks it up a notch by adding a nearly seamless 4-player online component.

The game's art style is "extreme" with gameplay a close match. It's frantic and fun and took me by surprise. I lean closer to a soccer anti-fan more than I do for any other team sport, yet Mario Strikers Charged quickly rocketed to the top of my summer Wii purchases.

For fans of the series, you'll want to know about a few changes. In addition to new team captains like Bowser and Diddy Kong, you'll be able to customize your teams with the sidekicks of your choice. New second-stringers include Dry Bones and Monty Mole. Charged's eight new interactive stadiums add additional chaos to the Mario Sports Formula, with player crushing Thwomps, flying cows and lava pits wreaking havoc on both teams and adding a new strategic element to certain stages.

Mario Strikers Charged uses the Wii-remote and nunchuk, with little in the way of waggle to make the soccer title unnecessarily complicated. Players can flick the remote to knock over other players but the rest of the control scheme follows a simple, traditional set up. Passing is done with the A button, goal attempts with B (held down to charge a Mega Strike), Z chips the ball and C performs character specific special moves.

The Wii remote is used as a pointer in one additional way, blocking Mega Strike shots. After a short, somewhat jarring cutscene, the action will change to a first-person view and require quick reflexes to stop incoming shots.

Online play was, as I mentioned earlier, mostly seamless. We played a handful of multiplayer matches with Nintendo of America employees in Redmond and experienced no noticeable lag, but did see a few dropped frames.

Mario Strikers Charged is a solid addition to the Nintendo Sports Formula and looks to be a great multiplayer title. Michael McWhertor

The market is currently dominated by the more conventional competitive ladders such as Rainbow Six: Vegas or Socom, by launching a ladder for Super Mario Strikers we are hoping that we can draw in the casual gamer, and those that want a break from your standard online game and reunite them on the virtual football field. This will bring us closer to achieving our aim of becoming a central hub for which all European gamers can converse and compete in a ladder environment.

I love my Nintendo Wii and I am quite a bit of a competitive lady, but I'm not sure if Mario Strikers Charged is really going to have enough meat on it to play other people in a semi-serious manner. I could be wrong, that game clip was super macho, even for Bowser. Kim Phu

PRESS RELEASE
ConsoleGaming Announces Nintendo Wii ladder

22nd May, London, UK - consolegaming.eu, one of Europes largest clan gaming sites today announced that it will be launching the first competitive Nintendo Wii ladder in Europe. This will take the form of Super Mario Strikers.

Marco Spoor, General Manager of Consolegaming.eu stated that "The market is currently dominated by the more conventional competitive ladders such as Rainbow Six: Vegas or Socom, by launching a ladder for Super Mario Strikers we are hoping that we can draw in the casual gamer, and those that want a break from your standard online game and reunite them on the virtual football field. This will bring us closer to achieving our aim of becoming a central hub for which all European gamers can converse and compete in a ladder environment"

Since ConsoleGaming.eu was launched in January 2007 the staff have done a lot to help make the site easier for everyone to use by having the ladders and the forums avaliable in 10 of the most spoken languages in Europe. There are dedicated community managers for each of the languages to provide you with support each step of the way.

Mario Strikers will join the current 11 ladders spread out over the three major formats, Playstation 2, Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. All of which have achieved major success since launching in April, with more ladders being launched all the time.

You are able to register for the ladders at http://mscf.wii.consolegaming.eu/.

About Console Gaming

Despite launching only a few months ago, Console Gaming has grown larger than anyone had originally anticipated by managing to accumulate over 6000 members in a matter of months. The ladders launched in April and the number of visitors is growing considerably every day.

In addition to providing various ladders for a multitude of games. ConsoleGaming also has managed to build up a fairly active forum. Something which does indeed help define a gaming website. In such a competitive market, with thousands of posts being made a day on a variety
of different topics it truly has managed to bring European gamers together.

Currently Supported Ladders:

Motorstorm (Playstation 3)
Resistance: Fall of Man (Playstation 3)
Socom 2 (Playstation 2)
Socom 3 (Playstation 2)
Socom: Combined Assault (Playstation 2)
Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars (Xbox 360)
Gears of War (Xbox 360)
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (Xbox 360)
Rainbow Six: Vegas (Xbox 360)
Virtua Tennis 3 (Xbox 360)
Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (Xbox 360)

Supported Languages:

English
Dutch/Belgian
German
French
Italian
Norwegian
Polish
Swedish
Finnish
Portuguese
Spanish