Great Preview Video of Mario Super Sluggers

Kotaku has what looks to be a great preview video of Mario Super Sluggers, seemingly ripped from the Japanese Nintendo Channel. The video is quite long and does a great job of showcasing the game's control set. While the controls look relatively limited (especially the pitching), haven't we all wished for a few bombs to throw on those unfortunate pop-ups?

Re:When are the real Wii Games coming?

[Cerberus7]

Nintendo has spent 20 years establishing brand recognition for a large quite of characters, headlined by Mario. They're never going to drop him as their primary star. They do have lots of games [wikipedia.org], most of which don't star Mario.

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[RaceProUK]

Two words: Wii Sports.

Re:ugh, this again?

[alan_dershowitz]

Here are some ideas based on my own experience of myself and my friends during high school/college:

• You play and enjoy true "dungeon crawler" RPGs. Where you just run around and kill stuff and level up and that's it.
  
• If a game kicks your ass, you try harder instead of quitting.
  
• You start the game on "hard"
  
• You play for more than 5 hours a day (this may be too little now because of WoW.)
  
• You own every next-gen system, and not just because there's some exclusive you had to have.
  
• You own one or more Japanese game soundtrack or drama CDs.
  
• There is some classic game from the 80's or 90's that you never actually stopped playing.
  
• You have purchased Japanese import games to beat the American release date (doesn't for European gamers who need to import games so they don't have to wait a year or more.)
  
• You use a Gameshark to make your games HARDER rather than easier
  
• You habitually play games that only let you save at savepoints that are sometimes hours apart (this is a good indicator that a game is for hardcore players rather than casual.)
  
• You will put up with the worst control schemes ever foisted on the gaming market, without complaining.
  
• You can, literally, talk about gaming until you get physically tired before you get bored.
  
• More stuff, possibly involving games with the word "Dragon" in the title
  

If you read this and though "that's stupid" then you are not a hardcore gamer.

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[dorath]

I had the exact opposite reaction to Mario Kart Wii. I find the Wiimote klunky, imprecise, and unresponsive. After a couple of days trying to use the Wiimote I switched to the Gamecube controller. My son, who usually loves using the Wiimote (mostly for Sports), gave up after only 1 play session and will only use the Gamecube controller.

Until picking up Mario Kart for the Wii, I hadn't played any of the MK games for nearly a decade. If I had played any of them more recently then I'm sure that I wouldn't like the Wii-Wheel control scheme either. However, because it has been so long I don't miss the old controls, and any muscle memory I had for the old controller is long gone.

I've been tempted to try racing using the nunchuck controller to steer, but personally I find the wheel to be fun and so I'm sticking with it. My wife certainly doesn't have any problems using the wheel, she blasted right through the 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc classes and never expressed any desire for a different control mechanism.

In the end, your anecdotes vs mine, it doesn't really matter because we're given a choice of four (!) different control schemes: Wii Wheel, Wiimote and nunchuck, classic controller, and GameCube controller. That's a whole lot of choice and I'm glad that we're given the options.