digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/nintendo_wii/Mario_Strikers_Charged_Online_Impressions’;Strikers in stores tomorrow, and weve had it for a couple of days now and weve got some impressions regarding the online multiplayer portion of the game, well have a full and comprehensive review next week but online is a major portion of this game and if you are an online game buff youll want to know how it plays.

Check out impressions about Mario Strikers Charged Football, avaliable in stores now!

Friend Modes

When you first sign into the Nintendo Wifi Connection mode you are presented with 4 options and displays, the left side shows your current standing in the season and how many points you have scored that day as well as your Mii which you have selected to take online.
As discussed previously on the site your friend code is derived from your Mii, if you delete you Mii your online profile is gone too, so choose one thats not a throwaway and possibly with your online name because looking at the leader boards everyone has seemed to use their first names and there is about 5 Daniels, 3 Johns, 2 Peters maybe more.

Adding friend codes are a hell of a lot easier to input with the Wii remote and the menu is displayed with a simple phone keypad and even makes phone noises. Once added your friends show up on the roster as Offline, Busy or Available. Offline is fairly self-explanatory while Busy means they are in a match and are currently playing. However the biggest improvement over the DSs WFC system is the ability to invite other players to a game in progress, ala Xbox Live and some PSN titles. After inviting a friend, they are presented with three choices; Accept, Accept with a guest (More on that later) and to view the conditions of the challenge.

Friend mode allows you to select which stadium to play in and the nature of the game (time based or score based, with a further option to customise the time a match goes for and the max points that can be scored). This level of customisation however, is not available in ranked matches.
The friend code system is what we have, there is no changing it for now but it is relatively well structured despite not being as robust as Xbox Live, while also providing a better system as certain PS3 titles too. Playing with friends is the same as playing with random people which I will now cover.

The interface is excellent, easy to use too.

Ranked and the Leaderboard

Unfortunately, not all of your mates are going to be online all the time, so this is where Ranked matches come in. Records of Ranked matches and games played are tied to our Mii remember, so once you delete that Mii, the records will be lost forever. On the main page, the Striker of the Day is displayed, who is the person with the most points scored that day. The striker has the potential to change all the time and people who play many matches and dedicate themselves to this game will often appear here more than people who win.

Games that are played in Ranked are set to strict criteria. They are played in a series of three, with each game lasting three minutes. If a team wins two rounds it is game over, but as expected, should both teams win one round then a third round will be played to determine the winner.

The leaderboards within this game is what will fuel the online competition for this game, providing features such as Days Leader, Season Leader, your own position on the season, your position within your friends list (similar to Microsofts Xbox Live Arcade service for the 360) and your position within the day. Your lifetime wins and losses are on the board but its the points accumulated while playing that contribute towards your overall position, with 10 points rewarded for a win, 1 point for a loss and 1 point for a goal.

So how does it play!

Well now you know how it works, Ill tell you how well it works and it works surprisingly well. Finding your friends online is simple, adding them is simple (even if it IS friend codes) and finding a random to play is great too, the only problem I had finding an opponent was early in the morning, does no one wake up at 7am anymore? Regardless, it takes about 20 seconds to find someone, a bit longer during the early hours of the morning but youre playing people mainly in your close time zones (Australian and New Zealand) so there should be always someone playing when you are.

Playing with a guest adds to the fun too, allowing you to take someone else in your house with you onto the WFC and team up. This feature allows many gamers to not only play online but play with their mates within their own home co-operatively. This can cause a problem in terms of fairness though, as there will be less CPU controlled characters should a guest be joining the fray.
Playing online in the game is a great, hassle-free experience. There is little to no jitterin when lag is evident within the game, though the occasional drop in framerate is noted on the rare occasion. Being on a 1.5 megabit connection, I experience minimal slowdown when playing with people from other states, though it can get messy when playing internationally, though this could be due to poorly programmed netcode, though having your brother streaming 2 different YouTube videos while playing online certainly doesnt help the matter.

Yoshi takes the field after a spectacular entrance

Two areas of concern risen by players early on is two techniques, known as Megastrikers and Hammer Bros. Essentially, these abilities seem to be most powerful so they are constantly spammed and whored by many online users. Learning to counter these moves, however, should see the use of them being reduced and as such, the folks here at Vooks will give you a tip: Counter with a shake of the wiimote, or a tackle at the right time! The noobs who spam these techniques will soon learn.

So, despite all the scepticism, Strikers is great fun online! Unfortunately we did not have enough time to delve into the Single Player mode, considering this was the first online title for the Wii you can understand where most of our initial interests lie. Should you be tossing up on whether to get this game based on the online component, we thoroughly suggest you give it a go. Keep an eye out for the full review which will delve into both components of the game.

And thats it for our initial hands-on impressions. Before we leave, two parting tips. The first, have a go at the tutorial or the single player to get yourself accustomed with the controls and mechanics of the game, because it will pay off and save you a lot of embarrassment when taking your skills online. Secondly, dont forget you can pick up Strikers from EzyGames.com.au at an exclusive Vooks.Net price. For more information on that deal, click here!