GameSpot's E3 2005 Editors' Choice Awards

Best Action Adventure Game
Best Adventure Game
Best Driving Game
Best Fighting Game
Best Massively Multiplayer Game
Best Platformer
Best Puzzle/Rhythm Game
Best Role-Playing Game
Best Shooter
Best Sports Game
Best Strategy Game

Super Mario Strikers (GC)

Developer: Next Level Games
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: Q4 2005

The last six months have seen some pretty interesting changes in the world of sports gaming, with waves of consolidation and exclusive agreements that have seen EA wrap up exclusive NFL, NCAA, and Arena Football licenses; Take Two snap up a semi-exclusive MLB license; and numerous other publishers, such as Midway, scrambling to create their own, nonlicensed sports games. It's odd, then, that the sports games that most impressed GameSpot editors at this year's E3 were, in fact, mostly arcade-oriented sports games, such as the new Tony Hawk, Mario Baseball, and especially Super Mario Strikers.

Nintendo hasn't been shy about milking its Mario franchise over the years, and its iconic character has indeed appeared in dozens of games spanning numerous genres. But it's hard to fault the company for this, since, at least on the GameCube, most of the Mario titles have been of fairly high quality. Even though Super Mario Strikers, a Mario-themed take on the grand sport of soccer, is still a good six months away from release, the playable demo on the show floor at E3 seemed to indicate that Nintendo's going to deliver the goods yet again. The game appears exciting, fun, and easy to pick up and play, and it seems likely that this is going to be the next GameCube game to encourage you to find (or make) three friends to play with.

This is probably as close as we'll ever get to Shaolin Soccer: The Game.

In typical Mario sports fashion, Super Mario Strikers sticks to the rules of soccer only so far as it doesn't impede the fun. The goal is still to run the ball down the field to your opponent's goal and attempt to knock it in. The player with the most goals in four minutes of play will wind up winning the round. Strikers starts to diverge from the rules, though, when it encourages you to vigorously attack opposing players, allowing you to charge into them and knock them down when they have the ball. Since there aren't any penalties, games often become a back-and-forth brawlfest, with the attacking team dekeing their opponents and attempting to pass more quickly than the defenders can attack. Playing against other human players will not be a quiet endeavor, judging from the E3 show floor. When you get tackled just before you let loose a super shot, you're going to be yelling!

Mario can bend it like Beckham.

Perhaps the best example of Super Mario Strikers' appeal lies in a simple anecdote. At 3:30 on Friday afternoon at E3, the "junk time" of the show when people are either already leaving or trying to get one last game in, the booth we headed for was, of course, Super Mario Strikers. We noticed a guy playing a game, so we walked up and asked to join him, and then started a two-player game. After a bit of seesawing and goal exchanging, we were heading down the field with 20 seconds left and a chance to win. Donkey Kong maneuvered into the corner of the field to avoid getting tackled, charged up a supershot, and slammed a fireball of a shot toward the goal…which bounced off a goalpost as time expired. We didn't even mind losing, though; the game was just too much fun to let losing impede the good times.

In short, although there were plenty of sports games debuted or shown at E3, the one we're most looking forward to is Super Mario Strikers. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more information on the title as it approaches its November release.

Finalists