Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders have nothing on Mario and friends. Who knew the Italian plumber and his buddies were such versatile athletes? Between star turns playing golf and tennis, as well as cameos in a street basketball and soon a snowboarding game, it seems there isn't a sport the Mushroom Kingdom characters can't play. The crew takes to the diamond in the newest Mario sports game, Mario Superstar Baseball. While the game successfully melds Nintendo's signature charm to America's pastime, a couple of fundamental gameplay gaffes keep it from being the exceptional arcade hardball game that it could be.

You'll see a lot of recognizable faces in the game.

Mario Superstar Baseball takes a lot of its core gameplay cues from old NES baseball favorites, like RBI Baseball and Baseball Stars. The default pitcher-batter view gives you a look at the action from above and just behind the plate. As the pitcher, throwing strikes is merely a matter of getting the ball across the plate; you needn't worry about height, only how far off the plate you are left or right. Pitches can be thrown with some break to them, as some characters (like Princess Peach) can put a ton of lateral movement on their pitches. Meanwhile, others (such as Yoshi) tend to pitch fairly straight. At first glance, this makes things pretty simple for the batter. You can shift left and right or forward and back in the batter's box, so you only have to worry about your positioning and timing to hit the ball. It sounds a lot simpler than it is, though.

The game imparts depth in pitching through charged pitches. Hold down the A button for a while before releasing your pitch, and you'll uncork a fastball. Get the timing perfect and you'll fire a Roger Clemens-like heater right down the pipe. You can also throw a changeup, which looks graphically like a charged fastball but goes a lot slower. This can be effective at throwing off the timing of human opponents who are trying to anticipate a fastball. Rounding out your choices as a pitcher are the special "star pitches," which unleash magical-looking pitches that are all but unhittable. Donkey Kong's pitch makes a sweeping, banana-shaped hook as it zooms across the plate. Bowser fires off a knuckling Bullet Bill that bobs and stutters unpredictably before sliding across the plate. The inclusion of these wrinkles in the pitching game is fun, and they help add a surprising amount of depth to the pitching strategy in Mario Baseball.

As the batter, you can also charge up before taking a rip at a ball. This adds more power but also narrows your margin for error in the timing of your swing. In practice, we found that charged swings simply resulted in a lot more fly-ball outs than extra-base hits. You really have to get the timing down perfectly to benefit. There are also "star swings" that you can execute, which are simply more-powerful charged swings. Like the star pitches, expending star swings will deplete your supply of stars, which can only be replenished at random intervals throughout the game. Though it might seem that a baseball game where pitch elevation doesn't matter would be easy to hit in, it can be surprisingly difficult to make contact in Mario Baseball because of the tricky timing. This keeps the scoring realistic, for the most part, and it makes home runs fairly rare...at least for those of us who are used to BALCO-enhanced Major League Baseball. But when you can string together several base hits in a run-scoring rally in Mario Baseball, it's very rewarding. And actually knocking one over the fence can be very exciting.

Star pitches can help you get important strikeouts.

Pitching and batting are just two facets of the game, of course. Defense is another big part of baseball, and unfortunately, it's also where Mario Baseball begins to falter. Once a ball is struck, the camera view shifts to an overhead perspective, and the nearest player to the ball is put in motion toward it. In the case of a fly ball, you'll see a large circle target where the ball should land. Simply run to the center of it and you'll make the catch. If it looks like you won't quite make it, you can rapidly press B for a speed boost--at the expense of control (this works for baserunning, too)--and then you can press A at the last second to attempt a diving catch. For grounders, you'll have to determine the best cutoff path yourself, which can be tricky with the varying speeds, heights, and fielding abilities of the different characters. A bouncing ball that a big player like Waluigi might catch on one hop may very well bounce right over the head of baby Mario. That's not actually as bad as it sounds, as it's part of the flavor of a Mario sports game. The problem with Mario Baseball's defense is that when the camera shifts, it's not made very clear which character you're controlling. For example, on a sharply hit grounder up the middle, it can be ambiguous whether you'll be put in control of the second baseman or the shortstop, both of whom will run for the ball. Should the ball leave the infield, your control will suddenly and automatically shift to the center fielder, who's also charging forward for the ball. But getting used to when these control shifts happen can be irritating, and the process steepens the learning curve for the game a bit.