Getting your feet dirty in the online mode for Mario Strikers: Charged

IGN had their hands on a playable build of Mario Strikers: Charged and our worst fears have been realized: the game has its own friend code. Sure, we all suspected as such in our last look at the game, but then it wasn't confirmed. Sadly, it is now. And in order to add someone as a friend, you must manually input their 12-digit friend code. This, we understand, is going to be sad, sad news for a lot of you. We feel your pain. Let us all cry together.

But, if you can find your way past that, the game looks to be offering a robust experience online and could very well validate itself into anyone's collection regardless of the horribly cumbersome manner in which it handles itself over Wi-Fi. There's still a whole area of online play that they didn't cover, also, where you encounter total strangers and duke it out on the field, so perhaps that mode will offer less hassle.

See also: Our experience with the game at GDC 07

[Thanks, ShaleX!]