The action in "Mario Strikers Charged," which features an assortment of Mario-franchise characters, amounts to a fine-tuned frenzy.

In some situations, you can initiate super abilities for your players. You can obtain and use power-ups, including bombs and a speed accelerator. On defense, shake the motion-sensitive Wii remote to deliver a big hit on an opponent. Improve your scoring chances by passing or maneuvering until you can take a specially charged shot. Deal with hazards that vary from one outlandish field to another. And use some pop-up controls to set up your captain's MegaStrike, which unleashes multiple shots on goal in rapid succession.

However long your learning curve, the payoff is a treat.

"Strikers Charged" is an exquisite example of what makes video games a unique form of entertainment. This is the kind of elite game that collapses the distinction between real life and cartoon life. Gamers get immersed in a richly animated experience that allows them to command some wonderfully wacky and rubber-bodied powers.

You need two hands for the controls, which require using the "Nunchuk" add-on that connects and tethers to the main Wii remote. Play enough and all the thumb-stick, button and gesturing combinations start to seem amazingly coherent. Oh, maybe not for the most casual of Wii owners. But certainly for people who have a gaming history.

Wii-specific features are modest, amounting largely to some remote-shaking on defense and some Nunchuk-waggling when opponents prepare a MegaStrike.

The one Wii-defining element is the method for fighting off the final phase of a MegaStrike: You're the proxy for the goalie (who mostly acts automatically during games), quickly aiming the remote at one shot after another that appears in different spots on the screen. A ball is stopped if you target it fast enough and press the A button. In the computer-generated animation that follows, the goalie (a familiar Nintendo crocodile character), plays out the results by making as many blocks and allowing as many goals as determined by your targeting sequence.

I only tested "Strikers Charged" as a single-player experience, and I've never tried its predecessor, "Super Mario Strikers," which was made for the GameCube by the same developer (Next Level Games). The offline multi-player action must be a blast if gamers have roughly similar skills.

Unless you're an extremely proficient gamer, you're best off sticking with the single-player modes for at least the first couple of weeks of playing "Strikers Charged." You'll be more than satisfied.