Nintendo unveiled Mario Sports Mix at their E3 2010 press conference with a trailer. Not much was revealed about the game outside of four sports (basketball, volleyball, dodgeball, and hockey) and a release year (2011). After playing the demo, which featured basketball and volleyball, the roots behind the game became clearer.

The title is developed by Square Enix, who made Mario Hoops 3-on-3, though from my knowledge of that game, the basketball mode doesn't seem to feature much inspiration from it. First off, it's 2-on-2. You can play co-operatively with a friend, or in versus mode with up-to-four players. Basketball is all gesture-based. You flick up on the Wii Remote to leap into the air, and flick down at the right time to shoot a basket. Dunks can be performed by leaping into the air near the basket. On defense, you can defend by trying to steal the ball with A, or jumping up with a Wii Remote shake to block the ball.

You could also execute special moves when you built up enough power. These are almost guaranteed baskets, but they can be blocked. Yoshi's involved an egg, and Peach and Daisy's involved some heart-based stuff. You can also collect items, such as shells, mini-mushrooms, and bombs, to disrupt players.

Along the way, you can collect coins, and if you make a basket after doing so, you get bonus points, which reminded me of the Montana Max stage in Tiny Toon Adventures: Acme All-Stars, except less random.

Basketball was fun, but I can't help but feel like it should use MotionPlus. When I initially saw the trailer, I was hoping to see Wii Sports Resort's excellent basketball section transformed into a full game. Unfortunately, this is just something reminiscent of Square Enix's Mario Hoops 3-on-3.

Volleyball was more disappointing than basketball, though. It played similarly, with 2-on-2 gameplay and upward and downward Wii Remote motions executing hits, jumps, and spikes. You could control where the ball landed by moving a reticule on the other side of the court. The game does a decent job of trying to make where you're aiming less apparent to your rival in versus mode by using split-screen and only having your reticule show up on your side of the screen. The special moves in volleyball were a little more difficult to execute, and seemed to be far less effective than the basketball ones.

I played the game against one other player, and we weren't allowed to change our characters during the game. To clarify, I had a team of Yoshi and Wario. I controlled Yoshi for the entire match while the computer controlled Wario for the entire match. Considering you can switch characters at will in basketball, it seemed odd.

The playable characters were Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Bowser, Yoshi, Wario, and Donkey Kong. This probably isn't the final roster. Also, the four sports might be it, but each sport is getting fully fleshed out with some sort of single-player component, and many multiplayer options.

Mario Sports Mix is set for a 2011 release.