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Mario Sports Mix

by Neal Ronaghan - June 17, 2010, 3:02 am EDT
Total comments: 6

Mario's coming out of a brief retirement from sports to play basketball and volleyball at E3.

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.

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2010:

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.

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2010:

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.

Talkback

ToruresuJune 17, 2010

Meh.

The fact that basketball isn't done like Wii Sports Resort kills any interest I had in this.

PaleMike Gamin, Contributing EditorJune 17, 2010

It sounds similar to wii sports but you can actually move the players... which is kind of critical.

I enjoyed most of hoops 3-on-3 so I'm still looking forward to this.

LouieturkeyJune 17, 2010

Here's hoping some of this feedback will be read and changes will be made to the game before release to fix some of this stuff.  Of course, this is a demo and the full game will be better polished and maybe there will be more games added as well.

Mop it upJune 17, 2010

Although I didn't really like Mario Hoops on DS, most of that stems from the controls, which were too creative to be functional. I was hoping they would try creating a Wii version, and it looks like they are... complete with three other sports! Though I hope that doesn't mean they still won't be fleshed out, but the game looks pretty early in development, so I'm certain there's more to come.

Guitar SmasherJune 17, 2010

I probably wasn't going to pick this up before, but knowing this won't use Motion+ kills any interest I have in it.

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Mario Sports Mix Box Art

Genre Sports
Developer Square Enix
Players1 - 4

Worldwide Releases

na: Mario Sports Mix
Release Feb 07, 2011
PublisherNintendo
RatingEveryone
jpn: Mario Sports Mix
Release Nov 25, 2010
PublisherNintendo
RatingAll Ages
eu: Mario Sports Mix
Release Feb 04, 2011
PublisherNintendo
Rating3+
aus: Mario Sports Mix
Release Jan 27, 2011
PublisherNintendo
RatingGeneral
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