1 post tagged “mario hoops”
I've spent a few hours with Nintendo's new Mario Hoops 3 on 3 for the DS over the weekend and overall I've come away quite impressed.
Initially I didn't expect much from a Basketball game, I mean I love the sport but its never really enthralled me in a video game before.
What got me excited about Mario Hoops though was the news that the control would be via the stylus. Think bouncing the ball by tapping on the screen, performing cross over dribbles by cross tapping etc.. The good news is that it works, and it works very well indeed. The stylus control in this game is what will keep me going back hour after hour trying to master all of the on-court moves.
Now with the amount of pre-triggered stylus maneuvers I was a little worried that the learning curve would be too high for a portable game. Luckily the first menu option is a series of training sessions to get your stylus skills up to speed. After 10 minutes of tutorials I was ready for action!
Movement of your character is controlled by the d-pad with all other control purely on the touch screen. You increase the speed of your dribble by the rate you tap the touch screen and can control the ball by the location you tap on the touch screen. For example by tapping at the bottom of the screen your character will dribble the ball behind them to stop pesky defenders from performing steals.
Passing is performed by a quick diagonal stroke and likewise shooting and dunking is performed with an swipe from top to bottom with many variations depending on the defender and the type of move you want to perform.
Special moves can be triggered by tapping combos on the touch screen. These are time consuming and difficult to perform as it leaves you open to defenders. The results however are very rewarding! There's nothing quite like Mario throwing a flaming "Ali-oop" to his brother who finishes with a badass dunk!
The competition is organized Mario Kart style with 3 Cups which when finished un-lock a Rainbow Cup. I need to give this game more time (I've only put in 3 hours or so) but my main complaint so far is the balancing of the difficulty. Up until the Rainbow cup I had absolutely trounced the competition in every half played, and when I say trounced I mean leaving the other team scoreless! Most games ended with me around 20 or so baskets ahead.... I was starting to get a little bored with the easy difficulty level and then BAM! Rainbow cup is now extremely hard! Now its me on the receiving end of a 20 basket thrashing.
Again I need to put in more hours. I'm hoping to unlock another set of Cups after this otherwise the single player may be somewhat short lived.
Multiplayer on the other hand is an absolute riot! As far as I can tell from the Japanese menus there is no Wifi. Single cart and Multi cart play are supported and this is where the game shines. Dunking on my brother in law has never felt so good ;)
Graphically the game is gorgeous. The 3D graphics have that beautiful depth of colour that made New SMB so pretty.
Sound is nice. It did the job. There were no over the top character sounds that has plagued other Nintendo first party titles. Nothing entirely memorable to speak of in terms of music though.
All in all I'm impressed so far. The fantastic stylus control gives the game play a depth that will take a while to master and yet was easy enough for a beginner to pick up and play immediately. Certainly more than I expected from a Basktball game and another fine example of Nintendo making excellent use of the DS' touch screen.
