|
| Welcome to NoE Version 2. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. << Furthermore, adverts like these are removed as you sign up! Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Mario Slam Basketball <DS>; 7.5 out of 10 | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: Mar 15 2007, 07:27 PM (711 Views) | |
| Evil Hamster | Mar 15 2007, 07:27 PM Post #1 |
Osu!
|
Mario Slam Basketball is a fun game, but it is let down by a number of niggling faults that, if sorted, would have made a near- perfect game. It is incredibly frustrating, because, whilst sometimes it is really a joy to play, sometimes it just makes you want to smash your DS on the floor with frustration. One of the key features of this game is the unique touch-based gameplay. Basically, you stroke in the direction of a player on your team to pass to them, and to shoot you just stroke the stylus towards the goal. A slam dunk can be performed when you are in the inner ring, by doing an upwards stroke on the touch screen, whilst moving towards the goal. Bouncing the ball is performed by tapping on the touch screen. Tapping faster will make your player bounce it faster (This is used to collect coins, which are added on to your total when you score) You can also, by tapping out a certain pattern on the touch screen (Which varies with each player) launch a power shot, which gives you more points. While you don't have the ball, you can steal the ball by stroking down on the touch screen, and jump to block a shot by stroking upwards. Weapons are launched by stroking the stylus in the direction you wish to fire it. Changing player is performed with the L button. At first, the controls seem a little daunting, but there is a nifty little tutorial which is incredibly helpful in learning these techniques. These controls work really well- at times. The offensive controls (When you have the ball) work brilliantly most of the time. Passing is smooth and pretty much always goes where you want it to. Shooting works like a dream, and the ppwer shots are also well implemented. However, the defensive controls (When you don't have the ball) don't work nearly as well, especially when trying to defend your hoop. Whilst ball-stealing works well, jumping to block shots does not. The jumping is horribly imprecise, and makes it near impossible to defend a shot unless you are practically standing under the hoop. This is made all the more annoying by the fact that the CPU can jump to block shots with ease. The weapons used when you don't have the ball are frustrating too. In other Mario sports games they added to the gameplay, but here they are nothing more than a distraction. This brings me onto another key problem with the game. The AI. Whilst the opposition players are reasonably intelligent, your own players seem incapable of pretty much everything you would expect them to do around the court. This makes defending your hoop especially frustrating, as you have to constantly switch between players to defend at least reasonably competently. The graphics in-game are, in a word, spectacular. The character models are as pixel-perfect as you could possibly expect on the DS, and the courts look amazing. There graphics are performed without even the slightest hint of slowdown, and it just looks great. The single player mode is, whilst fun, a bit short. I was pretty disappointed to beat the normal mode single-player on the afternoon that I got the game. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if there was any decent focus on multiplayer. Which, unfortunately, there isn't. The lack of Wi-Fi is a disappointment. Whilst the game does have single cartridge play, unfortunately it isn't a proper game of basketball, but just a couple of minigames. Which would have been a welcome bonus, but don't last very long on their own. The multi-cartridge is a proper, full functioning game of basketball though. The character selection is impressive. You start off with a few well known Nintendo characters, namely Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong, Waluigi, Wario, Bowser. Jr and Peach. Later, you unlock more, such as Bowser, Boo and Paratroopa. You can also unlock some characters from Final Fantasy, such as Ninja and Black Mage. These characters' skills vary windly, and your choice will strongly affect your style of play. The court selection is also very good. There are 16 courts (You start off with only one) and most of them have a little gimmick in them. For example, Daisy Gardens has pirahna plants as nets, making slam dunks very hard to pull off, and a court which is completely underwater. These 'gimmicks' are fun at first, and on some courts they remain so. However, on some of the more extreme courts (Such as Bowser castle- Fireballs setting your character alight) it is more of a distraction and deducts from the overall experience. As well as unlockable characters and courts, you can also unlock different types of ball to play with. You start off with just the normal orange basketball, but later you can unlock different balls to play with, such as a dice, a Goomba or (My personal favourite) a Yoshi egg. Whilst these make no difference at all to the actual gameplay, it is a neat little distaction to try and unlock all the balls. Overall, Mario Slam Basketball is a fun game, let down by occasionaly poor controls and a weak multiplayer. However, the game would be a huge amount more fun if you know someone else with the game, as the singleplayer grows old fairly fast. Make sure you try before you buy. Presentation 9 Graphics 10 Sound 8 Gameplay 7 Lasting Appeal 6 Overall Rating 7.5 BTW, this has been posted on other sites. Does it have to be exclusive? And yay, I gots teh first review :D |
 |
 
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · Games · Next Topic » |
