Posted on 8-Dec-2006

Mario Slam Basketball Review

All the ingredients for B-ball: hoops, ball and... er, plumber on fire

Perhaps it's the fact that we're English, and we don't really get on with basketball that well at the best of times, but this really does seem like a bit of a weak effort - even with the added bonus of being able to understand it all properly, having only played it on Japanese import previously.

Sham Dunk

The control system, at a first glance, seems to make great use of the touch screen. You move around the court using the D-Pad, and use the stylus for everything else - slashing horizontally to pass the ball, downwards to tackle, and upwards to shoot. You also use the touch screen to tap in a sequence to make special character-specific shots. For example, Wario's special move is made by tapping out five dots in a joining-the-dots 'W' shape, twice. This is all well and good, but it's such a faff to juggle the DS while you're trying to do it all that you'll likely end up using the buttons to control moves instead(which then leaves you without the ability to do special shots - gah).

Mario Slam Basketball Screenshot
It is very pretty though, especially considering it's on DS, and there are some fun unlockable Square Enix characters - Final Fantasy's Black Mage, White Mage, Ninja, Moogle and a Cactuar2 - but the game's inherent unwieldiness is disappointing. As if this wasn't enough, the absence of any Wi-Fi multiplayer, RPG mode or pretty much anything above and beyond the tournaments themselves make this less compelling than we'd hoped.

The verdict

Score
6.9 10

This is fairly entertaining basketballery, at times, but it's a bit of an eye-glazer at length.

Uppers
  • Control system
  • Special moves
  • Unlockable Square Enix characters
Downers
  • Absence of Wi-Fi multiplayer and RPG mode
  • The touch screen controls are too scrawly to work properly
  • Gameplay is not varied enough
Format
Nintendo DS
Developer
Square Enix
Publisher
Nintendo
Genre
Sports, Action
Recommended Links
From The Web

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