Mario Hoops 3 on 3

"A Onesided Game"

Mario Hoops three on three has some decent qualities to it, but the bad outweigh the good in this situation.

In cause you didn't know Mario Hoops: 3 on 3 is a basketball game. You pick 3 of you're favorite Mario characters and play basketball against another three of you're favorite Mario characters! Sounds fun, right! Wrong!

The game controls are shaking at best. You move with the control pad and to dribble you have to tap the touch screen. The faster you tap the faster you move. It's a pointless waste of your wrist, not to mention after a few games, your wrist will start to hurt. Almost other motion though is done by sliding the stylus. For example: everytime you want to pass you have to slide the stylus across the screen in the direction of the person you want to pass too. Sometimes, though, it will pass in the opposite direction. Oh, and there also trick moves you can do by tapping the screen in a certain pattern, such as: if you're Mario you have to tap the screen in the pattern of a "M".

Not to mention, you're basically playing one on three. Your teammates are just there for looks really. They don't try to steal the ball. They don't block. They just sit there. You do have the option to pass to them put why bother? You can do everything yourself.

And since this is a Mario game there of course has to be coins! Scattered across the are the ? boxes. Stand over them and dribble to get coins. The more coins you have when you score a basket, the more points you get. It's not hard at all to get 100 coins so most of your shots will get over 100 points. Depleting the fun of the game.

In terms on length this game is OK. There are four different tournaments each with 3 games in with two modes: Easy, Hard. Thats 24 "storyline" games. If you're gonna play at all, play hard mode. Otherwise it's just too easy. Even in hard mode it's not hard at all to completly shut out the other team. Once again ruining the fun of it.

The music is actually pretty good though. It's a bunch of classic Mario songs remixed it's actually pretty catchy. But when you're playing the game you're not really thinking about the music.... At all.

Overall its a very easy game, with really no replay value. If you're gonna buy or rent, rent it; you'll be done it no time or be bored with it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/20/07