Mario Hoops 3-on-3

Nintendo has done a fantastic job finding partners to bring characters from the Mario universe to the wide world of sports. It teamed with Camelot Software Planning for the excellent Mario Golf and Mario Tennis games. It teamed with Namco and Next Level Games for the entertaining Mario Baseball and Mario Strikers titles, respectively.

For its next trick, the company has partnered with RPG giant Square-Enix to make Mario’s hoop dreams a reality. In the vein of previous Mario sports titles, Mario Hoops 3-on-3 is an arcade-sports romp that mixes the rich world of Mario, a few familiar faces from Square and exaggerated basketball action. From what we’ve seen so far, the game is fun, but not quite as good as previous Mario sports efforts.