Mario Sports Mix is the modern return of the Mario Sports series to Wii.
The series saw its last release on the Wii with “Mario Strikers: Charged” in 2007 (a Mario take on Soccer, and sequel to the GameCube’s “Super Mario Strikers” from 2005) and Mario Super Sluggers in 2008 (a Mario take on Baseball, and the sequel to 2005’s “Mario Superstar Baseball” for GameCube).
After those two releases, we saw Sega take ahold of the Mario Sports series which gave us two titles: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games in 2007 and Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games in 2009.
Now, in 2011, Square Enix has taken another shot at the series with Mario Sports Mix, a title that sees Mario taking a second spin on basketball (the first time was with Square Enix’s “Mario Hoops 3-On-3” for the DS in 2006) and tackling three all-new sports for the first time: Hockey, Dodgeball and Volleyball.
Like all of the previous Mario games, the gameplay is extremely simple. In most games you perform the main action by shaking the Wii Remote and pass by pressing the A Button. Pressing the A+B buttons at anytime will perform your character’s Super Move.
Players who were fans of the previous games will probably want to take a look at this game, although from my experience so far, non-fans need not apply.
Here is my “Let’s Play” of Mario Sports Mix for the Wii: