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 Marios hoop dreams a reality. In the vein of previous Mario sports titles, Mario » Read Full Mario Hoops 3-on-3 preview

Gamers in Japan are no doubt spending huge chunks of this week cramming flaming basketballs into Nintendo-themed hoops with Mario Hoops 3-on-3 - we'll get our chance on September 11, but perhaps one of the coolest features this Mario sports outing has is its cast of Final Fantasy guest » Read Full Mario Hoops 3-on-3 preview

Strange how it took this long for Mario and his posse to crazy-up basketball - they've been hitting tennis, baseball and golf for years now, assaulting each other with turtle shells and bombs as though they were common sports equipment. Though it's developed by Final Fantasy titans Square Enix, there won't be any hit points and pissy anti-heroes here. Hoops is all about getting to the net in the most stylish way possible. From what we saw at E3, it appeared that the standard two-points rule » Read Full Mario Hoops 3-on-3 preview