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101 in 1 Sports Megamix DS Review

08/11/2010 Family Family Gamer Review
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101 in 1 Sports Megamix DS

101 in 1 Sports Megamix

Format:
DS

Genre:
Minigames

Further reading:
WarioWare

Buy/Support:
Support Andy, click to buy via us...


101 in 1 Sports DS has endless bite-sized challenges for very young players. Although it was almost dismissed as a passing fad, it has become a family favourite.

101 in 1 Sports reminds me of those collections of 100 games on the Spectrum. A cassette stuffed full of joy, if only you could cue the tape to the right place and find the one you want. Although, even when you did achieve this the effort wasn't usually worth it.

Rather than redelivering existing free games, 101 in 1 Sports offers a genuinely original set of bite-sized games. It covers all the activities you would expect Tennis, Darts, Volleyball and Snooker and some you wouldn't like Noodling.

The game starts with a handful of activities available, and you play these to win points and unlock more. The games themselves are pretty easy so you soon have a large collection of sports to choose from. Rather than mimicking the real world event, they use it as a theme for a particular minigame.

This all seemed a little lacking until my youngest got his hands on it

Volleyball for instance, involves moving your stylus rapidly on the touch screen to position your player where the volleyball will land. Or there is the diving game where you use the stylus to catch fish and throw them back up onto dry land. These are all fun, and usually offer a time limited score challenge.

Unlike the WarioWare games though, the snippets of game play don't scale up in terms of difficulty. Where as in a WarioWare game you can revisit each activity to see how many times you can beat it while the difficulty goes up and up, here the focus is on volume rather than depth.

This all seemed a little lacking until my youngest (4) got his hands on it. Although he struggles with the reading and quick reactions you need for WarioWare or Mario Kart on the DS, 101 in 1 Sports seemed to be just right for him.

101 in 1 Sports offers some quick family fun for younger gamers.

The simplicity of each sporting activity seemed to capture his attention and offer just the right amount of challenge. Whereas for me the short length of each level was a negative, he was excited to always be moving onto a new game. In fact he has taken to calling it the "choosing game" because there are simply so many different games you can play on it.

101 in 1 Sports offers some quick family fun for younger gamers, and passing interest for those a little older who want to try their hand at different sports. While easy to dismiss, it's actually become one of our most played games of the moment in our household.

Written by Andy Robertson

You can support Andy by buying 101 in 1 Sports Megamix



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Andy Robertson writes the Family Gamer column.

"Videogame reviews for the whole family, not just the kids. I dig out videogame experiences to intrigue and interest grownups and children. This is post-hardcore gaming where accessibility, emotion and storytelling are as important as realism, explosions and bravado."


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