Deca Sports Extreme
Genre: Compilation / Sports (Various)
Players: 1-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless)
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Review:
Deca Sports Extreme, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2011, is a Compilation of 10 Sports games, although for some of these the word “sports” is used very loosely – I doubt many think of snowball fights, blowgun shooting, and snowmobile racing as sports.
Here is what I thought of each of the games in this Compilation:
| Game | Genre | # of Players | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basketball | Sports (Basketball) | 1-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless) | C- |
tl;drThis version of Basketball is functional, but it’s extremely frenetic and sloppy. | |||
| Soccer | Sports (Soccer) | 1-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless) | C- |
tl;drThis is a simple version of the sport, but its controls are stiff and clunky. | |||
| Tennis | Sports (Tennis) | 1-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless) | C- |
tl;drThis would be a decent but simple game of Tennis, except the controls for aiming don’t seem to work properly, if at all. | |||
| Ice Hockey | Sports (Hockey) | 1-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless) | C- |
tl;drThis game makes use of some touchscreen controls that are creative, but also make for messy, imprecise gameplay. | |||
| Snowball Fight | Arcade | 1-4 Team Competitive (Local Wireless) | D |
tl;drThis Capture the Flag game has terrible aiming, and at the default setting the enemy AI is so dumb they seem to be ignoring the flag just to keep throwing snowballs. | |||
| Sumo Wrestling | Arcade | 1-2 Competitive (Local Wireless) | D- |
tl;drThis game has clunky controls, and it’s unclear how its mechanics and strategy are supposed to work. The result is a game that’s just not fun to play | |||
| Bowling | Sports (Bowling) | 1-2 Competitive (Local Wireless) | C+ |
tl;drThe touchscreen controls in this Bowling game are actually quite good. It’s just a shame that the game is so simple and lacking in depth or options that it doesn’t do much with those controls. | |||
| Sport Blowgun | Shooting Gallery Game | 1-2 Competitive (Local Wireless) | D |
tl;drThis seems like it was just tossed in as an excuse to use the microphone and gyroscopic motion sensor to have players blow to shoot. Unfortunately, the delay between aiming and shooting is so bad that trying to have any sort of accuracy is hopeless. | |||
| Snowmobile Racing | Racing | 1-4 Competitive (Local Wireless) | C- |
tl;drThis Racing game lacks depth and variety, and at the default difficulty setting the AI opponents are far too easy. | |||
| Trampoline | Arcade | 1-2 Competitive (Local Wireless) | D+ |
tl;drThis Simon Says-style game could almost serve as a Music-Rhythm game… if it were actually done in time with the music (and it really should have been). Without this, it feels like an important element is missing from this game. | |||
In short, pretty much all of the games here are shallow, and many have poor controls, or some other major issue. The best of the lot is Bowling, which plays well but lacks enough content to have you playing for more than a short while before you move on.
All of the games here use simple 3D visuals with Mii-style characters (that aren’t actually Miis), but even these visuals are lacking hand have flaws like pop-in. And it’s backed by a soundtrack that ranges from appropriately “inspiration” style generic synthesized sports music to more annoying repetitive themes.
In the end, I just don’t think there’s enough truly enjoyable gameplay here to be worth bothering with. Yes, a few of them have potential, but between the lack of content and the control issues, I can’t imagine recommending this to anyone, especially when Mario Sports Superstars is also on the Nintendo 3DS, and is a far, far, far better take on this same concept.
tl;dr – Deca Sports Extreme is a Compilation of 10 simple Sports games, although calling some of these “sports” is stretching the definition of that word. In any case, pretty much all of the games suffer from control issues and/or a lack of content. While you may be able to derive some fun from this package, most are better off skipping it.
Grade: C-
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