Patreon button  Steam curated reviews  Discord button  Facebook button  Twitter button 
3DS | PC | PS4 | PS5 | SWITCH | VITA | XB1 | XSX | All

101-in-1 Sports Party Megamix (Wii) artwork

101-in-1 Sports Party Megamix (Wii) review


"I’m simply going to present the facts. Nothing here works. Even with its budget title status, it’s not worth the price of admission."

I’m trying very hard not to write an anti mini-game compilation rant disguised as a 101-in-1 Sports Megamix review here. I think I’m going to fail.

Let’s face it, when Nintendo decided to change the face of gaming with touch screens and motion controllers, it worked much better than even the most optimistic supporter would have expected. Since then, since the reinvention of this brave new world of gaming, it’s mostly been squandered on remaking Warioware + gimmick over and over again. Sitting near the bottom of this unwanted gaming coup sits Sports Megamix.

This is surprising in a way. Before it saw the light of day, it was preceded with 101-in-1 Megamix which forwent the athletic limitations and instead focused on being a competent and enjoyable collection of off-the-wall games that were often a blast to play. There were some duds but, with a library of 101 games to chose from, not everything can hit the mark. Then they decided to reign in focus, check their imagination at the door and reverse things.

The best thing I can now say about 101-in-1 Sports Megamix is that it has the odd good game hidden away on it somewhere. By having 101 of these nestled away means that the odd few will be competent almost by accident.

You’ll have to work pretty hard to unearth them, though. Initially, there’s twelve games available which you’ll need to progress through to unlock further events. These range from karting races with unresponsive controls, overly complex archery shootouts with bust screens and horseback polo that’s nothing short of uncontrollable.

The scalable quality in the game is easily eclipsed by the fluctuating difficulty spikes that make some game unbeatable and, by stark contrast, some game exceedingly difficult to lose. You can fly through the sack race by shaking your remote casually towards certain victory, while events like rock climbing are so fundamentally broken and unresponsive, winning is achieved through sheer luck.

Then you’re back to slicing melons with a samurai sword (overly easy) or trying to execute a hammer throw (overly confusing). Perhaps life would have been easier had any of the games come with instructions instead of presenting a screen filled with icons, bars and gauges and expecting you to instinctively know what to use them for. But it’s not. Perhaps more tolerance could be found if this game didn’t look like a game released a decade ago. But it does.

Sports Megamix contains 101 bite-sized games and expects the brevity of the titles and mass numbers of options to serve excuse when the vast majority of these are, simply, not fun. That kind of excuse doesn’t fly, and the modern saturation of this genre shows that this type of game can be done so much better. Hell, earlier editions of the franchise show this can be done so much better. Here we have a game that tried to slip into the fad Nintendo are cultivating with their war to hook in the casual never-owned-a-game-console before crowd. I’m not going to belittle them for that. That’s a rant for another day.

I’m simply going to present the facts. Nothing here works. Even with its budget title status, it’s not worth the price of admission.



EmP's avatar
Staff review by Gary Hartley (January 11, 2011)

Gary Hartley arbitrarily arrives, leaves a review for a game no one has heard of, then retreats to his 17th century castle in rural England to feed whatever lives in the moat and complain about you.

More Reviews by Gary Hartley [+]
Heavy Rain (PC) artwork
Heavy Rain (PC)

Experimental Interactive Fiction isn’t without its drawbacks – but nothing ventured, nothing rained.
Post Mortem (PC) artwork
Post Mortem (PC)

As a dated adventure game you could suggest that Post Mortem is a dying practice.
Murdered: Soul Suspect (PC) artwork
Murdered: Soul Suspect (PC)

The Thin Boo Line

Feedback

If you enjoyed this 101-in-1 Sports Party Megamix review, you're encouraged to discuss it with the author and with other members of the site's community. If you don't already have an HonestGamers account, you can sign up for one in a snap. Thank you for reading!

You must be signed into an HonestGamers user account to leave feedback on this review.

User Help | Contact | Ethics | Sponsor Guide | Links

eXTReMe Tracker
© 1998 - 2024 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. 101-in-1 Sports Party Megamix is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to 101-in-1 Sports Party Megamix, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors. Staff and freelance reviews are typically written based on time spent with a retail review copy or review key for the game that is provided by its publisher.