EA has been busy today, announcing three new titles for Nintendo systems.

Joining Football Academy - a game designed to expand youngsters’ knowledge of football - are two games involving those cute little MySims. The brand could do with a hit - MySims sold solidly, but follow-up Kingdom surprisingly flopped, seemingly ignored in the Christmas rush (not only by gamers but by critics - it has a measly 17 reviews on Metacritic).

Anyway, EA has gone for two failsafes - a minigame compendium and a kart racer, with MySims Party and MySims Racing coming to both Wii and DS in March and Summer respectively.

The former has fifty minigames (forty on DS, though they’re different from the Wii ones) and the promotional video suggests there’ll be plenty of waggling going on, with the odd pointer-based challenge and a few which require tilt control. The latter allows you to design and customise your own vehicle, and features some wacky power-ups, such as a flying saucer which picks you up and deposits you further down the track, and even one which turns everything upside-down.

It’s unlikely Mario Kart’s throne as top arcade racer is in any danger - especially as only the DS version of MySims Racing will include online play - but MySims Party could offer a more solidly enjoyable minigame experience than Mario’s own effort, without the bother of all that boardgame nonsense.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 7:57 pm by Chris Schilling
Casual-pleaser, DS, Forthcoming titles, Wii.