Big League Sports: Summer (Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi)

The back of BIG LEAGUE SPORTS: SUMMER's box, a sequel to last year’s Big League Sports, suggests players will be given the opportunity to engage in six different sports, but that’s a bit misleading. The only real sport players will play is a simplified version of beach volleyball. The other five sports -- golf, baseball, soccer, football, and tennis -- have been broken into mini-games, such as a home run competition, a punt return obstacle course, and a mini-golf challenge. There are 16 activities in all, none of which (save the beach volleyball game) ought to take more than a few seconds to learn and a few minutes to complete. A tournament mode allows up to four players to compete head-to-head in a series of events of their choosing.

Sadly, most of the activities in Big League Sports Summer are disposable. Players probably won’t be interested in simplistic games that involve kicking soccer balls at targets in a harbor or chipping golf balls onto a green for much longer than it takes to learn how to play them. There are, however, a few neat ideas mixed in with the duds. Throwing footballs at stacks of blocks to knock them over reminded us of Boom Blox, and having our tennis avatar act as a human paddle in a giant pinball machine is undeniably clever. Unfortunately, even these novel games are too short and shallow to be much more than brief distractions. Multi-player tournaments help extend the game’s length a smidgeon, but still don’t justify its inordinately high $39.99 price tag.

Platform notes:

Nintendo DS: The handheld version is similar in look and design to its console-based sibling, but many of the games are different (for example: a puzzle game called “golf darts” replaces putting and chipping challenges). It’s not much better, but we give it an extra half of a star simply because, at $19.99, it represents a much better deal.