ESPN Sports Connection
By Mark Raby,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Modest collection of sports games is more fun with others.
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ESPN Sports Connection
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What’s It About?
ESPN SPORTS CONNECTION is a collection of six sports mini-games: football, tennis, soccer, golf, baseball, and kart racing. Although there is a single-player option for all of the games, these mini-games are obviously designed to be played with multiple people playing together in the same room. The varying mini-games provide different multiplayer concepts; for example, the golf game tasks one player as the caddie, using the GamePad to help offer advice on the course and set up the shot for the player using with the Wii Remote. Others are more typical multiplayer fare, like the kart racing game, which allows up to five people (four with Wii Remotes and one with the GamePad) to play at once.
Is It Any Good?
ESPN Sports Connection can offer a fun experience if players are able to gather up multiple friends or family members to join in the fray. The single-player experience is admittedly flat, with no sort of unlockable rewards or other incentives to master the game when other players are not around. In fact, even with additional participants partaking in the mini-games, the level of fun only goes so far. For example, the kart racing mini-game offers a relatively bland series of twists and turns, which get boring after a while. In addition, the load times across all mini-games is frustrating. Players waiting to move on to the next mini-game can end up sitting around while the game sluggishly chugs along. In other words, ESPN Sports Connection isn't a bad game but neither is it exciting or unique.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the power of social interaction that video games can provide. Why is this game more fun when played with friends and family?
Does this game make you interested in playing sports in real life?
Do you believe that practice makes perfect? What are other areas of your life where this concept can be applied?
Game Details
- Platform: Nintendo Wii U
- Subjects: Hobbies: sports
- Skills: Collaboration: meeting challenges together, teamwork, Health & Fitness: fine motor skills, gross motor skills, movement
- Available online?: Not available online
- Publisher: UbiSoft
- Release date: November 18, 2012
- Genre: Sports
- Topics: Sports and Martial Arts
- ESRB rating: E for (No Descriptors)
- Last updated: August 26, 2016
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