Sportsfriends review – joyfully competitive fun

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/08/sportsfriends-review-competitive-fun

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Long feted at game shows, indie title Sportsfriends' four-pack of electronic sports is a delightful, eclectic selection. This true multiplayer experience, which combines a retro visual style and simple game mechanics, requires two to four players in the same room. Friends can play BaraBariBall, where teams attempt to sink a ball in the opposition's water using small characters with limited jumps and time critical attacks, or Super Pole Riders, which offers intentionally counterintuitive bendy vaulting poles as the only means to slide a ball along a wire and score. Completing the set are Hokra – collect and move a tiny square ball to a goal – and the marvellous JS Joust, which ignores the screen entirely. Each player must keep a motion controller still while attempting to move their opponent's, all to a soundtrack of Bach's ‌Brandenburg Concertos. Resolutely peculiar, Sportsfriends does require perseverance and dedication but rewards it with joyfully competitive fun much closer to childhood playground games than video games have been for years.

Tomadachi Life

3DS, Nintendo, cert: 3

Nintendo's most recent console mascot – the Mii – appeals to the narcissist in everyone, and Tomodachi Life is a socially driven life simulator populated entirely by Miis. Without direct control over events, players exert their divine influence through passively helping, advising and pampering their subjects, helping them to live out their bizarre lives in happiness. Miis can be created locally or exchanged with the global community via QR codes, and the more you import, the stranger the interactions are: expect everything from epic rap battles to marriage and babies, and gamers can share pictures of their shenanigans directly to Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. Play time is best suited to micro-sessions to ensure the mini-games don't outstay their welcome, and fans of The Sims and social networking could do a lot worse than this casual but eccentric time sink. Rupert Higham