How often do you hear people clamouring for a new Mario Tennis to be announced before big industry events or when console launch line-ups are revealed?

That’s right, never – which is both surprising and slightly sad for a series that has been consistently brilliant, a mere Hawkeye bleep behind Mario Kart as the best of the chubby plumber’s spin-offs. (Until the disappointing New Play Control update for the GameCube’s Mario Power Tennis, at least.)

So we’ve decided we’re going to make a bit of a racquet (sorry) about this one, because it’s shaping up to be a 3DS must-have. For starters, it’s being developed by Camelot, who were responsible for the sublime N64 game and its almost-as-good GC follow-up, as well as the Game Boy Color spin-off and its successor, the GBA’s terrific Power Tour. Both handheld titles wove role-playing elements into a surprisingly substantial story mode, though there’s little evidence of any stat-building stuff in what we’ve seen so far of this new game.

POWER DOWN

In fact, it looks almost identical to Mario Power Tennis. From a visual standpoint, this is a very good thing – bright, crisp, smooth and quick, it’s an absolute dead ringer for the Cube game, and with the extra image depth likely to prove useful when it comes to pinpointing the position of the ball, it should play even better.

Especially as – fingers crossed – there’s little sign so far of the overpowered super-shots that upset the perfect balance of the N64 version. If they do show up, we hope the developers at least trim down the three-second animations that accompanied each and every one and made the AI cheatiness even harder to swallow. If you’ve never played it, imagine the equivalent of Mario Kart’s infuriating blue shell – but in every rally.

Thankfully, they could be switched off in the multiplayer modes, for which the series is rightly revered.

Just four characters have been shown off so far, but past form suggests at least a 16-strong roster. Those disappointed by Waluigi’s absence from Mario Kart 7 (hey, he has some fans) should be in luck, as it was on the N64′s courts that he made his debut – it’s unlikely Camelot would ditch him as Nintendo so callously did.

And we don’t need Ray Winstone’s disturbing enormo-head from that betting ad to tell us how strong the odds are on a Galaxy-themed arena. In short: we’re excited, and you should be too. It’s going to be ace. [New puns, please - Ed]

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This week’s list of Nintendo’s digital offerings is topped with a playable demo of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

That should give you all the help you need in deciding whether or not to splash the cash. Elsewhere, there’s a new physics puzzle game on WiiWare, and Mutant Mudds, a cool-looking platform adventure for 3DS, is on the eShop.

Nintendo eShop

Mutant Mudds – Armed with a heavy-duty water cannon, Max must vanquish his nemeses, the Mutant Mudds, by blasting and hovering his way across the soiled landscape to seek out mysterious Water Sprites. (For Nintendo 3DS)

Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (demo version) – Join Mario and Sonic in the world’s greatest sporting competition. With more than 50 playable events, the Olympic Games have never been so much fun. This demo is now available on Nintendo eShop. (For Nintendo 3DS)

WiiWare

Newton vs. The Horde – Scientists are being attacked by a horde of vicious monsters. Use physics to squash, skewer and explode those nasty creatures and do whatever you can to help our scientist friends survive. (Wii)

Also new this week:

Lola’s Alphabet Train (Nintendo eShop / Nintendo DSiWare)

Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish (Nintendo eShop / Nintendo DSiWare)

Trailers and screens are through the source link.

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Don’t put the Wii in the attic yet – Mario Party 9 actually looks like a fun time.

The new trailer below shows off a bunch of the new mini games built for the new Wii release, which arrives in EU on March 2.

The whole Mario crew compete in 80 new mini games “which will find players making pizzas, escaping haunted mansions, and even racing snowmobiles”, says Nintendo.

Offering four player multiplayer support, it introduces new boss battles at the end of each stage, as well as fresh gameplay that lets players “ride across stages together in special vehicles”.

We miss single-screen multiplayer, so this could be a treat to have before Wii makes way for its successor, Wii U.

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The insightful design fuses with a forward-thinking structure to make Mario Kart 7 the best online racer of any type on any console bar none.

And the stroke of design genius that makes this bold statement unequivocally, inarguably true? Blue Shells, those hateful, lead-scuppering scourges of the single-player highway. Take the race online, however, and Ol’ Blue becomes the fulcrum for the most intense – and, somewhat strangely, most fair – multiplayer racing you’ll ever experience. Now scrape your jaw off thefloor and we’ll explain what we’re wittering on about.

Take any contemporary racer – Forza, F1 2011, Need For Speed – and consider how its online races play out. All too often, they begin with a crunching pile-up on the first bend, swiftly followed by a spate of drop-outs as scrunched-up backmarkers see their chances of victory disappear over the horizon.

Here’s where the Blue Shell sails in to save the day. Mario Kart 7′s most cantankerous weapon serves to keep the entire field keen; everyone knows that right up until the death, they have every chance of boosting up the pack and snatching victory from the jaws of eighth place. Drop-outs are almost non-existent thanks to MK7 using the same points plus/minus system that worked so well on Wii.

Insteading of organising gruelling, overly long Grands Prix for players to start and not finish, the entire online experience is one long exhilarating exercise in improving your metascore. With each track position counting, never has stealing seventh place in the final second meant so much.

With harsh penalties for disconnecting, you can be assured that you’ll have the full field breathing down your neck and armed to the teeth with the blue menace as you screech around the final bend.

Finding and connecting to an online race is a smooth and painless process, and the point- scoring system also serves as a matchmaking device, meaning that (during peak times at least) you’ll almost always come up against racers of a similar skill level.

It’s hard not to be impressed by how well the 3DS manages to keep track of the comic mischief that’s playing out on screen – although it does this by ‘guessing’ much of the action, which occasionally leads to some odd visual discrepancies as the game ‘corrects’ the position of the other racers relative to you. It’s jarring when it happens (especially, and often crushingly, at the finish line), but it’s infrequent enough for it not to be a major issue.

StreetPass and SpotPass ensure that you have a healthy amount of fresh ghost data times to whoop when you’re not near a Wi-Fi hotspot, but there’s no question that the races are MK7′s trump card, and it’s all thanks to the Blue Shell. Be sure to salute it as it swooshes past.

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Here are a bunch of screenshots for the bright and happy-looking Mario Party 9 on Wii.

Nintendo has recently confirmed an April 26 launch for Japan,reports Andriasang, while the US is due to get it on March 11. The EU date is a more vague ‘March 2012′.

As well as 80 new mini games and a new mode that lets you play the game in “smaller chunks of time”, the game has new boss battles at the end of each stage, and new gameplay that lets players “ride across stages together in special vehicles”.

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Nintendo’s playing it fairly safe when it comes to ol’ Mazza at the moment.

Super Mario 3D Land took a step back from Galaxy’s universe-conquering adventures to bring us something a little closer to home, and it seems Intelligent Systems are keen on stripping back some of the weirdness of their previous Mario RPGs.

In other words, it’s all looking very Mushroom Kingdom-y so far, with Mario skipping across the greenest grass in all of videogaming, bopping Goombas and Koopas, bashing his head against blocks, collecting coins and saving distressed Toads. So far we’ve seen very familiar desert, jungle and mountain areas, and a snowy plain that resembles the original’s Shiver Mountain.

GameCube cracker The Thousand-Year Door got plenty of mileage taking us away from all that – who could forget the monochrome loveliness of Boggly Woods, the train ride on the Excess Express, the fight with skeletal pirate Cortez or the brilliant Glitzville wrestling tournament?

By comparison, Paper Mario 3DS seems a little unadventurous. Perhaps this is Nintendo’s way of introducing Mario to a new generation of players, or simply a nostalgia trip for the benefit of veterans. Either way, the screen furniture is instantly recognisable, even with a papercraft makeover.

Of course, much of the fun in the Paper Mario games lies in the ways Mario interacts with the scenery. Here, most of the world has been covered in barrier tape by Bowser, and it’s up to our newly svelte hero to tug aside these obstructions, at which point objects and even buildings spring into being like a pop-up book. Naturally, these effects look brilliant in 3D, and they’re just the first of many treats.

Head into battle – as before, these are turn-based scraps with additional offensive and defensive bonuses for well-timed button presses – and you’ll find plenty more graphical delights.

A huge pair of scissors snips away at a group of Spinies and the whole area peels away at the cuts, curling and falling off the bottom of the screen. A giganto-fan whisks around a group of Goombas, which seem to emerge from the screen as they near the camera before diving back in as the whirlwind circles.

In the field, there’s a gawp-worthy moment as Mario walks behind and in front of a cascade of parachuting Bob-ombs, while a neat twist on the traditional block-nutting sees the square yellow wrapping simply drift away as Mario’s head makes contact.

The wonky-eyed needn’t fret too much – there’s nothing that requires you to see 3D – but for the rest of us, these visual details help to bring the sort-of-2D-but-not world to life. Pulling open a cupboard to see several Toads cascade to the floor along with a bundle of loose documents is a guaranteed grin-raiser.

If it’s much closer to the first two Paper games than the more action-focused Super variety, there’s still a little of the latter’s platforming sequences, as Mario hops over lava and leaps onto a raft as it floats towards the camera. There’s also a little minigame sequence where Mario plants some paper flowers, patting them in before they unfurl to reveal a bed of colourful blooms.

A nod to Okami’s world-prettifying, perhaps? Not that the big M is alone in his clean-up operation. As is traditional, you’ll be joined by a variety of partner characters with different abilities, including a green Toad and, erm, a crown with eyes. Mario is also joined at one stage by a former foe. A friendly Chain Chomp is the unlikely ally – let’s hope, unlike a certain infamous NGamer inflatable, he’s not a Wrong ‘un.

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