Thought to have gone the way of the dinosaur, the pack in game has made a triumphant return in the form of Wii Sports. Everyone who buys their Wii console (in the US at least) goes home with a free copy of the game. But, does it play well? Well, the game looks, and in some ways plays, like a glorified tech demo, designed to get you accustomed with the Wii remote functions with virtual renditions of tennis, baseball, golf, bowling and boxing. Calling it a sports “sim” would be giving it too much credit. At times, the game is surprisingly short on depth but as a result, is far easier for non gamers to get into and have fun.
One of the game’s selling points is how easy it is to get into. The interface is clean and simple to navigate making jumping into a quick game to kill time quick and easy. The individual sports use the Wii remote and in the case of boxing nunchuck to emulate the most basic actions in the respective sports such as swinging a bat in baseball or throwing a punch in boxing. There is a bit of a learning curve to each sport, but many players will acclimate themselves to the control scheme of each game rather quickly. The included training modes are fun and a great way to improve your skills between games.
Tennis plays pretty much like the real thing, as the player holds and swings the Wii remote like a tennis racket. To serve, you flick the remote upwards and swing. To return the ball to your opponent, you swing the remote, creating a forehand or backhand swing, depending on your handedness. The actual game consists of a two on two doubles match with no option for singles play. On the field, the AI automatically moves your two characters to put you in the best position possible for returning the ball and the AI usually does a good job of getting you into position. These are likely design choices to simplify the game and make it more accessible. As a result, it does cause the game to lose a lot of strategic depth. You never have incredible accuracy or control over your swing, and the direction the ball goes in is entirely dependent on your timing.
Baseball is one of the deepest of the five sports, giving you the most accurate and deepest control over your swing and the pitch. Swinging the Wii remote like a baseball bat controls the swing and emulating an overhand swing controls the pitch, as you would expect. Timing and power of your swing is the key to knocking the ball out of the park and there is a bit of a learning curve to adjust to before you’ll be able to do that. Pitching is similarly deep, allowing you to choose from a number of different types of pitches. The standard fastball is performed by just making the overhand motion and you can throw curveballs, screwballs, and splitters by pressing and holding either the A button (screwball), B button (curveball) or both (splitter). You can also control the direction of the pitch, be it inside, outside, high or low by pressing and holding a direction on the d-pad. Each game consists of a three inning warm up instead of the traditional nine inning stretch of a real game. Unfortunately, this suffers from lack of depth in everything besides swinging and pitching, since that’s all you have control over. It really feels like he game is playing itself when the AI handles everything from catching fly balls, to running the bases. It almost seems like the length of time between making contact with the ball and it being caught controls how many bases you run. After a while of playing, you’ll be able to predict how far your character will run solely based on the time the ball is in the air. When you consider things like this, it almost feels like the game is playing itself whenever you aren’t actually throwing or taking a swing at the ball.
Golf is pretty weak in comparison to many of the sports in the collection, particularly due to the sometimes finicky controls. Holding the Wii remote down, pointed at the ground and swinging like you would a real golf club is simple enough, but swinging can be fussy at times. The game does detect your handedness and realigns your character accordingly, but doesn’t take into account which way you will actually swing the club, be it right or left. As a result, many accidental swings can result from simply setting up to make your swing. Swinging itself is rather difficult to control. On the screen is a power meter which is comprised of four dots at regular intervals, which appear on a minimap, and figuring out how hard you need to swing is a simple matter of figuring out which of the four dots you need to hit on the power meter. Simply swinging as hard as you can when driving for the fairway is not a wise course of action as the ball will automatically hook or slice. Getting a powerful shot without managing to max out the power meter and hooking or slicing the ball is rather difficult, particularly since, for some reason, the power meter continues to rise even after the ball has left the tee with any upward motion of the Wii remote until after a certain point. Once you grow accustomed to the controls, you will find nine holes of golf here, split into beginner, intermediate and expert courses. While they are all entertaining and rather challenging, one does begin to wish there were more than just nine holes to play on.
Bowling is perhaps the deepest and most entertaining sport of the bunch, because it plays well and has most of the strategic depth of the real thing. You start by holding the Wii remote directly in front of you, with it pointing straight up. To throw the ball, you hold the B button, and emulate the down, back and forward again motions of the real sport, releasing the B button again to send the ball down the lane. Twisting the Wii remote to the left or right as you throw the ball puts a spin on the ball, which you can counteract by moving your character to the right or left and changing the angle of your throw before making your approach.
Boxing, the only game to use the nunchuck attachment, is perhaps the weakest sport in the package simply because it’s generally unresponsive where it counts. Throwing punches. Your fighter moves in accordance to your movements with the Wii remote and nunchuck. Dodging punches by moving your character forward, backward or side to side are accomplished by moving the Wii remote and nunchuck in the appropriate direction. The position of the two controllers also govern your ability to block incoming hits and by moving them, your character will mimic the position of both controllers with their hands. Everything controls pretty well except for the one thing that should control best, the actual punching. Throwing punches is pretty unresponsive some times and really detracts from the entire experience. When the game does respond well to your movements and you begin to consistently land punches, it is fun and has a decent amount of depth, as you’ll have to actually aim your movements high and low to land head or body punches. In combination with the dodging and blocking movements, this could’ve been the best sport in the package, but its limited responsiveness also limits the fun.
The Mii avatars, which populate the game, add a bit of spice to the collection. At the outset, you’ll be asked to choose a Mii from your collection to pose as your virtual avatar when playing any of the sports or training modes. Statistics are saved to that Mii which include your Wii fitness age, records held in training games and your Wii Sports “level”. This level is measured in points. Performing well at each of the five sports gives you points towards your Mii’s level in whichever sport you’re currently playing. Performing poorly subtracts from your level so this gives players an incentive to practice and get good at each of the five sports. Once you exceed 1000 points, you gain “Pro” status, which, other than a “PRO” icon next to your name, doesn’t offer any real benefits, but it makes for a nice touch.
Another element of the game is the Wii Fitness training. This mode is similar to the “Brain Age Check” mode in the Nintendo DS game. The mode consists of three events, each one being one of the many training modes mentioned earlier. When the player completes all three games, the game measures your performance in the form of a Fitness “Age” ranging from the best possible age of 20 to the worst, 80.
The multiplayer in this game is pretty much what makes this game stand out. Up to four players can participate in tennis, golf and bowling and two can play boxing and baseball. Golf and bowling even support hotseat play using just one remote between up to four players. The multiplayer modes add a level of fun and interactivity that the solo modes just don’t have. It’s as if Nintendo clearly intended for players to play this game with their friends and family. It feels like it was made for multiplayer , which is certainly a good thing if you can manage to corral enough people to play alongside you.
In the end, even though this collection of sports titles may be a bit light on the simulation aspects of each sport and in turn loses a bit of depth because of it; it’s fun and accessible by nearly everyone. Even those who have never played a video game before in their lives can easily play and enjoy this one. Serious sports fans won’t get much enjoyment from these games but everyone else can find something to like. It’s a great pack in game and despite the feeling of playing a glorified tech demo; makes for a pretty fun game overall.
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9Overall Score:
7.8
