A sporting review…

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Unlike the PS3 and Xbox 360, Wii consoles ship with a game, namely Wii Sports, the family friendly party game featuring tennis, boxing, golf, bowling etc. which has come to define the console. Casual gamers that purchase a Wii get it to play Wii Sports and tend not to buy additional titles even though the console’s popularity has inspired racks full of knock offs. Wii Sports Resort is the first follow up title in what I’m sure will become a Wii Sports line. It’s also the first major Wii game to include support for the Wii Motion Plus Wii-mote add-on which is bundled with the game.

The promise of the Wii Motion Plus is more nuanced control. It employs a vibrating structure gyroscope to greatly increase the precision of the Wii-mote’s movement capture. Wii Sports and other original Wii titles have for the most part done a good job to hide the Wii-mote’s lack of fidelity. We know it could tell if you’re pointing at the screen as it handles the cursor movement. And a good number of titles require the player to make a well timed shake or swing. But if you play long enough you come to realize finesse goes undetected and you don’t even necessarily need to mimic the movements as described on screen. Which is why, while every man-boy that has ever grabbed a Wii-mote has yearned for Jedi style swordplay the games have yet to deliver until now.

Wii Sports Resort opens skydiving your Mii onto the Wuhu island resort banana republic. My initial reaction was OMG I have arms and legs! The player Mii’s have slightly more detailed appendages this time around though spectator Mii’s still resemble slugs. The resort features 12 all inclusive gaming activities each with multiple options. (You’ll have to figure out your island accommodations and BYOB). The activities take place at a various locales on the island. And a lot of them can be played day, evening or night providing a unifying theme and sense of place that other party games lack.

Game Mechanics

Without further ado here’s the rundown of the games:

Swordplay

The sword moves naturally in fidelity with your controller. Angle the Wii-mote up and down or left and right and your Mii’s sword follows. Swing the Wii-mote slicing through the air and on screen you slash in attack. To block you hold the B button bringing the sword in; you must correctly align your sword against your opponent’s to successfully parry. Blocking provides an opportunity for a quick attack. The controls are simple yet satisfying. There are three swordplay games.

The first is a one or two player stylistic mash up of Kendo bamboo sword practice and American Gladiator combat. You stand on a platform high above the water and engage in a dual. It’s best out of three. In each round the player to knock the other back and off the platform is the winner. This works out fairly well though the AI is easier than I would like. It eventually gets harder as you keep winning. It is satisfying how your opponent realistically ragdolls off the platform with the momentum of your final hit.

The second game is a one or two player speed test. You need to play the first a few times to unlock it. A moderator throws you and your opponent objects like water melons, sushi rolls, etc one at a time. Each is marked with a slice direction. To win, you must slice your object in half as indicated before your opponent can slice there’s. The objects neatly fall in two exactly where your sword hits them. The physics of it are good but don’t impact game play. I got tired of it pretty quickly; I wish the cuts became more complicated as the difficulty increased to hold my interest.

It’s the third game that makes the other two feel like training. You need to play the second game a few times to unlock it. Here you traverse island paths as rogue sword yielding gangs (perhaps of the guys you knocked off the platform) attack. Fortunately they are polite angry mobs as only one will attack you at a time, but you can attack any within sword reach. You get three hit points. Most of them only get one, though a few get three as well. It gets progressively tougher as you move from the beach towards the volcano. It’s a lot of fun. While I found the other two to be a little too easy this one is sufficiently difficult to make for a challenge. And it cycling and canoeing are the only games that come close to a workout.

Wakeboarding

If water skiing is when you wear skis and are pulled by a boat, then water boarding isn’t torture. It’s when you’re on a board being pulled by a boat — though you may feel a distinct drowning sensation. But at any rate they call this game wake boarding. You hold the Wii-mote in both hands as you would grip the tow line’s handle. Tilting the Wii-mote right and left tilts the board moving you from side to side. Jerking the Wii-mote as you go over the boat’s wake gets you airtime and allows you to perform tricks to earn points. But you need to get the board back level with the water before landing or else you’ll take a drink. As the difficulty increases you’ll also have to avoid hitting buoys and rock formations. It has a similar feel to an old school skate boarding half pipe game.

Archery

I had already played an archery game on the Wii in Sonic and Mario At the Olympics so I was interested to see this implementation. Archery controls here are a bit different. You hold the Wii-mote in your left hand as you would a bow; the Nunchuck in your right simulating the string. Holding A readies the bow. Then you hold Z and draw back the Nunchuck. This blurs the screen except a large circle of focus in the center. The circle shrinks as you hold your aim steady. You can aim by tilting the Wii-mote. You need to adjust your shot for both the distance and the wind. You get three shots per target. You can play easy, medium or hard difficulties. In the harder difficulty levels the target is further away, moving, or moving behind barriers. The controls feel right and it’s adequately challenging.

Frisbee

There are two Frisbee offerings, dog and golf. In Frisbee Dog, players throw their Frisbee out towards a target for their furry sidekick to catch and return, the closer to the target the higher the points. There are ten rounds. Later rounds offer the challenge of popping a large balloon while still landing on target. Frisbee golf is golf with a Frisbee instead of a ball. For both, the controls have a genuine Frisbee feel. It’s path and your success depends on how you tilt, flick your wrist, and when you let go just like a real Frisbee. I can testify to that as my real life frisbeeing is equally as uncoordinated as my game performance.

Basketball

There are two basketball games a 3-point contest and a pickup game. The 3-point contest challenges you to make three point shots from five positions along the three point line. You hold the Wii-mote in a down/horizontal position and press B to pick up a ball. Then you mime shooting a basketball by raising the Wii-mote into a vertical position and flicking your wrist. You get five balls at each position for a total of twenty five balls. For some reason unlike many of the other games this is always played at night. The control feel is right and its difficulty is right at fun challenging.

The pickup game has the most complicated controls. It’s half court three on three basketball. On offense you hold the Wii-mote horizontal and dribble to cause your player to head towards the basket. You can pass to a team mate by hitting A or the direction pad. To shoot you hit B and mimic the shooting motion as described for the 3-point game. On defense, you can attempt a steal with a well timed flick, but if you miss you might fall over. And you block shots by raising the Wii-mote vertical miming a blocking action. It works fairly well, though unlike the other games it has a much higher learning curve.

Power Cruising AKA Jet Skiing

Holding the Nunchuck in your left hand and the Wii-mote in your right as you would Jet Ski handle bars you fight the waves and slalom through floating archways; the faster the time the higher the score. Twisting the Wii-mote quickly gives you a momentary speed boost that needs to replenish before you can do it again. The waves really knock you around so it’s tougher than it would seem. From some archways hang supersized life preserver shaped openings. If you make it through them you get additional bonus points. There’s also a split screen versus mode where you can compete for best time.

Cycling

Cycling is reminiscent of Bully, probably just because that was the last time I rode an in game bike. To pedal you use the Wii-mote and Nunchuck alternating them up and down. To steer you can either lean the controls or use the Nunchuck’s directional. The A and B buttons are used for breaking. If you pedal too hard to too long it forces you to glide to recover. You can recover your breath by drafting closely behind another rider. Occasionally, you’ll come across a banana peel or rock in the road that can slow you down. Sometimes there’s a drop off, but even if you take a plunge it’ll quickly recover you onto the road. The race paths go through various areas of Wuhu Island. It’s fun, and one of the most aerobic of the games.

Golf

The original Wii Sports already featured Golf, but I suppose what resort would be complete without it. After playing it I thought, nothing much new here except for the course, but then I played the original again. The Wii Motion Plus makes the controls quite a bit smoother. The original can be frustrating as sometimes a light swing is beneath the controller’s threshold so it’s not registered. Now the on screen club matches your movement one to one. Other than that not much has changed, it is golf after all. Your Mii has hands instead of a colored sphere. The wind indicated shows on the overhead map. You can play the resort course or the original and choose three, nine or eighteen holes.

Table Tennis

Ping pong by the pool comes in two flavors. In match you play a standard one on one ping pong game. In “Return Challenge” a server keeps hitting them at you until you miss. You can score bonus points by knocking over his drink if he sets it on the table. In either case the controls are as you would expect. The paddle moves with the Wii-mote, a well timed swing smacks the ball back. The angle of the paddle and the speed of the swing determine its trajectory. You can turn your wrist quick to put spin on the ball to keep your opponent guessing. It’s pretty much exactly as you would expect table tennis to be.

Bowling

Wii Sports Bowling practically defines the Wii. Resort’s bowling like its golf is a refined version of the original, but again it’s nearly unchanged except there are a few more options and the controls are smoother. There are two new modes beyond normal 10 pin 10 round bowling. There’s 100 pin bowling. Which as the name implies plays like regular bowling but there’s a LOT more pin action going on. There’s also spin control where the lane is partially blocked by barriers. You have to use spin and finesse to avoid them and still hit the sweet spot.

Canoeing

Canoeing has you paddling along a buoyed track maneuvering around tall grass, lily pads, etc to reach the finish line. The controls are exactly what you would expect, basically miming the paddle motion with the Wii-mote. Like a real canoe you steer and accelerate by paddling. You can play this versus or alone. Alone you must cross the finish line within the allotted time as the difficulty increases the length and number of obstacles increase. Versus has you competing with 2 to four friends split screen. When four play there’re two in each canoe. Again the controls are well implemented. The longer courses will get your heart rate up a bit.

Air Sports

There are three air sports options. The first air sports game is parachuting. The first time you play Wii sports you actually do this as part of the intro. Your Mii jumps out of the plane high above Wuhu. You marionette your Mii, tilting and rotating the Wii-mote. Your goal is to connect to other divers to create formations for photo ops. It’s amusing as part of the intro, but it doesn’t hold much interest as an independent mini-game.

In the second game, you are free to fly about the island in a small prop plane. It starts as you take off from the water just off shore from Wuhu Island. You’re given five minutes to explore however you would like. If you’ve ever held a paper airplane and pretended to fly it you’re familiar with the basic controls. It’s really that easy. There are hidden beacons scattered about that you can fly through to collect. They each contain amusing Wuhu island factoids. There are various rock formations, caves, and bridges to navigate around and through. When you crash it shows you parachuting out then quickly resets back to flying. Collecting the beacons unlocks additional content such as balloons to shoot down, and being able to fly evenings and nights. It is simple game play but I really enjoyed it. It’s fun and relaxing to explore the island. And this reinforces the feeling of place as a theme to the game. It might have been nice to use fuel as the limitation instead of time so you could go longer by gliding. Landing would have presented an interesting challenge.

The third game is dog fight, which does not involve two mistreated Frisbee dogs in a cage match. Instead it’s a split screen one on one air battle above Wuhu Island. This is a family game so you don’t actually shoot at each other; rather you aim at towed balloons which serve as hit points. Exploring the island you can collect additional balloons. You’ll need a friend and another Wii-mote with Motion Plus as this can only be played by two players split screen.

Conclusion

Wii Sports Resort is a solid party title. It holds up well to the original. I enjoyed how the game is centered around the island making it feel more holistic than you would expect from a collection of party games. Graphics wise, having gotten used to PS3 titles, there’s a surprising amount of jaggy lines but the cartoony artistic direction makes up for it. Like the original the games aren’t simulations of the sports but caricatures of them as Nintendo has once again managed to distill the game leaving only the fun. It nails it as a family fun party game, but if you’re looking for more sophistication you’re not going to find it here. My biggest dissapointment is the lack on on-line multiplayer.

Wii Motion Plus met my expectations significantly extending the controller. Having it bundled significantly increases the game’s cost value, though the prospect of shelling out another $20 per controller is annoying. This brings the cost of a full controller i.e. a Wii-mote plus Nunchuck plus Motion Plus to around $80. Doh! But really it does make a difference. I’m excited by the possibility of a role playing game exhibiting the archery, sword fighting and canoeing controls exhibited here.

Rating: B+