Title: Wii Sports

Date: 12.04.2006

Genre: Sports

Platform: Wii

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Well since Wii Sports comes with every system, you don't have a choice as to whether or not you buy it. The question is, should you bother putting that disc in the drive? The answer is most definitely yes, regardless of what type of gamer you are. Of the five sports games available in this compilation, the only one that isn't quite working right is boxing, and even that has some merit with the training mode challenges. More importantly, all the games provide a simple interface and are very easy to pick up and play. They're also extremely fun with people around, and they serve as a great introduction to the capabilities of the Wii remote, as well as providing a great avenue for non-gamers to get into games. Overall, people looking for a deep sports experience like the Madden football series should look elsewhere, but despite the simplistic graphics and not-so-deep gameplay, Wii Sports is a great first experience of the Wii and will undoubtedly provide some great entertainment, especially in a group/family setting. This is truly a system that can bring parents and children, gamers and non-gamers together, and Wii Sports is a great proof of concept for a radically different approach to gameplay.

Play Like A Pro...Sort Of

Wii Sports is a compilation of five somewhat-mini games based on the real life sports of boxing, baseball, bowling, tennis and golf, along with the addition of a training mode with three unique challenges for each game, as well as an exercise mode that can track your workout stats daily. It's basically a fleshed out tech demo for the system that was shown at E3 in 2005. It's also the first Wii game to officially make use of the "Mii" feature of the Wii. Basically, a Mii is a representation of you that is stored as a kind of profile in your system. They can also be transferred to your remote so you can bring them to a friend's house, for example. They're also used to track your statistics and exercise info like a profile. The games were designed to be simplified representations of the actual sports that were extremely easy to pick up and play for anyone, not just people who actually play games. In this goal, Wii Sports is largely a success.

Let's get the bad news out of the way right now. Boxing is unfortunately the weakest game in the set when it should be the coolest. It's also the only game to use the remote and nunchuck together (all the other games use only the remote). If you're missing a nunchuck, the game will prompt you to plug it in (or remove it if required) before the game starts. The idea with boxing is to hold the remote and nunchuck in your hands like boxing gloves and swing away at your opponent. You pull your hands close to your chest to block, and you can dodge left and right by moving your hands along with your body. It sounds very cool in theory, and the dodging works very well, but unfortunately the motion detection for throwing punches doesn't work nearly as well as it should. It requires some training to figure out exactly what motions the game considers a jab or a hook, or uppercut, and it's not so intuitive. Now one of the training challenges has you dodging incoming punches, and this actually works very well so it does have some merit. Unfortunately, boxing seems more likely to frustrate than engage, especially when we're aiming for simplicity and ease of use.

The good news is the other four games all play excellent, even if there isn't much depth to most of them. The one (sort of) exception to this is golf. Golf is easily the deepest game in the collection, and also the most difficult to simply jump into. Now to be fair, since the games are modeled after the actual sports, this shouldn't be a surprise at all. The reality is that golf is a tough game, and they did a good job of simplifying it to the point of approachability but not so much that it looses its appeal. You aim your shot before hand using the d-pad on the remote, taking into account the wind direction and speed just like real golf, and you can then take practice swings holding the remote like a golf club. When you're ready to swing for real, you hold the A button down to move up to the ball and swing just like before. The hardest part of golf is getting the speed of your swing just right.

It's very easy to swing too hard and cause your ball to hook left or right. Once you're on the green, you do the same setup for putting. Again, the hardest part is getting the speed of your swing just right. Thankfully, the onscreen indicator of your shot direction has markers that correspond to the power levels on the stroke meter and roughly where the ball will land if you hit that level. This is a great help because you can look at the indicators to figure out how high your meter should be, then practice your swing to get just that amount of power. Overall, golf is challenging, but it's because the game itself is hard and not because of the controls, like boxing. It is easily the deepest game in the bunch and mastering it will take some practice. The controls work very well and I'd love to see this control scheme adapted for use in the next (inevitable) Mario Golf game on the Wii.

The other three games, on the other hand, are extremely easy to get into and very approachable for non-gamers. Baseball is probably the simplest game of the bunch because the game is focused solely on pitching and hitting (it's also only two players). All the fielding is handled automatically by the system, and how many bases you run depends automatically on where you hit the ball in the field. For pitching, you select the direction the ball will go by pressing a direction on the d-pad on the remote. The controller vibrates slightly to confirm your choice. To pitch, you simply "throw" the remote as if you were throwing a baseball. The type of pitch you throw is determined by what (if any) combination of the A and B buttons you're holding when you throw.

No buttons gives a basic fastball. Holding the A button alone gives a curve ball, the B trigger gives a screw ball, and A + B together gives a splitter. Hitting the ball is a simple matter of swinging the bat. While you're holding the bat, you can swing it around above your head and your character will look like he's winding up onscreen just like the real thing, but when it comes time to swing, the swing is always basically the same. The bat doesn't actually go where you swing it for simplicity, so the only thing you need to worry about is timing your swing properly. The speed of your swing does affect the power, so you better swing hard if you want a home run. Overall, baseball is probably the most simplified sport in the package, but it's extremely easy for anyone to pick up and play, although it only supports 2 players rather than 4 (though with no fielding control, having more than 2 players would be odd).

Moving on to bowling, this is easily the most accurate representation of the respective sport in the game. You position your Mii using the d-pad to move left and right and rotate left and right, pressing A to switch between those two modes. Once you're lined up where you want, you bring your arm up vertically in front of you and hold the B trigger down as if you were holding a bowling ball. At this point, your Mii starts walking towards the lane and you simply bring your arm back and throw the ball forward, releasing the B trigger to release the ball from your Mii's hands. If you release the trigger when your arm is up in the air, you'll lob the ball forward.

Similarly, the harder you swing, the faster your ball will go. Where it really gets interesting is that, like real bowling, you can twist your hand as you bring it up to release the ball to add spin to the ball. This will cause the ball to curve as it heads down the lane. As someone who has bowled a lot in his life, I can tell you that this ability, plus the excellent physics of the pins themselves, makes bowling an extremely accurate representation of the actual sport. I was immediately able to pick up high scores while my less bowling inclined friends were having some trouble (but still having plenty of fun). If you actually bowl, you will understand immediately how it works and be pretty good.

Finally, we come to tennis. I saved this for last because, although bowling is the most accurate representation of the actual sport, I believe tennis is the best overall game and an easy choice to get people who don't play games to pick up a Wii-mote. In tennis, you always play a doubles match (any extra spots are filled by CPU characters) and the character movement on the court is controlled by the system. The only thing you have to do is swing the remote like a tennis racquet. If the ball is coming to your right, you swing from the right, and vice versa. You can also swing under the ball to lob it up, and strike overhead. To serve, you simply flick the remote upwards to toss the ball up and smack it with an overhand swing. The direction the ball goes is largely determined by the timing of your swing. If you swing early or late, the ball heads to the side. Tennis seems to strike the perfect balance between accurately representing the actual sport and simplifying it to make it more fun. If you have non-gamer (or even gamer) friends or family and you want to show them what the Wii is all about, fire up a game of tennis with 4 players. For an added bonus, add your choice of booze and have yourself a great party. Just wear those wrist straps please! You'll be thankful you did, even if everybody is sober.

Final Word

Wii Sports is not an in depth sport gaming experience in the least. While all of the games have some depth to them (mostly golf), they're all designed to be easily picked up and played, even by non-gamers. In this regard, Wii Sports succeeds at its aim of providing a great proof of concept for what the system is capable of and getting people like my parents, who have never touched a game before in their lives, to pick up a remote and go at it. Boxing doesn't quite work the way it should, but I think this is simply a case of new technology going through its initial phases. As the developers get used to working with the controller, we will undoubtedly see better and more refined motion control. Everything else in this package works wonderfully, and most importantly, it's fun and refreshing. I would give this somewhere between a 7 and an 8, but since I have to round it and the game is a great value as a pack-in with the system, I'm going with 8. From your first game of tennis, playing Wii Sports is a breath of fresh air in the world of video games. Quite simply, this is what gaming on the Wii is all about, entirely new ways of playing, and it is refreshing in its uniqueness. I firmly believe that ideas like the Wii are the future of the gaming industry. The future is here, and it's not about you or me, it's about Wii.

Game Score

B

Reviewed By: Contributed