Revolutionary: Initials Thoughts of the Wii Motion Plus

By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman

After owning a Wii for about 2 and a half years, I started to see its limitations in full. I began to realize that I might not be doing anything like those Asian kids (and the one grunge white boy) do in the Wii teaser trailer. At its very best, the Wii’s motion controls shined while playing: point & click, shooting gallery and racing games. The controls were intuitive, fresh and really added to the immersion of these games. At its worst, poor implementation of the motion controls and unnecessary, gimmicky waggle commands resulted in a metric ton of shovel-ware and caused many gamers to turn against Wii and Nintendo.

While this didn’t destroy my faith in the Wii, this did make me a bit apprehensive getting games that were said to have “the most advanced motion controls in a Wii game yet.” Admittedly, my most recent Wii game purchases were titles that had little to no motion controls or at the very least an option to play with the classic controller.

"Who'd have thought that this 1" long piece of plastic was all the Wii was missing all along?"

I had heard quite a bit of Wii Sports Resort and the Motion Plus quite a bit throughout this last year; but in my own way, I didn’t really care. I recently changed my mind about getting Wii Sports Resort after hearing that Disc Golf was one of the sports. Plus, I figured this is probably the most economical route in getting a Motion Plus that I’ll eventually have to get anyway. I’ll save the in-depth review of Wii Sports Resort for another article; I just wanted to give an overview of the game and the Motion Plus.

"Archery is one of my weaker sports."

Without exaggeration, the Motion Plus really makes the Wii everything we were told it was going to be back in 2006. No longer are you made to do ambiguous mock masturbation movements and semi-inaccurate gestures, the motion control is pretty much 1:1. As a whole, I think Nintendo did a really good job with the Wii Sports Resort game. It’s well worth the retail price of $50. While the cover boasts 12 sports/games; you’re actually treated to about 20 different games, as often there are 2-3 games per section that use the same game mechanic in a totally different contexts.

"I'm using the photos they give the press, I don't play with a girl profile in this game."

The most amazing thing about Wii Sports Resort is that it’s more than a tech demo and even just some mini-game collection. Each sport is very simple at its base, but offers tons of options and modes adding a lot of depth to each game. It’s more of an arcade game compilation as the game not only keeps your records and high scores, but offers the pro level points system from the first Wii Sports and achievements in the form of stamps. If you own a Wii, you need to own Wii Sports Resort. There’s no 2 ways about it.

"The swords games give me a lot of hope for a new Star Wars game..."

I honestly can’t wait for the next line of up games Nintendo and 3rd party developers come out with using the Motion Plus. The kendo style sword fighting, frisbee throwing and archery could all be implemented into an upcoming Zelda game. I would even love to see a new Rygar wear you can accurately throw your disc-armor using the Wiimote. While the Motion Plus may not pull the Wii up to the top of the current-gen console list, I do anticipate an era of amazing Wii games in the years to come.

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