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Wii Sports Report – Wii Sports Resort Review By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman In a recent article, I spoke about my initial thoughts on the Wii Motion Plus and what I think this means for the future of Wii games. While I did briefly mention Wii Sports Resort, the piece of software that I got my Motion Plus with; I didn’t really go too in-depth. Wii Sports Resort is really an amazing game. As I mentioned before the game is more than just a tech demo and more than just a mini-game collection with a bunch of barebones games just slapped on a disc. Wii Sports Resort plays more like one of those arcade compilation discs; it’s a huge step up from the original Wii Sports disc that they give you free with the Wii. Rather than reviewing the game as a whole like I normally do, I’m going to review the gameplay aspect of each “sport” separately. However, I will speak about the design and audio/video presentation in general at the end, as there’s not much variation in music or graphics.
Swordplay: While people like to refer to this as fencing, the games here are actually based on Kendo (Japanese sword fighting). You start off with the standard Duel mode, where you try to ring out your opponent (while also trying to stay in the ring). After playing Duel mode you unlock Speed Slice, which actually plays like an abbreviated version of Dragon Quest Swords. Speed Slice is somewhat of a quick draw contest with an interesting twist. Not only do you have to strike your target faster than your opponent, you also have to swing your sword in the proper direction. Though Speed Slice and Duel are very fun, my favorite swordplay activity is Showdown. Showdown is kind of like an on-rails hack and slash. You run through a gauntlet of about 30 Miis, taking them all out with your sword. It’s fun and challenging yet fair enough that your kid or younger sibling could tackle the stages with some practice. All in all the swordplay events work really well, I was surprised at how much more responsive sword fighting is with the Motion Plus.
Wakeboarding: In my opinion this is one of the weaker sports on the disc. Mostly because I don’t really know how I got my awesome score of 900 and ever other play through has netted me about 200 points tops. At its core Wakeboarding is a pretty fun premise, you do tricks by sliding your Mii across a speedboat’s wake to get air, while in the air you’re to twist your Wiimote about and then bring it back to the neutral/flat position before your Mii hits the water to gain trick points. Though this sounds pretty straightforward in writing, I couldn’t begin to tell you what is required of me to pull off the high point tricks. Everything seems kind of hit or miss, I’ve tried various things like whipping my Wiimote over my head to playing fingerboard with my Wiimote and they’ve all gave me vastly different points each attempt. It’s still a pretty decent game, but I just wouldn’t take the score system here too seriously. Frisbee (yes Gavin, this is really called Frisbee and not disc): There’s a reason why this is my most played Resort sport, it really rocks. Frisbee comes in 2 flavors: throw the Frisbee to your digital dog and Frisbee golf. Serving the Frisbee to the dog is pretty fun which is a bit ironic, since a lot of people (I included) were bashing it for how inane it looked. While Frisbee dog is basically target practice (as you throw your Frisbee at a set marker and get points based on how close you end up), Firsbee golf really stands out. In fact, it was the main thing that sold me on picking up Wii Sports Resort. For those of you that don’t smoke weed Frisbee golf (or disc golf if you’re a purist) is basically golf with Frisbees. You have a handful of Frisbees that vary in size, shape and weight and are used in the same context as switching clubs in golf (except you throw the Frisbees rather than strike things with them), throwing your way to a set “hole.” One thing to note is that the controls work really well here. They work so well that the game is a bit unforgiving to the beginner, even when throwing on automatic. There’s no throw assist or guide shot or the likes, so if your throw deviates, it deviates big time (I actually managed to get the Frisbee behind me on one tee off, trying to do some sort of gorilla type throw). Archery: I honestly think this one was put here to show you how the archery mechanic in the next Zelda game is going to work. I believe this is true because the motion controls in this game are very benign. According to Wii Sports Resort, you’re to hold your Wiimote straight up in front of you as if it were a real bow. Drawing back with the nunchuk you setup your shot holding the Z-button while pulling back and releasing the button to fire an arrow. In reality, you can just hold the Wiimote in front of you, moving it slightly to fine tune your aim. You really don’t need to bother with pulling the nunchuk and only need to focus on whether you’re pushing the Z button. Aside from the less than interesting motion controls, the physics in this game are pretty good. Though that should be a given, since that’s really all this event has to bank on. Basketball: I hate to say it, but I was really let down by the basketball game. However, this is my fault really. I was stupidly expecting a simple yet fun basketball engine much like the one used in Mario Hoops 3-on-3 on the DS. However, the game is heavily abbreviated much like baseball on the original Wii Sports disc. While I didn’t really mind not being able to field my characters in baseball, the lack of setting up plays in basketball make the game not very fun. Not only can you not control where your characters are/will be, but the game also makes you take the ball out after ever play. Steal the ball or have it stolen; the ref is going to blow his whistle. Block a shot; the ref is going to blow his whistle. Make a shot; actually taking the ball out should happen after that one. The sport’s only saving grace is the fact that shooting works really well with the Wiimote. You’ll be glad to know that while pickup basketball is like the “For Dummies” version of the game, you can at least have some fun playing 3 point shootout. Table Tennis: There’s about 4-5 ping pong games available for the Wii in some form or another. However, they’re all pretty bad. I’m glad Nintendo was kind of wise to this and decided to make table tennis on Wii Sports Resort not suck. Perhaps it’s really the Motion Plus that’s responsible for this, but I can’t believe that the one thing holding these other ping pongs back was not being able to change the way the ball spun with wrist action. One thing I really appreciate with this version of table tennis is the fact that there is some sort of strike assist in this game. I know this because I have a very hard time keeping a real ping pong ball on the table as I normally hit the ball as if I hate it (and in many regards that is kind of true, I do hate real life ping pong). I don’t think I have ever hit the ball here too hard and I honestly try to crack that ball past my opponent when I’m drunk. I really like the fact that Nintendo was smart enough to put assists on certain games and removed them from other games that would just make them ridiculously easy or pointless.
Golf: Many people complain that this is sort of a cop out game, as Nintendo already gave you golf with your Wii via Wii Sports. This is true in a lot of ways, since the swing mechanics are only subtly better at best. One thing I must mention is that fact that there’s no longer that weird mis-swinging which occurs in the old Wii Sports golf (where the game would forget if you were actually swinging or just doing a backswing). While you can’t really notice the improvements in the motion controls without doing a head to head test or actively looking for a difference, the game has greatly improved in other ways. Most notably is the addition of various club sets. This and other improvements really sets apart this version of golf as almost its own standalone golf game from the golf tech demo that is offered in Wii Sports. Bowling: Again another sport that Nintendo has done before on Wii Sports. Honestly this is pretty much the same Wii Sports bowling with refined controls. You have straight bowling, the dodge the walls training game (from Wii Sports bowling training) and a mode in which you bowl 10 frames with 100 pins each. Honestly, the motion controls feel very similar to the old bowling game. I will note that you can no longer cheat the game as you could before by doing a jutting uppercut with your Wiimote, ensuring your ball went perfectly straight. You actually need to try to bowl in this game. Power Cruising: Power cruising is pretty fun, but at the same time it’s pretty limited. Not only does this game have the only game mode that requires 2 human players with 2 Wiimote and nunchuk sets to play, its slalom mode is kind of bland. That’s a bit of a lie, since you’ll find some enjoyment in playing the slalom, though it does get stale fast. The game works against itself because the modes are limited as such. Unless you really like time trials and spending numerous sessions trying to beat your old score or you’ve spent the additional $60 on another Wiimote, nunchuk and Motion Plus set, the game is probably going to have a pretty short life span with you. I will say that this sport makes me very excited for any upcoming motorcycle or Jet Ski game Nintendo decides on making, since the controls are very solid.
Canoeing: This easily wins the award for stupidest sport on Wii Sports Resort. It’s sad, but someone had to win it. Not only is the game a bit pointless, it’s also pretty damn boring. You basically race through a set course marked with buoys and floater line in a little canoe. I’d honestly have rather Nintendo dumped the racing premise and given us a chance to further explore Wuhu Island. Even though we do get to check out the area in-depth in the airplane game, it would be nice to check things out at a more relaxed pace in more detail. The main problem with racing with canoes is the fact that steering a boat with a stick is just as arduous and frustrating in the game as it is in real life. It’s a slow burn watching yourself transverse 200 yards at a pace that’s slower than a light hearted walk. Maybe there are people that can get the digital rowboat moving, I’m just not one of them and for that I really don’t see myself playing this more than I have to. Cycling: I’m not going to lie, I’ve ridden a bike less than 5 times in my life; I get a bit envious of my friends that can ride a bike decently (especially Ron, who’s big ass can just hop on his cousin’s bike after not riding one for 15 years, taking it around the block with ease). With cycling on Wii Sports Resort I feel like we’re all on equal planes, despite my inexperience on a bike. In cycling you participate in a 30 man Tour de Wuhu Island making your way along various trails and paths. Of all the racing games on Wii Sports Resort, cycling is easily my favorite one. In fact, cycling holds a place in my top 3 Wii Sports Resorts events. The premise is very simple; you just pump the nunchuk and the Wiimote up and down at a steady pace to go. You can pump faster to speed up, but that depletes your endurance. You can replenish your endurance meter my either coasting or pedaling slow or by drafting (getting close behind another biker, thus cutting down on your own wind resistance). What I love most about this event is the fact that it’s a matter of knowing when to: deplete your endurance, conserve your endurance and build up your endurance; and not just going balls out through the course. Air Sports: I’m sure you’ve all heard of paintball and Airsoft BB guns. Well, this has nothing to do with those fun compressed air powered guns (but I kind of wish it did). Air sports actually refers to the airplane and skydiving portions of the game. As I mentioned in the canoeing section, you’re given the ability to take a small propeller plane out for about 5 minutes and fly around all the various locales on Wuhu Island. The controls in this are really fun, as it feels like those days when I was in grade school (and while bored at work) where I would run around with a toy plane making engine noises. They’re very intuitive and work very well in this game. Just so you’re not doing pointless flyby tours over the island, Nintendo added the incentive to having various targets to shoot (in the form of balloons) and waypoints to fly through scattered about the island. There’s also a dog fight mode, which works near identically as exploring aside from the fact that your main objective is to shoot your opponent down. The final event in the air sports category is skydiving. I have a sort of love/hate relationship with skydiving. On one hand, it’s pretty damn breath taking falling over the island and trying to grab stray Miis out from the sky by tilting the Wiimote. But on the other hand, that’s all it has going for it, so it does get stale rather quick. As a whole the graphics and design in the game are pretty stunning; everything in the game does have this whimsical tone to it, but none the less they made the island look really brisk and fun. My only complaint is that every living thing in the game is all design in the same way as the Miis, you’ll first notice this in the Frisbee sports as the dog looks really lame. Aside from that, Nintendo does a great job at making an tropical island look visually interesting and very inviting. The audio is pretty much the same stuff you’d get from any of the Wii lifestyle games (Wii Sports, Wii Fit, etc). The music is very cutesy, but also very minimal. Most if not every sport lacks background music, which works out for the best as it would probably get really annoying in games like golf or bowling. As with the first Wii Sports most of the sound effects you hear (aside from the environmental ones) are those stupidly annoying confirmation chimes. Ever since I bought this game, I’ve been telling people “If you own a Wii, you need to own this game.” While it gives you a pretty good idea of what’s it store on the Wii in the coming years, it’s also a pretty solid and addicting Wii game (which is something I haven’t been able to say since Punch-Out!!).
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