Wii Sports Will Get You Moving Before You Can Say “Wii Elbow”
Wii Sports is a collection of five different sports: Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing. Tennis has you playing two on two for up to 4 players and you swing the Wii-mote to hit the ball. Baseball has you playing two aspects of the game; hitting and pitching for up to 2 players. Bowling has you playing 10 pins and you swing much the same way as you would roll a ball. Bowling can be played for up to 4 players. Golf offers up to 9 holes for three different difficulty levels. Up to four players can share one Wii-mote. Boxing is the only game that requires the nunchaku attachment. You hold the Wii-mote and the nunchaku in front of you and each of them represent your left and right gloves and you use them to punch your opponent. There are also two other modes, Training and Wii Fitness Test. Training has three different mini games for each sport. These mini games have you playing the sport with different objectives than just winning. For example, a bowling training game will have you hitting pins, however there are now obstacles in the way thus it forces you to use curve balls. The Wii fitness test can only be done once a day. Basically you do three different mini-games from the training and you are graded with a Wii Fitness Age, similar to the Brain Age from the Brain Age games on the Nintendo DS. Each game automates some aspects of gameplay; for example you don’t have movement control of your tennis player as he/she will automatically move to the ball. In essence you only have to swing to hit the ball. It makes it very easy for anyone to get into a game. While it may be pleasing to those who do not play video games due to it’s ease of use, many veteran players will find very little in terms of depth and each game does get old quickly. Many of these games feel like technical demos more than full games. Wii Sports while not being technically impressive looks great and all the animation and visuals are clean. Menus are organized well and are aesthetically pleasing. The game also makes good use of the system Mii functionality which allows you to put yourself in the game. The sound is good and the sound effects are all great. However, there is no music playing in any of the games and the music during the menu selection is not memorable. This absence of background music makes gameplay feel even more monotonous. This seems like a missed opportunity to add extra character to each individual game. Wii Sports delivers five games which by themselves feel watered down. If you have several friends and extra controllers this compilation will prove to be a fun night. Then again, it comes free with the Wii so you really can’t complain. If you want to get something nice and shiny without losing a month’s rent, the Wii is the way to go.