Your getting it whether you want it or not!
So there it sits, the Nintendo Wii, all hooked up and next to your telly waiting to be used. You look around the newz channel and weather channel and upload some photo's with a SD card and even turn them into a puzzle, but the Wii has yet to win you over. So you go for the last ace in the hole, you pop in Wii Sports, the game that comes packaged free with every Nintendo Wii Console. Will this game show of how enjoyable and accsessable the Wii can be, or will it make you think how much you can get for it if you go bring it back to the shop?
Once you load it up you are bombarded with safety warnings (Get used to it cause there on all games!) telling you to make sure you wear the wrist strap and you take breaks regaully, then you are presented with the games 5 sports. Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing all simplified and reduced to their essential component elements. This means that literally anyone can grab a controller and join in, without having to know the first thing about the sport they're playing.
Let's begin with Tennis, with all of the sports you chose a character called a Mii. You can create your own Mii on the Mii Channel on your Wii and use them in the game. So you could create a version of yourself, friends, family or even Mario and play as them. Anyway too serve all you do is move the Wii Remote up swiftly to imitate throwing the ball into the air, and then swing the remote as to imitate hitting the ball. It may sound rather stupid but it works really well. This game requires no buttons either so it's the best sport in the pacakage that imitates its real life counterpart best. It may seem lacking in depth at first but you'll be suprised there's plenty of opportunity to perfect your backhand, forehand, lobs, volleys and power serves, amongst other things. This is one of the better games on the disc and it's the one your grandmother may have a fighting chance agaisnt you with!
Then theres Bowling. Bowling is not quite as "jump in and play" as Tennis but no less enjoyable. To line up your shot you use the D-Pad, and if you want to bowl at an angle you press a A and then move the D-Pad till your at your prefered angle. To bowl you have to hold down the B button and then imitate throwing the ball. Once you get to grips with that it becomes second nature. It does quite well and knows how much Omph you applyed to your shot and will move accordingly. It even lets you apply spin to the ball which let you pull of some ace shots.
Next up is golf, a favorite to be of the older generation I'm sure. There are 9 holes to play through and they vary in difficulty. The control here can be clunky at times and won't registor your shots, or at times register shots you didnt want it to registor. To make it work you must hold it at the correct angle, down towards the ground, swing to pull of some practice shots and then hold the button down and swing. The WiiMote however cannot detect that a simple tap can have the same results as a whopping swing if you move the controller fast enough. If you swing too high or too fast it won't registor, and the Wii Mote won't know where its pointing, so you need to be carefull with this one, but it is a nice experaince.
Now we have the two remaining "Hmmm" ones left in the pacakge, Boxing first. the only game in the pack to require the nunchuck. The two controllers become your fists and you can perform punches by thrusting forward, tilting back to dodge and side to side to weave and if you block his fists with your fists thats a block. To win you need to give him a right good pummerling and get his health down to nothing, depending on the difficulty on the fight he may get up but after a servere beating he'll be down for the count. This game is the one that will make you sweat the most thanks to some serious simultaneous arm-waving. Unfortuntly if you punch to fast the controller won't beable to keep up and some of your punches won't be registered and you'll just stand there, this is why boxing just never quite manages to be as satisfying Wii Sports' top-tier attractions. And when you get to the higher difficultys its pretty much impossible to win unless you dodge, dodge, dodge, hit, dodge, dodge, dodge hit. Which isn't all that fun.
Then at the bottom we have Baseball, you either control the batter or the pitcher, all other roles are perfomed by the AI. To bat all you do is swing the remote like you were swinging a bat. It's easy enough to control but the Computer AI seem to always catch any ball you hit no matter how far. And on the higher levals you've got no chance. The Pitching role is I find random, though you ccan throw the ball in a matter of ways it never seems to matter. they either hit it or they don't, it always seems like its pre-coded at the beggining whether there going to hit it or not. The thing that really makes it not as fun is the sport itself, baseball isn't all that entertaining, so for those reasons it's the one you won't come back to often.
Once you've finished a game in the sports you are either given points or deducted points depending on how good or bad you played. The more points you have the harder the game gets, and when you get to 1000 points you'll get a little bonus like a sparkly ball in Bowling or more people in the crowd with Tennis, a nice little extra for completists then :)
There is also a training mode that actully is quite fun and you may spend alot of time there, there are 15 mini games and 3 are based on each sport. So theres 3 bowling ones 3 tennis ones ect. For an example in a baseball one you must see how many times you can hit a home run or in a golf one try and hit it on a target. Quite enjoyable and a medal system helps its longevity.
Laslty there is the Brain Training-like Wii Fitness mode. Essentially, you'll play one of three randomly-selected mini-games from the Training section, and the Fitness mode rates your speed, stamina and strength once complete. At the end of the test, you're given a Fitness Age (your goal being to achieve the agility of a nubile twenty-year old) which is slapped on the Wii's message board for everyone in the household to view and better. It's yet another reason to keep playing Wii Sports longer.
The game has a clean slick look about it, it's no Elder Scrolls Oblivion, infact there are gamecube games which look better. But it's designed with simplicity in mind, it looks good and thats about it. The enclusion of the Mii's is well apraised and it makes the game personal to everybody. Epic the game's soundtrack is not, but its got some nice tunes which fit the sports nicely. Bowling has a nice mellow track and boxing has an upbeat track. The sound effects are quite good too and alot of them come out of the WiiMote speaker, a nice touch.
There is one big thing however which lessens the game, it gets boring. Yes all these good thing I'm stated are all good good, but eventully it gets quite boring, and you'll only be getting it out at special occasions and play for 30 mins before you find a better game to play. It's one of those games that is slightly...blah
It has a few minor problems but Wii Sports really is what a launch tittle should be. It shows off what the Wii can do and and what the Wii holds for the future. It shows off that anybody in your family can have a good time and is sure to be a hit at christmas when everybody's round yours. In the end though I don't really need to tell you how good the game is, seeing as your getting it whether you like it or not!
Thanks for Reading
Once you load it up you are bombarded with safety warnings (Get used to it cause there on all games!) telling you to make sure you wear the wrist strap and you take breaks regaully, then you are presented with the games 5 sports. Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing all simplified and reduced to their essential component elements. This means that literally anyone can grab a controller and join in, without having to know the first thing about the sport they're playing.
Let's begin with Tennis, with all of the sports you chose a character called a Mii. You can create your own Mii on the Mii Channel on your Wii and use them in the game. So you could create a version of yourself, friends, family or even Mario and play as them. Anyway too serve all you do is move the Wii Remote up swiftly to imitate throwing the ball into the air, and then swing the remote as to imitate hitting the ball. It may sound rather stupid but it works really well. This game requires no buttons either so it's the best sport in the pacakage that imitates its real life counterpart best. It may seem lacking in depth at first but you'll be suprised there's plenty of opportunity to perfect your backhand, forehand, lobs, volleys and power serves, amongst other things. This is one of the better games on the disc and it's the one your grandmother may have a fighting chance agaisnt you with!
Then theres Bowling. Bowling is not quite as "jump in and play" as Tennis but no less enjoyable. To line up your shot you use the D-Pad, and if you want to bowl at an angle you press a A and then move the D-Pad till your at your prefered angle. To bowl you have to hold down the B button and then imitate throwing the ball. Once you get to grips with that it becomes second nature. It does quite well and knows how much Omph you applyed to your shot and will move accordingly. It even lets you apply spin to the ball which let you pull of some ace shots.
Next up is golf, a favorite to be of the older generation I'm sure. There are 9 holes to play through and they vary in difficulty. The control here can be clunky at times and won't registor your shots, or at times register shots you didnt want it to registor. To make it work you must hold it at the correct angle, down towards the ground, swing to pull of some practice shots and then hold the button down and swing. The WiiMote however cannot detect that a simple tap can have the same results as a whopping swing if you move the controller fast enough. If you swing too high or too fast it won't registor, and the Wii Mote won't know where its pointing, so you need to be carefull with this one, but it is a nice experaince.
Now we have the two remaining "Hmmm" ones left in the pacakge, Boxing first. the only game in the pack to require the nunchuck. The two controllers become your fists and you can perform punches by thrusting forward, tilting back to dodge and side to side to weave and if you block his fists with your fists thats a block. To win you need to give him a right good pummerling and get his health down to nothing, depending on the difficulty on the fight he may get up but after a servere beating he'll be down for the count. This game is the one that will make you sweat the most thanks to some serious simultaneous arm-waving. Unfortuntly if you punch to fast the controller won't beable to keep up and some of your punches won't be registered and you'll just stand there, this is why boxing just never quite manages to be as satisfying Wii Sports' top-tier attractions. And when you get to the higher difficultys its pretty much impossible to win unless you dodge, dodge, dodge, hit, dodge, dodge, dodge hit. Which isn't all that fun.
Then at the bottom we have Baseball, you either control the batter or the pitcher, all other roles are perfomed by the AI. To bat all you do is swing the remote like you were swinging a bat. It's easy enough to control but the Computer AI seem to always catch any ball you hit no matter how far. And on the higher levals you've got no chance. The Pitching role is I find random, though you ccan throw the ball in a matter of ways it never seems to matter. they either hit it or they don't, it always seems like its pre-coded at the beggining whether there going to hit it or not. The thing that really makes it not as fun is the sport itself, baseball isn't all that entertaining, so for those reasons it's the one you won't come back to often.
Once you've finished a game in the sports you are either given points or deducted points depending on how good or bad you played. The more points you have the harder the game gets, and when you get to 1000 points you'll get a little bonus like a sparkly ball in Bowling or more people in the crowd with Tennis, a nice little extra for completists then :)
There is also a training mode that actully is quite fun and you may spend alot of time there, there are 15 mini games and 3 are based on each sport. So theres 3 bowling ones 3 tennis ones ect. For an example in a baseball one you must see how many times you can hit a home run or in a golf one try and hit it on a target. Quite enjoyable and a medal system helps its longevity.
Laslty there is the Brain Training-like Wii Fitness mode. Essentially, you'll play one of three randomly-selected mini-games from the Training section, and the Fitness mode rates your speed, stamina and strength once complete. At the end of the test, you're given a Fitness Age (your goal being to achieve the agility of a nubile twenty-year old) which is slapped on the Wii's message board for everyone in the household to view and better. It's yet another reason to keep playing Wii Sports longer.
The game has a clean slick look about it, it's no Elder Scrolls Oblivion, infact there are gamecube games which look better. But it's designed with simplicity in mind, it looks good and thats about it. The enclusion of the Mii's is well apraised and it makes the game personal to everybody. Epic the game's soundtrack is not, but its got some nice tunes which fit the sports nicely. Bowling has a nice mellow track and boxing has an upbeat track. The sound effects are quite good too and alot of them come out of the WiiMote speaker, a nice touch.
There is one big thing however which lessens the game, it gets boring. Yes all these good thing I'm stated are all good good, but eventully it gets quite boring, and you'll only be getting it out at special occasions and play for 30 mins before you find a better game to play. It's one of those games that is slightly...blah
It has a few minor problems but Wii Sports really is what a launch tittle should be. It shows off what the Wii can do and and what the Wii holds for the future. It shows off that anybody in your family can have a good time and is sure to be a hit at christmas when everybody's round yours. In the end though I don't really need to tell you how good the game is, seeing as your getting it whether you like it or not!
Thanks for Reading
