Wii Sports is the best-selling video game of all time packaged with the most popular gaming console of its generation. A sequel’s inevitability has never come under question. But the nearly three year wait for Nintendo to deliver has raised expectations to the equivalent of bowling a perfect game.
To help gun for this feat, Nintendo is using Wii Sports Resort to put the new MotionPlus accessory into homes. Packaged with every copy of Resort, MotionPlus is a small add-on for the Wii Remote that closer mimics 360-degrees of movement between your wrist and what is seen on-screen in real time. It is not a true 1:1 representation as advertised but “close enough” in accuracy to warrant taking notice.
The inclusion of MotionPlus in Resort has an immediate impact on the 10 new mini-games and 2 ported from the original Wii Sports that vary in allowing anywhere from one to four players. Take bowling and golf for example, arguably the two most played mini-games in Wii Sports. Each looks relatively identical in Resort as they did in Wii Sports with the same modes to choose from. What MotionPlus’ inclusion does is increase the sensitivity of hitting a drive straight in golf or putting spin on the ball in bowling. What may have been a perfect swing movement in Wii Sports no longer is. The evolution is logical, and those who do not appreciate the slightly increased difficulty should still own Wii Sports by default and may feel more comfortable there.
New mini-games will range anywhere from passable to outright addictive depending on your own personal taste. I find myself hypnotically drawn to the three-point basketball shootout which offers the closest feeling of really shooting a basketball to appear in a video game yet. Frisbee Toss is my nemesis where I struggle to maintain consistency, Wakeboarding is fun to shoot for a new high score and Table Tennis, though not fast enough, keeps me coming back for more. Archery sucks me in to nail the perfect bulls-eye and an alternative within Swordplay ups the intensity with a survival mode.
Power Cruising i.e. jet skiing is marginal fun if repetitive and Sky Diving is a technological piece of wizardry in visual design but not worth more than a few jumps for the sake of colliding into other divers. Canoeing is the most frustrating of the bunch trying to keep the adequately straight while paddling with the remote. Cycling, unfortunately, feels like an afterthought with wild up and down arm movements and another basketball mode, Three-on-Three play, fails to engage with limited control options. But that is the beauty of Wii Sports Resort. If you do not like a mini-game, the odds are favorable another will strike your fancy and the mini-game select menu will tell you which is frequented most.
Progressing through Wii Sports Resort is a familiar climb to 1000 points and the coveted Pro ranking. In this respect the mini-games are not created equal. Table Tennis or Swordplay success brings on more difficult CPU-controlled opponents with each win. Frisbee Toss or Bowling, where you are playing against yourself, require higher individual event scores the closer you get to an overall 1000 point mark. Expect to reach the 1000 point plateau much faster in some mini-games than others.
Building upon the ranking system, Nintendo has added their version of Xbox 360 Achievements “Lite” in the form of five colorful flower stamps which can be won from each event. They are a welcome addition but come at the expense of carrying forward only one high score for each event from session to session and any form of online component. A permanent leaderboard of at least the top five scores as seen in Active Life: Outdoor Challenge and at least one-on-one online play for select mini-games are an unfortunate omission.
Incidental slipups take a back seat once you dig into the mini-games. Nintendo has heard the cries of Wii Sports critics complaining of overly simplistic visuals and weak audio to offer a more polished presentation veneer in Resort. In Wakeboarding, the sounds of the boat engine combine with the whoosh of leaping off a wave and the crash of hitting the water. A whale randomly surfaces in the ocean while flying a 5:00 minute Sightseeing mission around the Resort Island full of hidden icons to discover. Even an errant toss in Frisbee Toss Golf hitting a tree 170 yards down the course results in a soft crackling of leaves followed by an audible thud.
Wii Sports Resort is a grander endeavor than its predecessor with three times as many mini-games and a couple extra coats of polish. It is not a “perfect game” by any means, but was it worth the wait and does it warrant an upgrade? I would say so since my original Wii Sports has yet to leave its case since Wii Sports Resort dropped in.
– Dan Bradley
Shop for Wii Sports Resort with Wii MotionPlus at Amazon.com.
