Wii Sports
Originally released on: Nintendo Wii
Played on: Nintendo Wii
Release date: 2006
Wii Sports was, for the first few years of the Wii's life, the default pack-in game for the Wii, before the arrival of it's sequel, Wii Sports Resort, and the updated Wii MotionPlus, So consequentially, this was one of the first games people played when they bought their Wii, which is true of myself as well. So going back to it was an interesting experience.
It's made up of 5 sports games (tennis, baseball, golf, bowling and boxing), and while that may not sound like a huge amount, bear in mind these aren't minigames, each plays for a decent amount of time.
The most important thing about Wii Sports is that it was designed as a party game that shows off the ease of use you get with the Wii's motion controls. So I decided that, as this was designed primarily as a multi-player game, I should use multiple players, so for the first time in this playthrough, I have a playing buddy - the ever-beautiful Neety! (Her contributions to this blog are in italics, but she sadly refused to appear in the photograph.)
When Brawny asked me to play Wii Sports with him, my first thoughts were "Who are you and what have you done with my fiance?" Then he explained that it was for his retro-gaming blog and I fully understood why he would want to play a game with Sport in the title. I was looking forward to it, until I saw the word golf appear on the screen. Hopefully we would make it through the game without accidentally punching each other in the groin.
After powering up the game and selecting our Mii's, we launched into a game of Tennis. And do you know what? It's as fun as I remember. Apart from accidentally hitting my lovely Neety in the arm when swinging (after which we moved further apart from each other), we played a Best of 5 game (which, incidentally, I won 3-2). However, after the initial few strokes had played out, I found myself remembering the problems I had previously found with this game. There seems to be very little skill involved. Having looked it up before, I'm aware that the direction of your return depends on how early or late you swing the wii-mote, but that doesn't seem to translate to the game particularly well. Consequentially, while it is a fun pick-up and play party game (which is what it was designed to be), you do very quickly discover that luck (and who is serving first) plays as great a part in the result as skill does.
Neety's Tennis Verdict: Quite enjoyable, slightly erratic, and the Neety Mii that was in the middle of the court didn't do any work and should pick up the slack!
Sport number two is baseball, and just that name makes my heart sink a little. I'm not a fan of baseball. In a previous job where I worked at a bookmaker's call centre, I would work the late shifts, and have to watch American sports. And of these, Baseball was my least favourite. Because it's boring! But hey, it's a party game - they wouldn't make it boring, would they?
Well not intentionally. But just the way that baseball works made it boring, and I ended up the 3 inning game having scored no runs at all. Neety scored one, and therefore she won.
Again, controls are not the best in the world, and this, coupled with the stupid rules of Baseball when encountering foul balls, strikeouts etc., made this a game that I was happy when it was over.
Neety's Baseball Verdict: It was alright, but there seemed to be absolutely no skill to it. I tried picking up a technique, but every time it yielded different results. Good for a laugh but got boring after a while.
Bowling is up next, and this has always been my favourite Wii Sports game. Unlike the two we've already played through, it genuinely feels like there is skill involved in this game, and the controls are responsive and intuitive. After the dullness of baseball, I found myself enjoying this again, and in fact, we went back to one of the additional bowling mini-games after we had played all the sports, where you have to knock down increasingly larger numbers of pins.
The fact that skill is involved, and that techniques can be developed with repeatable results, made this, for me the most fun game in the package, and is the one I'm most likely to go back to again and again.
Neety's Bowling Verdict: Probably the most realistic because it corresponded with my actual bowling prowess in real life, in that it kept curling off at the ends as it does when I bowl, so if you're going for realism then it's much more fun than the baseball.
Aaah golf. A game I've never enjoyed in real life (which nowadays sets me apart from a lot of my friends), but due to a lot of time playing Wii Sports golf in the past with friends while drinking, the game itself I quite enjoy - and I was expecting not much to have changed. So once I had changed into some checked trousers, a white jumper and a weird looking hat, I was ready to attack the 3-Hole Beginners course. (Note - previous sentence may not be completely true.) Unfortunately, some control issues instantly rear their head once again, causing some slightly inconsistent controls, and after the tight, well-designed controls of bowling, it does feel like a big step backwards. I enjoyed the golf however, although Neety may tell a slightly different story...
Neety's Golf Verdict: Playing any kind of golf, whether virtual, mini or actual proper golf, is for me the equivalent of pulling off my fingernails and shoving them one by one up my nostril before rinsing out my sinuses with balsamic vinegar - painful and unnecessary. F#@k golf. F#@k golf. F#@K GOLF!! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHH!!! *runs around screaming*
Boxing is probably the game I had played the least when I first got my Wii, as it's very much a two-player game. And on firing it up again, I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it's got some of the wooliest controls of the whole game, meaning that blocking is a vague notion and the differentiation between high and low punches seems to be non-existent. But you know what? It's fun. You feel like you're getting involved, and you work up a sweat playing it, which is something that can only be said of this and Tennis. My criticisms? Well, if you don't successfully knock out the other player, the scoring to determine who wins seems very erratic, and as I've said, the controls are not the strongest they could be. But we did enjoy playing the first round of this so much that we instantly played a second.
Neety's Boxing Verdict: If you're looking to actually work up a sweat, this is the one game of the five that will do it. It's quite fun to punch your friends and loved ones in their (virtual) face and while it's not as accurate as the bowling, it's pretty accurate compared with the other games, so it's less likely to cause annoyance.
I know this has been a very long post, but I felt that each of the games were big enough that they deserved a paragraph each. My overall Wii Sports feeling? It's a game that can always be fun. As a launch game, it has nowadays lost some of it's uniqueness (as the number of Wii-based party games with motion controls has rocked to approximately 11,231,464 (this statistic may or may not be accurate)) and the charm of it holds a lot of it together, particularly with it's slightly erratic controls. It's not likely to be high on my re-play list in the future, but it'll probably get played on occasionally, especially if there's a group of us. Now let's check in with Neety for her final thought..
Wii Sports is good as a fun, family game, and it's good for beginners and a good all-rounder. If you wanted more of either a challenge or a workout, I'd recommend Wii Sports Resort or Wii Fit instead, but if you're bored on a rainy day it's not a bad way to pass the time. Also - I HATE GOLF! F@#K GOLF! F@#K IT!
Rating: 6/10 (Would have been higher, but Baseball brought it down)
Time Played: Just over an hour
Would I play it again? Every so often, but it's not liable to become a regular occurance.
Next time - It's time for Monkeys, trapped in balls. It's Super Monkey Ball 2!
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