Review | Wii Sports Resort

Format: Wii | Genre: Sports | Publisher: Nintendo | Developer: Nintendo | Release date: 24/07/09 | RRP: £49.99

By Graham Jones

Despite having irritated many of its hardcore following, you can’t fault Nintendo for coming up with a plan, sticking to it and reaping the rewards.

Its efforts towards the expansion of the videogames market in the last few years has been an incredible turn around for a company who had struggled so much in the home console race for almost a decade. But most Wii owners didn’t rush out to buy the console in order to play Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3 or Zelda. This is a gaming machine that has sold by the bucket load due to what is essentially a tech demo.

Five mini-games bundled together on one disc, Wii Sports could well be the most carefully planned and successful pack-in game of all time. Its simple and intuitive design made it accessible to all, and even the hardcore faithful were won over by the motion control, previously been considered by many to be nothing more than a short-lived gimmick. So what does Nintendo do when launching their next iteration of motion control? They launch it alongside their next iteration of Wii Sports, of course.

//Setting it in motion
While the creators of Wii Motion Plus aren’t the first developer to release a game to utilise the new peripheral (EA already have two compatible titles under their belt), it’s Nintendo’s sporting sequel that we’ve all been waiting for as the true showcase for the new technology and, for the most part, neither fails to impress.

Unlike its predecessor, this is a full-priced game, and so really did need to expand on the number of events on offer. Nintendo has delivered. In Wii Sports Resort, the player is treated to twelve different sporting activities, although each one of these in turn has a number of different game modes, which can offer huge variety in their play experiences. Sadly, as is so often the case in these compilations, there is also a huge amount of variety in the quality of gameplay experiences on display throughout the package.

Let’s start with the good – and, to be honest, most of what’s here is good. Very good, in fact. Swordplay, Archery, Frisbee and Table Tennis all do a marvelous job of displaying the added levels of precision delivered via Wii Motion Plus, and manage to slowly reveal their hidden depths as players develop their skills. Unlike the random limb-flailing-a-thon that was the original Wii Sports Boxing, Swordplay requires a calmer and more considered approach; the anticipation of your opponent’s next move is central to claiming victory, and the responsiveness of Nintendo’s new Wii Remote attachment means that when you lose, you know why, and can’t just blame the dodgy interface. At the other end of the scale, Table Tennis is a much more frantic affair when compared to the classic Wii Sports Tennis. The heightened level of control, however, allows for shots to be placed much more accurately, and for ridiculous amounts of spin to be added. It’s all very satisfying.

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