Wii Sports Resort

Preview from Jae - Saturday, 18 July 2009 @ 8:50am

I was one of those people that queued outside a Myer for the launch of the Wii. Being pretty excited, right to the point where I took an extra day off during my holidays. I was naive and tuned into the hype big time. Before I joined AG I was invited by Nintendo to preview Wii Sports for a few hours, one of the best gaming moments back in the day. Here I am again previewing the sequel to the game Wii Sports Resorts. Nintendo hosted an event in Sydney recently where we spent a few hours exploring the games in their big winter title this year.

The draw card in this game is the responsive Motion Plus control, or as I like to call it Nintendo's way of correcting something that should've been right from the beginning. One to one responsiveness is a big deal, when I swing my controller I want my Mii on screen to swing at the same time as me, none of this half a-second lag garbage. The motion plus brings this to life and uses the Wii Sports name to promote it. The collection of games is bigger this time round which will mean you may keep the disc spinning in your Wii a little longer than a few hours before shoving it on the pile of “been there, done that”.

Add disco balls to make Jet Skiing more fun

I always thought a great cosplay idea would be to dress up as a Wii remote controller, have a shorter friend dress up as the Wii nunchuk and bring along a small dog as the Wii Motion Plus add on. Find me enough Styrofoam and we just might have a plan. The motion plus add on is not physically noticeable when playing Wii Sports Resort. The weight of the controller seems somewhat the same, the difference on screen is much more noticeable.

Frisbii Doggy style

You can feel the full swing of your sword and even the handle acceleration of a jet ski. It all sounds like mindless fun but you will find your family favourites very quickly in the game. Sword play games are a bunch of fun and so is basketball but I easily grew tiresome of the jet ski game. Getting into the revving of the motors was not always the best. Sometimes being too responsive can spoil a motion control experience, something that could be eased off on a water based racing game. As an office worker I’m lazy so my arms grew tired fairly quickly. Perhaps Ninty can make me some arm rests after they finish making that finger sock they announced at E3. They’ve gone and changed the mechanics behind bowling, that didn’t quite impress me as you’re not meant to fix something that aint’ broke. Instead of releasing the B trigger when you let go of the bowl you have to keep holding on to this. I’m not too sure what the reasoning was behind this but maybe a little bit more time with the game might change that. Perhaps you can change the setting on this in the game but as a default it just didn’t work well. Just like the much loved tennis mode from the first title the pick up and play games come across well. Archery actually felt accurate, Frisbee was short and fun while cutting up fruit as fast as you can got me hungry. Hungry for more!

You know what they say about a guy with a longer Wii remote

When the game releases on July 23rd there is no doubt that it will be the next big thing after Wii Fit (and to some extent Wii Music – according to Australian sales). If you are looking for deep gameplay you’re obviously playing the wrong console. Wii Sports Resorts will be that next fun title you take out to show your active grandparents, nephews or lady gamers. Despite the negativity that I tend to have at the moment this game will no doubt be fun and probably the best thing to get for you Wii this season. If you’re too use to the expression “dust collecting on my Wii” think of this as the bagless dust buster that has a short battery life meaning you’ll start collecting dust again once you run out of juice. If you’re like me and played Wii Sports for about a month only to never go back, expect more of that with Resorts. If you have a chance, get to one of the many Connection tours Nintendo is hosting around the country before it’s release to judge for yourself whether you can justify buying this game. My guess, just like Wii Play, you will purchase this with the intention that you’ll get to use the Motion Plus with many more titles in future. With two tennis games and one golf game already supporting the peripheral, not to mention future titles like Red Steel 2, The Motion Plus package will be worth the investment much like the 4MB memory expansion for the N64: another one of those correcting-what-we-should’ve-put-in accessories.

Jae's new career as a hat model