Wii Sports Resort

It's been a week since Wii Sports Resort came out so I thought I'd throw up some impressions for today's post.

It's a pretty good deal for $50 with 12 different sports featured and the new Wii MotionPlus packaged in. The WMP in a nutshell enhances the Wiimote's motion sensing capabilities creating the possibility for pretty much 1 to 1 correspondence between your motions and your character's. That's about all I know about it. I'm not really techie so I don't get the whole axis thing or whatever makes it work.

But for the most part it works well. The two sports that really stand out to me are swordfighting and archery.

As all the sports do, swordfighting has several different modes. There's duel, in which you stand on a circular platform and try to knock your opponent off, speed slice, a test of reflexes in cutting objects, and showdown, where you face a myriad of enemies in certain environment. The controls work excellently with your character's swing for the most part always matching your own. This is the single thing that should have Star Wars fans clamoring for a lightsaber battler on the Wii.

Archery has 3 different levels of increasing difficulty but the goal remains the same. You use the nunchuck attachment for this one as a bowstring. You hold out the remote in front of you like a bow and hold Z on the nunchuck while pulling it back to simulate drawing your arrow. As you focus your aiming reticle gets smaller and you release Z to shoot the arrow. It works well and is a fairly accurate representation of what shooting an arrow is like in real life. Essentially it's fun and intuitive, which makes it one of the best in the package.

I'll just do a quick round up of the remaining 10 since my slow thinking and Facebook poker is causing me to near my self-imposed 12 o'clock deadline.

Wakeboarding
Rather boring in my opinion. You play with just the remote and use it to land your wakeboarder flat on the surface after he/she does a canned trick. You have no control of your tricks, just of your movement in the water. It's playable but not too fun at all.

Frisbee
Maybe I'm too used to the Tiger Woods 10 version of disc golf, but I had a really hard time tossing the Frisbee in this game. Not sure if the controls are too precise or too off, but I don't enjoy this one. Seems like a matter of personal preference though.

Basketball
This is actually one of my favorites. the 3-on-3 mode is pretty dumb and the shooting mechanic (flick of the remote) is intuitive but kind of hard to understand in terms of adjustments. Maybe it's the simplicity, but I can't stop playing it. Although the pickup mode isn't great, it's still amusing to see your Miis dribble around the court and throw down dunks. The 3pt shooting mode is quick and fun. Basically it doesn't really matter how accurate the motion controls are, this game is just plain entertaining.

Table Tennis
In hindsight, I'd put this up with swordfighting and archery. The use of the remote is a great approxmation for your ping pong paddle and you actually have to swing on the right side of your body this time, unlike Wii Sports's Tennis offering. It's a lot of fun and you can have some pretty intense points.

Golf/Bowling
I'm lumping the two returning sports since they're essentially the same as before with improved controls from the WMP. This means better control over the spin of your ball in both sports. Golf now has a bunch of new holes and courses. Bowling introduced a 100-pin mode where every frame has 100 pins (shocking!) as well as bringing back spin control.

Power Cruising
Using the nunchuck and remote as handles of your jet ski, you can motor your way around WSR's Wuhu Island. Steering is a bit tricky but the game is still pretty fun as you jet through the choppy waves either against an opponent or through slalom rings. It works a lot better than I expected which is a great surprise.

Canoeing
My definite least favorite game in the package. You use the remote as your paddle, but I don't know if it was a problem with my Wii/sensor bar, but it couldn't even tell which side of the boat I wanted to paddle on. Which, you know, is kind of necessary in canoeing. Bad controls make for a boring event, one I don't think I'll be going back to any time soon.

Cycling
The controls for this are actually pretty bad too as you drum your nunchuck and remote to peddle your bike. But with a variety of courses it's actually not too bad. It's not a great thriller, but it can get exciting as you sprint, attacking the leaders at the end of the race trying to catch up before you run out of stamina. Until you realize that rapidly drumming your controllers isn't all that fun.

Air Sports
This actually combines skydiving and plane flying but the general control is the same. You hold your remote horizontally and use it to control your skydiver/plane. In skydiving, you try to link up with other divers and smile for the camera. Island flyover mode lets you take a plane around Wuhu Island looking for points of interest. Dogfight lets you and a friend try to take each other out in the skies. Not quite the best set, but still a nice break from the others and it is nice to get to see everything on the island.

So in summary I'd rank the sports like this:

The Cream of the Crop:
Swordfighting
Archery
Table Tennis

Fun Distractions:
Basketball
Bowling
Power Cruising

Playable but "meh":
Cycling
Air Sports
Golf

Just boring:
Wakeboarding

Ugh:
Frisbee


Canoeing



Phew 7 minutes. Slacking off just in time for school. Nice.