Wii Sports Resorts is coming out tomorrow, or midnight tonight if you want to be that hardcore about it. I had a chance to check it out early today with some hands on experience. DK already has a review of the game up here on gameprosports, so check it out. You already know it’s a great game. You already know it’s a must buy if you own a Wii. So when you finally own it, what can you expect as far as the individual games? What’s new? And how does the Motion Plus really work? I’ll talk specifically about some of the new games introduced in this sequel and how the Motion Plus fares in general.
Hit the jump for more.
As DK stated in his review, there are twelve minigames that are available to play in WSP, a huge upgrade over the original five. It seems that WSR is a sequel to both Wii Sports and Wii Play because it appears to retry or combine concepts from both games. We get a table tennis game that works more like the tennis from Wii Sports as opposed to the table tennis in Wii Play. We get revamped golfing that actually notices if you slice or hook the ball on your swing. There’s a variation of the bull riding game from Wii Play with a jet ski taking the place of the bull. Bowling is back with more sensitivity and options. The target practice from Wii play returns as archery which is more accurate and cooler than it was on Wii Play or in Twilight Princess.
The Motion Plus basically fixes anything wrong with the old versions of these games. It is not going to floor you with how big a difference it is, but it is noticeable. Subtler movements suffice with the Motion Plus and there generally seems to be more care taken to being accurate in Resort as you can recalibrate the controller many times during gameplay.
With all these revamped games, it seems strange that some did not make the cut. I would have liked to see the baseball game get a Motion Plus overhaul. Boxing is also gone and while the sword duels are similar in concept, it really is a totally different game.
The totally new minigames are wakeboarding, basketball, frisbee, cycling, fencing, kayaking, sword fighting, and air sports. I’ll focus on one I loved and one that was a mixed bag because they say the most about the Motion Plus.
BASKETBALL
Basketball excited me the most, because I’m a huge fan of the sport in real life but wondered how it would work in a Wii game. There are three point shooting and pick up game options. Unfortunately the motion of actually shooting a basketball is a tactile experience in real life (there’s a reason they call it a shooter’s touch) and clenching a controller in your hand while shooting does not feel right. It is probably the clumsiest motion control in the game. I found myself always shooting the ball slightly to the left due to my grip on the Wiimote. After I tried this I thought I was going to hate the pickup game option. However, it worked better than I thought it would and the controls somehow felt charmingly unrealistic as opposed to frustrating. Shooting is still clunky but you can dribble and block and steal as well as dunk if you get an open lane to the basket. There are stages of gameplay that make basketball possible in Wii Sports Resort. First, you dribble with the Wiimote by bouncing it up and down in your hand and angling it in the direction you want to go. If you pull up on the Wiimote you go into shot mode where you release the ball overhead as if you were shooting in real life but the defender can now do a similar upward motion and block your shot. If you can get close enough to the basket for a dunk, after you go up, you simply need to time it right to throw it down with the Wiimote. It’s not exactly NBA 2K10 and is humorously unrealisitc but it works better than I expected as a whole.
SWORDPLAY
Basketball frustrated and amused me but what really showcases the Motion Plus the best and what really is the best minigame in my opinion, is Swordplay. While the game “cheats” a little by asking you to point toward the middle of the screen to calibrate everything before you start, you still get a good sense of how awesome the Motion Plus is in the swordplay minigame. This is pretty much 1:1 sword fighting. It is what everyone thought of when they first heard about the Wii or games like Red Steel. The sword goes where you want it to go and it reacts quickly and accurately to your real life movements. Unfortunately, to block/parry the game makes your Mii do a sorta contracted movement that breaks the 1:1 spell a little. I would have liked blocking to happen more organically with having the swords just naturally hitting one another with the natural movements of the players. Still, the sword duels are excellent and Red steel 2 and games like it better make use of the Motion Plus in this way or they will disappoint again.
Overall, the new games in Resort are fun and are a good exhibition of what the Motion Plus can do. While the swordplay shows that 1:1 or something close to it can do great things in a game, the basketball shows the limitations of motion controllers, even if they are 1:1. Still, Wii Sports Resort makes me confident in the Motion Plus. Hopefully third parties will be able to use this tech as well as Nintendo does in Wii Sports Resort.
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