Title: Wii Sports Resort

Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Rating: 7 out of 10

Wii Sports Resort is, at its core, a tech demo to showcase the capabilities of their newest peripheral add-on, the Wii MotionPlus (included in every game.) Much like the pack-in of the original Wii Sports, Resort offers simple pick-up and play mini-games that are more likely to appeal to casual, stay at home moms than the hardcore MMORPG crowd.

Gone from the Wii Sports are baseball, boxing, and tennis (replaced for some by a not as fun table tennis). However favorites bowling and golf return with nine other games including cycling, Frisbee, swordplay, wake boarding, and the addictive basketball. Similar to Wii Fit, you start out with level one versions of mini-games then meet certain goals or points levels, and you’re given one, or in some cases, an additional two new versions of these mini-games to play –24 in all. Some of the new games are hits (air Sports and Frisbee) while others clearly miss (archery and canoeing).

The attended purpose seems to be to showoff the new 1:1 ratio controls of the MotionPlus. Thus far I’m impressed, especially when playing the basketball game. The controls are very responsive. Even with the simple play options in the pick-up game, it keeps me entertained and is easily my favorite. Wake boarding is not only challenging from a game play technical standpoint trying to execute all the water tricks for the highest score, but physically as well as you have to hold the remote out in front and move the boarder side to side. But who’d a thunk that flicking your wrist would be so hard to pull off when throwing a frisbee at a virtual dog playing catch.

Considering the Wii’s graphic power that was on display in titles like Punch Out!!! and Metroid Prime 3, it’s a little disappointing they did nothing to go beyond the original’s presentation or visual style here. Additionally, they make it clear that Resort is a game best enjoyed as a multi-player, yet gave us no online play. Considering how well they succeeded in taking Mario Kart online, the possibilities seem limitless with a online multi-player scoring and vs. play.

Nintendo’s Wii Sport franchise of games rarely disappoints when it comes to taking advantage of its motion sensing technology. Again, online play would greatly increase longevity of this title, but considering they show off the potential of their MotionPlus, it serves its purpose more than adequately. –A.K.

Tags: review, video games, Wii

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 12:03 pm by The Notorious BJP and is filed under Games, Wii. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.