Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the planning meeting for this. “Okay, guys, we’re making a sequel to the biggest-selling videogame ever. Oh, and you’re going to have just eighteen months to develop it, and it’s going to have to be a showcase for this brand new motion peripheral which we’re attempting to sell to an audience that doesn’t know they need it because they probably assumed the Wii remote could do all this already.”

No pressure, then.

Wii Sports Resort represents a difficult balancing act - it’s a game which has to sell MotionPlus to the masses, convince the core gamer of both its value as a peripheral in its own right and its potential for future titles - especially in the wake of Natal and Sony’s new motion wand - and to help shift plenty of new consoles to keep Nintendo ahead of its rivals.

You could argue, quite convincingly, that it’s not entirely successful on any of those counts (though it’s obviously too early to determine the latter). You could also argue that none of that really matters - of greater importance is the question of whether Wii Sports Resort lives up to its predecessor as an accessible and enjoyable piece of mass-market entertainment. And there can’t really be any argument about that one.

First impressions are excellent - your route to the titular resort is from the air, as you’re bundled out of a biplane and sent spiralling towards Earth in tandem with a group of fellow skydivers. A semi-translucent remote appears over your Mii avatar, rotating in perfect harmony with your real-world motions. It makes you ache for a Wii Pilotwings. Not long after, you deploy your parachute, and the camera pans up and over the top of the divers, zooming in on your own, which bears the game’s title.

This is how you start a game.

The skydiving makes a welcome - if slight - return as part of Air Sports, one of the twelve different event types, each of which has variants, be they additional difficulty modes or completely different game types. It certainly doesn’t want for things to do. And while it’s fair to say that not all events are created equal, the hit rate is pretty high.

Everyone will have their personal favourite, but it’s difficult to see anyone disagreeing with the quality of table tennis and swordplay. The former makes the MotionPlus implementation in the terrific Grand Slam Tennis look not a little awkward - it’s tight, economical and blends timing-based shotmaking with 1:1 bat movement perfectly. You’ll be able to add huge amounts of spin and slice with the right remote positioning and the speed of your wrist action, and while avatar movement is automated, you’ll move around the table quicker if your bat is in the right hand. Smashes only come into play when you’ve ’stunned’ the other player into a hurried high return, but they’re often returnable unless hit to the opposite corner.

Swordplay, meanwhile, comes in three varieties - the first pitting you against a single opponent on a high platform in the sea, the object being simply to knock your rival over the edge in a best-of-three contest. Secondly, there’s a one-on-one game which sees you slicing a series of unusual items (eggs, bamboo canes, giant electronic timers) in a given direction before your rival. Thirdly, there’s a challenge which sees you running a gauntlet of several sword-wielding opponents, able to withstand just three hits before you drop. All three events use 1:1 sword controls, while holding B blocks attacks - you’ll generally need to hold your weapon perpendicular to their blow for a successful block, which often forces your rival onto the back foot, giving you a brief window to knock them over. Again, it’s hard to see how the controls could be improved.

Few of the remaining activities make as compelling use of MotionPlus, though it’s difficult to see any working nearly as well with the standard remote. Cycling is perhaps the least successful, utilising an awkward control scheme which sees players alternate between shaking the nunchuk and remote and tilting them to glide downhill. There’s strategy involved in pacing yourself so you can’t just waggle to win, but it’s one of two events where it seems Nintendo has fumbled the controls. That second event is power-cruising, where you hold the controllers like handlebars, revving the remote for a speed boost. Yet utilising the nunchuk’s tilt mechanism seems to have a negative effect on the MotionPlus performance - it’s easy to end up in a continuous turn, even after you’ve twisted the handlebars in the opposite direction.

That’s about it for the bad stuff, mind. Wakeboarding is ultra-simple, but there’s a purity to the  way it uses nothing more than momentum to propel your Mii into spins and twists, with the speed of the boat increasing for every successful landing. There’s a delicacy required that surely wouldn’t have been possible without MotionPlus, and if it leaves you wanting more, then perhaps that speaks volumes about how fun it is. Archery uses a nifty trick as you pull back the nunchuk to make the bowstring taut (it’s the automatic remote thrust you make which effects the zoom) and makes for an enjoyably leisurely multiplayer game. Frisbee-throwing - whether to Cammie’s favourite Mii pup or across the eighteen holes of the island golf course - is remarkably addictive (and it’s surprisingly tricky to get the disc to travel in a straight line). Basketball’s three-point throwing is a compelling high-score challenge while the three-on-three mode requires a few plays before its charms become apparent.

Canoeing will likely be divisive, but is filed under ‘triumphs’ here. Surprisingly it offers the only simultaneous four-player mode of the package (Nintendo clearly not expecting too many to shell out for three more MotionPlus attachments) but it’s endearingly hectic as a co-operative game, likely to make most players dissolve into giggles as their boat spins on the spot while the timer ticks down. It’s crazily competitive during the one-on-one races, too - the further the deficit, the more frantically you’ll paddle, often making things worse - and for those who’d rather turn it into a more relaxing pursuit, there’s a mode which involves guiding ten baby ducks to their mother. Golf and bowling return, the former with eighteen holes and finer (though not Tiger-beating) control, while the latter has a ten-frame 100-pin mode, with MotionPlus offering more exaggerated spin.

Finally, there’s Air Sports, which brings us back to the skydiving (this time allowing you to clasp hands with your fellow divers as you fall for point-scoring photo opportunities), and another highlight in the form of an island flyover - again, you’ll be pining for Pilotwings. Holding the remote between your thumb and forefinger to guide your plane, you can simply admire the views from above, or swoop down to pick up icons representing points of interest. There are eighty in all, with each ten collected offering a bonus, the first giving you balloons to pop, with others letting you fly at night, or stamping your Mii’s face onto a blimp circling the island - which then shows up in some of the other games.

It’s just one of myriad touches which make Resort far more charming and Nintendo-like than its somewhat sterile predecessor, which just felt like a collection of disparate events thrown together. The constant presence of Miis is a regular delight, especially if your Mii Channel is filled with celebs or friends and family - you’ll see Hitler watching you play table tennis, grab Charlie Brown’s hand while skydiving, or go bowling with Einstein. You’ll even witness them crowded around a beach bonfire, and hear them cheer as you perform a perfect barrel roll overhead. It’ll make you laugh, too - the first time you enter ’sudden death’ during the first swordplay mode, when you hit a return in table tennis that whacks your poor opponent in the face, or when you accidentally wrap your wakeboarder around a pole.

Complaints? Some kind of bare-bones two-player online would be great for those games where you’ve got the beating of your friends and family and would like more serious competition, or a Mario Kart Wii-esque series of fortnightly challenges to keep things fresh. It’s undeniably disappointing that there aren’t more simultaneous four-player games - understandable, given the expense required, but even so… And while all games offer a decent long-term challenge to the solo player (it’ll take hours upon hours to reach superstar class on some events, or to beat the champion in others), some of the best events are a little short on modes. You’ll wish Nintendo had removed the cycling and power-cruising, kept bowling and golf as part of Wii Sports, and fleshed out the likes of wakeboarding and Air Sports, or introduced more Archery challenges. But then you get the impression that someone, somewhere would miss those modes. Given that the game’s remit is essentially to be as inclusive as possible, you can forgive Nintendo - to a point - for spreading things a little too thinly.

So will it convince the masses about MotionPlus? Possibly, though casual gamers might find some of the more exacting tests too frustrating to learn, too difficult to master, while few will spot any really noticeable differences between the new-and-improved golf and bowling. There’s nothing with the kind of seismic impact of that first go at Wii Sports tennis, though table tennis and swordplay are surely defining early moments for MotionPlus, with the latter (along with archery) hinting at how the next Zelda might feel. Some core gamers, meanwhile - and there’s evidence of this already in previews and early reviews - will bemoan a seeming lack of depth, though extended play with all twelve activities reveals a less forgiving, more nuanced game than its celebrated predecessor.

Whatever its failures as a showcase for the hardware it’s bundled with, Resort is a triumph as a sequel.  The original’s tennis game remains an unparalleled four-player treat, but otherwise it’s hard to see anyone wanting to go back (and at fifty pounds more than the original, that’s exactly how it should be). Its setting is arguably the real star of the show - with the bluest skies outside a Sega game, sunsets that would make Michael Bay envious, and a cast of thousands of happy, smiling Miis, it’s hard not to play with a similarly cheery grin on your face. Some will dismiss it as little more than a collection of minigames - an observation that’s not entirely untrue - but that would be to ignore just how enjoyable it is. Ultimately, Wii Sports Resort is a beautifully-crafted piece of superior family entertainment. Revolutionary? Not really. Fun? Absolutely. And that should be all that matters.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 11:24 pm by Chris Schilling
Reviews, Wii Sports Resort.