This title sounds like it's shaping up to be a worthy sequel to Wii Sports!
http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_documents/090113WiisportsResort.aspx
Well, wouldn’t you know it!? Wii Sports, the game that launched this whole Wii fad, is back, but this time we’re off to the beach! Although many assumed when the inevitable follow-up was announced it would have more generic sports, Nintendo has surprised us again. You’d think we’d have learned by now!
Although we only got our mitts on three of the games, Nintendo claims, if possible, they’ll try and work in ten or more. Obviously this is subject to change, but we definitely hope Resort has more activities than Wii Sports did. The three games that have been announced so far are Disc Dog, Sword Play and Power Cruising.
Let’s start at the top… Disc Dog is definitely the most surprising of the bunch. Only Nintendo could decide that hurling a frisbee in such a manner to a pet pooch would work as a videogame but, lo and behold, this is the path they’ve chosen to take. The real appeal comes thanks to the recently announced MotionPlus add-on. Included in the Wii Sports Resort package, it allows precision movement.
This means that when you have to throw something, in this case a disc, it responds near perfectly to how it would if you were doing such a thing in real life. Surprisingly, Disc Dog is actually quite hard. We were sure we’d impress everyone watching our attempts with ease; instead, our frisbee went miles off to the side and our mutt glanced at us with disapproving eyes. Sorry, doggy!
Now, because we have so many friends, we were allowed an extended demo of Disc Dog. Katsuya Eguchi showed us that there are numerous ways to the throw the frisbee and people who experiment with it can invent some really interesting throws. Eguchi threw the disc overhand, underhand and even between his legs. Granted, all three were pretty poor tosses, but it really did highlight how flexible Wii MotionPlus is.
Next up was Sword Play, which again makes use of MotionPlus. As we’re sure you can already imagine, holding the Wii Remote becomes the equivalent of holding a sword. Move it left and your on-screen Mii will do the same; turn it horizontally and you can even block attacks.
Before each fight, you’re allowed to get used to the controls by chopping up bits of wood and even a pencil! The control is so precise that, if you’re skilled enough, you can even sharpen the pencil’s nib! We screwed up every time we tried. Naturally this is just the appetiser before taking your (plastic) blade to an opponent. The aim? To knock them off the edge!
We genuinely believe that after some more hands-on time we’d be able to intelligently and precisely tear someone apart, but in this instance it resulted in hurling the Remote around like a madman. Luckily for us, we discovered that strong attacks were done by holding the controller far above your head before bringing it down with force. The strike was so powerful, we knocked our foe to the floor with only four shots!
Finally, we were able to go hands-on with Power Cruising, easily the most impressive and innovative of the bunch. Positioning both hands as if they were holding onto a jet ski’s handlebars, you steer the craft by moving appropriately. It’s amazing how intuitive it feels and after a few corners we were flying around the course; it was definitely satisfying!
What we really got a kick out of, however, was what we had to do to boost. After successfully navigating your way through a few gates, your boost bar will fill up. To activate it, you make a revving motion with your Remote hand – as if it were a throttle – and boom, away you go! Regrettably we were only allowed to experience this on our lonesome, but we can imagine that with a friend events will really heat up fast! Even better than this was Katsuya’s claim that Power Cruising will be more in-depth than Wave Race 64!
Hopefully Nintendo will announce more mini-games soon (it has been indicated that there will be at least 10 games included in the final product). If Wii Sports Resort is to really compete with its older brother (which still gets thrashed mercilessly in the office), it’s going to have to offer more depth. We’re definitely intrigued but we need more, more, more!
