Wii Sports Resort is one of my best games ever!

It must blow your mind how many millions of people fork over money for these shovelware tech demos. What fools! They have no idea what fun is really about.

Here's a hint for you. If you make something, charge people money for it, and earn millions of customers and billions of dollars, it's not a demo. It's a product. A very successful product. That goes for Gran Turismo Prologue, too.

Wow, Mr. Negativity is here.

@digitalentourage

How is WSR shovelware. its one of the best games i've played this gen. it has alot of polish and depth to it

Wii Sports Resort, Wii Sports, Wii Fit are certainly original products and important in many ways. They succeeded at introducing a certain kind of videogaming to a whole new mass audience and they pioneered some new ways of direct interaction. I only own WiiSports, as they are not my cup of tea, but I can even understand if someone finds them great and wants to write enthusiastically about what he/she likes.

But regarding the article: where is its "depth"? I asked if it was ironic in a previous post because there are so many silly statements, wrapped in a pretentious prose. It truly led me to think that it was a satire of some of the over-analyzing and opaque works that sources like Edge are sometimes guilty of.

I could quote the worst offenders, but frankly they are there for anyone to read them, such as the way the author stretches the meaning of narrative way beyond the breaking point, so much that I suppose he must by the same means consider the report of a chess game an accomplished "narrative by gameplay".

Or the final paragraph about how this game will answer some important and completely unrelated questions about the interactive medium, though I can't see exactly how.

So in the end, leaving aside the obvious excitement the author shows about the direct action controls and the originality of this new kind of titles, what deep concept is he conveying behind the smoke-heavy barrage of prose? Try for a moment to forget that he's going nuts over a game you like or even love, and just point me to what you think in the article is significant, original, informative or thought-provoking.

So a game with 12 different sports, each having several unlockable modes, achievements, tough challenges, awesome multiplayer options and hours and hours of gameplay and variety is just like Wii Play?

This is a video game and a classic video game at that. It's been said already by Pyro.

Try playing the game for a few hours to see what we are talking about. It's not an expansion pack, it goes a million miles beyond Wii Sports.

I don't totally agree with the essay, but it is a pretty readable take.

Fixed.

Wii Sports Resort is fun. Why are people comparing it to Halo? Why are people comparing it to Wii Fit and Wii Play. It is fun. Whoever buys it good for them. Whoever doesn't good for them too. End of Story. Sheesh.

I understand why you think the word 'narrative' is being stretched here, but I really can't think of a more suitable word. The author is talking about experiences and ideas that various media create for an audience, and he's using the word narrative to represent those ideas.

All creative media try to craft an experience for the audience and convey certain ideas through that experience. And the kinds of experiences and ideas which can be conveyed are limited by the particular media. Photography conveys an experience with angles and light, cinema focuses on motion and sound, writing uses symbols, rhythm and emphasis, etc.

Many video games borrow heavily from ideas that were designed for other media, as a text adventure borrows heavily from writing techniques or a Metal Gear Solid game borrows heavily from cinema. It wouldn't be that hard to turn a text adventure into a novel or a Metal Gear Solid game into a movie. You'd strip out the interactivity and be left with a dull, but functional set of ideas for a story in one of those media.

The Wii Sports franchise is nothing but pure interactivity. It can't revert effectively to any other media, because the core of it is a dozen different styles of interactivity, rather than a cinematic or literary story with a layer of interactivity woven through it. That's why he describes WSR as a 'pure' video game. The writer of the article finds himself more curious about Wuhu island and drawn into its world as he interacts with it more and more, and not because an author is giving characters dialogue or because a director is showing him sweeping camera arcs. It's an experience where interaction doesn't have to compete with plot, dialogue, or interesting audio/visuals for the attention of the audience, and the audience finds it engaging despite not having any of those aspects.

@famousringo
It's been quite some years since when I studied something about classical rethorical forms, but the point is that you're talking about description, not narration. Leveraging a fictional setting such as the Wuhu island and the activities that you can enjoy there is not narrative, because narration implies a timeline and a sequence of events affecting the characters. To go with your examples most books and movies are examples of narrative, as well as some photographic creations. But not all photos try to tell a story, exactly as not all games do.

Thus the author is simply talking nonsense when he calls it such and when he compares it to the kind of emergent plot that can actually result in open-world games that have proper characters and a concept of key events and consequences.

Again, I understand the value of such a pure gaming experience as WSR or SMG. And being curious or entertained by the setting or by the resemblances of the Miis with famous people is all good for you if it adds value to your experience. It's the foggy, confused and overwritten attempt at an analysis that I found so weird to suggest a parody.

I'm just suggesting that we should not suspend our healthy criticism just because an opinion agrees with our personal inclinations.