"Wii Sports 2: The Revenge"

When Wii Sports released with the Nintendo Wii system back in 2006, it was often referred to as a “glorified tech demo”. The amount of content was limited, but it showed off some of the possible applications of the new motion controls the system boasted. Even still, what little content was there proved to be a fun “party game” experience for a long time after.

Wii Sports Resort is in a similar situation. The game sets out to show off Nintendo’s new peripheral, the Wii Motion Plus. Will Wii Sports Resort be able to have the same effect on people that the original Wii Sports had? Will it have enough replay value to stay “in rotation” for multiplayer?

Because it is essentially a minigame collection, the best way to get the answers to these questions is by taking a look at each of the games contained within Wii Sports Resort individually.

Swordplay

The first mode in Swordplay is “Duel”. The camera sits behind a transparent version of your Mii, much like the perspective in Punch-Out!!. Your sword mimics the angles you hold the wiimote in very well. The direction in which you swing is matched on-screen with your actions. Holding “B” will put you in a defensive stance. If the swords cross in a perpendicular fashion, the blow is blocked and the offender is stunned. When stunned, you cannot attack, though you can still block to a lesser degree. The objective in Duel is to knock your opponent out of the ring. While this is fun against a human, it doesn’t get terribly exciting against a computer opponent until much later difficulty levels.

The next mode is “Speed Slice”; another one-on-one game. Targets are thrown toward you and you need to slice them in the direction of an arrow before your opponent does. The first to successfully slice the object in the correct direction is awarded a point. Sometimes the targets linger before finally dropping into site, adding an extra level of suspense. This mode is only fun with human opponents.

The final mode in Swordplay is singleplayer-only. “Showdown” can best be described as an “on-rails sword fighting game”. The controls are identical to Duel, but you are fighting groups of opponents and are automatically progressing through a level toward an end. I actually had a lot of fun with this mode and could see how a much more fleshed out version of it (i.e. using the nunchuck for movement) could be used for a full-fledged action game.

Basketball

“3-Point Contest” has you trying to make as many successful shots as possible from various spots behind the three-point-line. Your aim and power are both determined by the way you perform your throw with the wiimote. It feels great and is fun both alone and with other players.

“Pickup Game” on the other hand, is unbearably boring against the cpu. Luckily, it is moderately fun with others. It’s a three-on-three game and you’ll be passing, dribbling, blocking shots, stealing, and trying to make as many successful shots as you can before the buzzer sounds.

Wakeboarding

I’ll get this out of the way: Wakeboarding did not grab my attention. Holding the wiimote sideways, you can turn your board left and right. When going over a wave, flicking the wiimote upwards will cause your Mii to jump and perform a trick. In order to actually get the resulting points, however, you must make sure that your board is level with the water below when you land. I consider it to be a snooze-fest overall.

Archery

Archery was among my favorites for multiplayer. Rather than relying on the IR sensor for aiming, the wiimote must be held upright like a bow. The Wii Motion Plus very accurately determines your aim based on how you move the wiimote. Further targets will require aiming higher up. Wind, obstacles, and moving targets help keep Archery feeling fresh.

Frisbee

I felt the mechanics of throwing a Frisbee where better executed in the “disc golf” mode of “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10“. Even still, my movements felt very one-to-one. I enjoyed “Frisbee Dog”, a mode involving trying to land the Frisbee in the center of targets and/or through balloons, more than Frisbee Golf. However, both modes were definitely not among my favorites.

Power Cruising

Power Cruising makes my arms tired. You hold the wiimote and nunchuck out in front of you like the handlebars of a jet ski. Turning is obvious enough, but what comes off as more clever is the twisting of the wiimote to boost. Boosting off of waves will cause you to go even faster as you try to drive though arches without getting thrown off course from the waves. It’s all right, but definitely something I would only feel like playing in small doses.

Cycling

You move your hands like your pedaling with them. Those very same hands also need to steer. I don’t know what kind of bikes Miyamoto is use to riding, but this mode is simply bizarre and not particularly engaging.

Golf

Golf works much like it did in the original Wii Sports, but with a few key differences. Fade and draw are now handled with the way the wiimote is twisted, there are more courses, and power is more sensitive. If you’ve already played Tiger with Wii Motion Plus, this will feel like crap by comparison.

Table Tennis

I play table tennis around five days a week and was shocked at how well this actually read my spins and chops. Unlike Wii Sports Tennis, whether you are performing a backhand or not is critical. You can even slam the ball. Table Tennis and Dueling in Swordplay where the only modes I found addicting to play against the computer, though both are still better against human opponents.

Bowling

Bowling really hasn’t changed much since the original Wii Sports. In addition to the normal game, you can play a mode where every frame has one-hundred pins or one where each frame is its own obstacle course.

Canoeing

Out of all of the games in Wii Sports Resort, Canoeing will probably make you look the most ridiculous. The wiimote is your paddle as you alternate moving it in a scooping motion to the left and right. Though it is more fun than it sounds, it’s definitely one of the weaker experiences.

"Everybody's favorite resort activity: flying an airplane!"

Air Sports

Last, but not least, we have Air Sports. “Skydiving” has you tilting the wiimote to glide your body toward other skydivers in order to catch them. “Island Flyover” has you holding the wiimote like a paper airplane as you try to find different locations on Wuhu Island.

The final Air Sport, “Dogfight”, is multiplayer exclusive. As the name suggests, you try to take down your opponent by firing at them. Periodically, more health will appear randomly throughout the island to collect. Crashing results in your health being reduced by half. The battle ends when either one player’s health is depleted or time runs out. The three Air Sports really made me want to see Nintendo make a new Pilotwings game for the Wii.

Final Thoughts

The twelve sports contained in this package are pretty “hit or miss”. Thankfully, “hits” such as Swordplay, Table Tennis, and Archery make it a worthy purchase for Wii owners looking for another fun and easy to learn multiplayer game. A scaling difficulty based on your performance makes even some of the singleplayer modes fun. The Wii Motion Plus works well in a variety of settings and the much larger number of sports available will help Resort to last longer than its predecessor. For the $50 price tag, the game will only score you one Wii Motion Plus dongle, but a certain other game’s bundle can get you your second at a reasonable price.

“Wario Ware: Touched!” is one of the first games to have been released on the Nintedo DS when it made it’s debut in late 2004. I missed it the first time around, but had always heard it was one of the best games to show off the touch screen functionality of the system.

When you first boot up the game, there is a little bit of a story revolving around Wario eating junk food and needing to go to the dentist which drags on a little too long. This is in sharp contrast to the incredibly fast paced “microgames” that make up the bulk of this title.

As you progress, you unlock more characters, each with their own set of microgames. They generally follow a theme. One character’s games revolve around spinning things, one revolves around using the microphone, another are all themed like NES games, etc.

The down side is, the little bit of story that is there really only slows things down. Once you have finished the incredibly easy main game, you can go back and play harder and harder versions of the microgame collections. You even unlock a few characters that are there just to combine harder versions of the other characters’ games together and randomize them.

While it is a fun title, “WarioWare: Touched!’ is one of those games you can breeze through in a couple hours. Since it is so old now, it is most likely around in bargain bins and worth picking up at a discounted price, just to get in on the crazyness.

"Thanks for helping me move, Kratos"

We all have those games that we miss the first time around. With the busy release schedule of modern gaming, no one has time to play everything. That is why we at WingDamage present to you “Fashionably Late Reviews“. This is our series on games from the current generation of consoles that we may have missed on their initial release, but have gone back to experience now.

The transition of God of War from console to hand-held was as smooth as one could possibly hope for.  The design of the PSP lends itself so well to this bloody platformer that it easily ranks high on the ‘Must-Have’ of any starter PSP game collection.

“God of War: Chains of Olympus” acts as a sort of prequel to the main games, fleshing out Kratos as a character and giving a bit more back-story. The actual plot involves quite a bit of mystery, so not much can be said without spoiling, but pressure of the ‘everyone-in-the-world-will-die’ variety is certainly on you.

Meanwhile, you, the player, learn of his daughter as her specter haunts him throughout the game, especially when he enters the Underworld.

That’s right. The Underworld. One of the greatest things about this game is the level locations. You almost literally ride the sun, go down into Tartarus, and all of the levels, though containing familiar items like pots and columns, are drastically different, making each one fun to explore.

There is very little graphical detail lost; the game looks almost identical to the Playstation 2 precursors and plays the same way. The only difficulty I had was the analog (joystick / nub) proved a bit harder to maneuver than the toggles of a PS2 controller. This only really came into play during the mini-games, which come with a bit more frequency than I recall from the original two. Be warned: If you do not like the events that may be timed or have to be executed in a specific manner, you may not enjoy this game as much.

The only real failing point of this game is the learning curve. I saw someone beat the entire game on Easy mode in less than five hours. Move it up one level to Normal and you’re going to spend a lot of time dying… over and over again. It got so bad, the game itself asked me if I wanted to switch to Easy Mode. Failsauce.

If you’re thinking of picking up a PSP, I strongly suggest making this one of your first games. It’s gratifying and fun, easy to pick up, easy to pause and come back to, has a strong plot, intriguing and challenging puzzles to solve, and of course, a crazy cool main character.