Good news for Wii owners that need another Wii-mote. Bad news for gamers looking for a solid Wii outing.
This is certainly the case with one of Nintendo’s newest outings, Wii Play.
Following in the trends of other Wii games such as Rayman Raving Rabbids and WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Wii Play is best described as a collection of nine minigames on one Wii disc. These small games all make good use of the new technology the Nintendo Wii has to offer, but eventually fall flat with their lack of variety and depth.
Out of these nine said games, three of them could actually be considered worthy of multiple plays. The best of these three is undoubtedly the game Tanks! Using the Nunchuck attachment and Wiimote to play, players guide a single tank across 100 top-down perspective levels of tank battling fun. While ricocheting shots off walls and using power-ups is obviously the most enjoyable part, it’s the many different types of enemies and numerous levels that will keep gamers coming back for more.
The other two rather enjoyable games on Wii Play are Billiards and Shooting. Billiards is naturally a very solid 9 ball pool simulation that allows players to use the Wiimote as a pool stick. With its surprisingly in-depth control, players are allowed to control stick force and even put spin on the cueball for those tough shots. Shooting on the other hand pays homage to the days of Duck Hunt by allowing players to aim their Wiimote at the screen in order to shoot targets in a shooting range type environment. Making sure to keep the action fresh, numerous shooting games are available from can shooting to target shooting.
While these three games definitely make Wii Play entertaining, three other games out of the nine could also be considered fun, but require a little more fine-tuning and variety. Find Mii is basically a virtual game of Where’s Waldo with user created avatars better known as Mii’s, whereas Charge! is a simple racing game that requires turning the Wiimote like a steering wheel and other sporadic movements to steer a cow-riding Mii across the finish line.
The best out of these three moderately fun games is a simple little game known as Laser Hockey. By adding flashy neon colored lights along with the intuitive way the Nintendo Wii controls, Laser Hockey is a quick and fun little game of virtual air hockey. Using the Wiimote to control the neon paddles as the puck zooms to and fro across the table is fairly enjoyable, but as is the case with real air hockey, the controls will often have gamers frustratingly knocking the puck into their own goals.
With three great games and three average games, it’s no doubt that Wii Play has three terrible games. These games have the slimmest of pickings in depth and fun, and will only divert players’ attention one or two times before they find their favorites elsewhere.
Among these games are Pose Mii, Table Tennis, and Fishing. Pose Mii once again uses the player created avatars to play the game, but there really isn’t much to play with this one. The game consists of switching between three Mii poses to match the corresponding pose in a floating bubble. Players are required to twist the remote to match the exact pose, but if one bubble reaches the bottom of the screen, a life is used. It may be quite tedious and annoying, but it isn’t as much of a waste as the Table Tennis and Fishing minigames are.
Table Tennis may seem like a good premise for a motion capable gaming system, but it is severely hindered in the movement department. Instead of allowing gamers to actually swing their arms to virtually swing paddles in-game, Table Tennis really only relies on moving the virtual paddle to where the ball is while the computer does the rest. It’s incredibly boring, but not as boring as Fishing. Fishing only requires that players move their Wiimote around a virtual pond in order to attract and catch fish. Another seemingly in-depth activity ruined completely by a lack of options and variety as all that is required of a player is to yank up on the controller to catch fish, instead of a possible reeling motion with the Nunchuck controller.
While Wii Play is undoubtedly lacking in a variety of options, there are some things worth contemplating when considering a purchase. The first is the inclusion of two-player mode for all games. It’s assured that some games may be a snore fest, but playing with a friend tends to make any horrible game a slight bit more bearable.
The other important thing to remember is that Wii Play is packaged with a Wiimote Controller. These controllers are typically $40 when bought new in a store, but players will only spend $50 on the packaging of a Wii controller and the nine previously mentioned minigames. This basically boils down to $10 for the games, which will surely help some people sleep at night when they realize how discouraging a handful of the games can be. Overall, gamers searching for an extra Wii controller should definitely go out of there way to pick this up. Yet gamers looking for a few more ways to experience the power of the Wii should steer clear of Wii Play and go straight for WarioWare and Rayman instead.