Wii Sports Resort - review

The first Wii Sports game was a curio, designed to ease gamers (and, as it turned out, non-gamers) into the waggle-waggle nonsense that controls most Wii games. It would be harsh to call it a collection of tech demos (that was Wii Play) but it would also be overly praising to call it a proper game.  As it came bundled with the console, I don't think anyone felt hard done by but would I have bought it had it been a boxed game sitting on Amazon's virtual shelf alongside the Wii when I bought the console?  About as likely as I would have bought (or got my Mum and step-father to buy, rather) the free games bundled with my Spectrum in 1983 (something to do with population graphs of foxes and rabbits)?

That's not to say I didn't enjoy Wii Sports, I did - a lot. I very rarely played it  on my own, only with my daughter - 5-and-a-half when I first bought the machine  - and, on a few occasions, with the type of non-gaming relatives that Ant & Dec rustle up for their Wii TV ads.  I liked the baseball, golf and bowling, the tennis was OK and the boxing was a bit hit-and-miss (pun very much intended) and some of the mini games were good (target golf rocks) but overall it didn't offer much as a videogame experience.

Fast forward two years or so and, in time-honoured videogame fashion, the sequel has rolled up.  Rather than a simple retread, the game this time round is bundled with a motion sensor doo-hickey (a technical term) that better  measures the motion of the Wii Remote when the sensor end is not directly pointed at the TV/motion bar.  [EDIT (thanks Warren!)] The Motion Plus can detect movement on a 1-to-1 basis. which the vanilla Wii Remote could not, meaning the Motion Plus should offer a deeper gameplay experience.

And I think it does.  The additional scope that the Motion Plus gives allows there to be more - and more varied - games.  Twelve different types this time but some of those hide different variations that, effectively, amount to different games.  For example, 'Swordplay', one of the twelve game types, hides a 1-on-1 fight on a podium, a two-player vegetable/fruit/assorted tuht first-to-ten slashathon and a one-player 'take them all on, one by one' fight, the only link between the three being the holding of a sword.

All the games and game types are set on Wuhu Island, a sporting-themed tropical resort (think Center Parcs in the South Pacific).  I've read that Nintendo think of the island as a character in itself and anticipate it returning in future games.  I'm not sure about that but I did think, as I was flying around the island on 'Island Flyover', a single player plane-based search 'em up, that I'd quite fancy driving around the island on a few Mario Kart tracks.

In all these types of mini game  collections, there tends to be  some games that you play more than others and that's what I've found with Wii Sports Resort. I've played a lot of Swordplay (my daughter is strangely attracted to whacking my Mii was a sword) and also wakeboarding, dogfight (not part of an Essex simulator but a two player aeroplane duel over Wuhu Island) and table tennis.  All of these very much rely upon the Motion Plus as even minute adjustments of the Remote have (and need to have) an onscreen effect (I've noticed this most in Dogfighting, flying your plane by gentle adjustments of your wrist).

Bowling and golf both make a return and both are improved.  I'm not sure if it is the Motion Plus that makes bowling better but it certainly plays more accurately  (bowling is probably the only 'sport' included in either game that I have played much in the real world) than in the first game.  Golf has definitely  been improved with the new tech though - your backswing is now important and you can put backspin on the ball, handy for those tricky approach shots/wild slashes from the rough.  I've only ever played pitch and putt golf in the real world but it now seems a better model of the golfing experience.  Not in a Tiger Woods sense, although the Motion Plus would no doubt help should 'apres golf' be on the menu for Tiger Woods PGA Tour All-Play 2011.

Wii Sports Resort is now being bundled with the Wii (along with the first game), so all new owners, like my in-laws, get to view both games side by side.  I wonder if those new owners will do more than scratch the surface of the old game, given how superior Wii Sports Resort is.  That has been the case with my in-laws, who've barely played Wii Sports in the face of their growing addiction to Wii Sports Resort.  I said above that I wouldn't have bought Wii Sports had it been a boxed game but I did buy Wii Sports Resort (and an extra Motion Plus) and it has been well worth it.  Highly recommended, particularly if you have children.