Published by Nintendo

Rated “E” for Everyone. Contains Cartoon Violence

Here we have the sequel to the highest-selling video game of all time. Where Wii Sports was merely five demo games included in the box, Wii Sports Resort is a full-featured title, delivering the depth and investment Nintendo normally puts into one of their standard games. There are twelve activities here, each offering a range of different modes and unlockables, all brought together with a virtual island and a vacation theme. While it’s just as easy to pick up and play as the original, the absolute need for the new MotionPlus accessory makes it’s a very expensive game to share amongst friends and family.

The MotionPlus is an included Wii Remote add-on that allows the system to track movements that include your wrist and forearm. Combined with an included software upgrade to the sensor bar’s sensitivity the Nintendo Wii can now track the way your wrist snaps or the way your forearm angles when you perform movements like tossing a Frisbee or making a backhand serve in table tennis.

Yes, this allows for more accurate controls, yes, it allows Nintendo to simulate more complex motion, but its yet-another-accessory for the Wii and one that offers no benefit for previous games.

Bound to be a point of frustration for many, Wii Sports Resort will not play unless a MotionPlus accessory is connected. Whether Nintendo feels it would cause too much confusion or are simply looking to force the use of their new product, there is no option to play any of the activities using the traditional controls, even bowling and golf, the two sports carried over from the original.

Much of the popularity of Wii Sports came from the fun of playing the game with others, but to do this with Wii Sports Resort you will need to buy an additional $24 MotionPlus for each added controller. Most families have already gone through this exercise, buying extra Wii Remotes at $45 each and extra Nunchuk controllers at $25 each. The thought of having to do this again will no doubt drive many parents to seething outrage.

To tie all twelve activities together around a family vacation theme, Nintendo has created Wuhu, a fictional island in the South Pacific. Each sport takes place on a different section of Wuhu and you can explore it as a whole while piloting a plane in the Air Sports activity.

Although Wuhu is little more than a backdrop, it adds a great sense of character and builds a relationship between each of the sports, simply by letting you see the playing fields for the others in the background. I’d love to see Nintendo expand on the island’s presence with customs, seasons, and celebrations that could change up the look and feel of each of the activities; add fireworks, special costumes, or background chanting for specific days of the calendar. If Wuhu seems familiar to Wii Fit users, I believe it is the same location used in the Island Run exercise.

Aside from the more accurate controls, the activities in Wii Sports Resort are better simply because they have more depth. Each activity comes with a range of different playing modes, including both difficulty levels and entirely different rules, plus unlockable secrets such as the stamps which are awarded when you reach specific goals. This makes it very difficult to wear out any of the games, allowing them to offer new surprises even after months of play.

The twelve activities are:

Swordplay – Dressed in protective, padded gear and wielding plastic swords, players attempt to drive each other off of a suspended platform into a lake by madly whacking at each other. You can attack and block by holding the sword in any direction and in this way counter the other’s moves.

Although a far cry from the Japanese art of Kendo, it works as a fun, zany party game and delivers the collection’s best back-and-forth action. Two added modes allow you to compete in a master cut competition, executing specific slices against tossed fruit on command, and rampaging up a hill to take on a horde of one hundred computer-controlled opponents.

Fun, but easily defeated, once you figure out the pattern (always attack from the direction your opponent’s sword tip is facing. If above, attack from above, if right, attack from the right, etc. )

Wakeboarding – Holding the Wii Remote sideways as a handle, you guide your wakeboarder to skim across a boat’s wake. By jerking the controller upwards you can perform stunts and air moves, earning points as long as you keep the controller flat when you land. The water effects and the lake environment make for impressive visuals, but the sport itself is likely to be a passing habit only.

Frisbee – What start’s off as a cute exercise where you toss a Frisbee to a dog on the beach quickly morphs into a naddiction with its alternate mode, Frisbee Golf. Leaving the cute pup behind you get to take your disc out onto the golf course and really test out the MotionPlus controls by trying to make the disc hover to marked areas on the green. Here is the game that will inspire real competition and should lead to Wii tournaments the way Wii Bowling and Wii Tennis already have.

Archery – I’ve spent years pulling a bow myself and am happy to say that Nintendo has put together an admirable “Wii sim”. Holding the Wii Remote as the bow, you pull back on the Nunchuck controller and release to loose the arrow. The longer you hold the bow, the more focused your aiming reticule becomes. As you progress through the difficulty levels, the targets are placed further back, in windy channels, behind obstacles and on moving platforms. This is one of the better technical simulations on the disc and rewarding in the sense you feel like you’re honing a real skill.

Basketball – Here you literally jump up into the air and press the A button to simulate shooting a ball at the hoop. The game takes you through a number of shooting challenges and even includes a 3-on-3 pick-up game where you can dribble, block, and try to score against a friend’s players. Similar to Wii Baseball, it’s a weak simulation of the game, but worth the occasional play for fun. The best part, with practice you can do slam dunks.

Table Tennis – Similar to Wii Tennis but now with MotionPlus you have better control over your serves and, as in real life, the table is smaller and so the action is faster. In addition to the standard match you can unlock a Return Challenge mode where you have to return as many serves as you can while obstacles are added to the table.

Golf – Just as it was in Wii Sports, but now with a new course and better control with MotionPlus. Now when you swing, the curve of your follow-through is better accounted for. Far from a seasoned Wii Golf player, I now find the game harder personally.

Bowling – By contrast I find bowling significantly easier with MotionPlus, allowing for better control of the ball. Visually more impressive, the real reason to play bowling here is for the alternate modes where you can choose to play with 100 pins instead of ten. Oh how satisfying strikes are when there’s a hundred pins toppling over. A second alternate, Spin Control, places obstacles on the lane for you to throw the ball around. Just as it was on the first Wii Sports, bowling is one of the best in the collection.

Power Cruising – Here you ride through an obstacle course on a jet ski, maneuvering past columns of rock and trying to zip through hoops for extra points. Aside from the controls, you hold the Wii Remote and Nunchuck sideways like handle bars, this feels just like an arcade game. Like the wakeboarding, the water effects make for a visually impressive game, but the gameplay is too casual and bound to be an activity you’ll only visit occasionally.

Canoeing – By far the least exciting of the events, canoeing has you miming the motions of paddling to steer a canoe through an obstacle course. While the barrels and ducks make for a comical challenge, paddling in a race is an activity that gets old quick. What’s needed is a more exploratory adventure where you paddle to discover, not to beat your last time to a finish line.

Cycling – Although similar in concept to canoeing, you pump the Wii Remote and Nunchuck in your hands to simulate pumping the peddles of a bike, here you compete in a race of thirty to fifty other riders. Pump too often and your rider weakens and loses breath allowing you to glide instead. More than just looking for turns to overtake other riders, you can exploit the slipstream of the lead rider to gain speed. That combined with the obstacles (crosswinds and banana peels) and the variety of island trails help make it a better event than it might first seem.

Air Sports – This is really two sports in one. In Skydiving you must hold the Wii Remote flat and orient it to guide your Mii character to maneuver through freefall to connect with other Miis in order to create formations. It’s a cute distraction.

The real activity is the Island Flyover where you pilot a plane and explore the island as a whole. This is one of my personal favorites as you can unlock so many secrets, starting out first to simply look for Points Of Interest icons, then with added modes to pop and collect balloons. As you progress you can unlock additional effects including night modes, fireworks, and your own flare gun.

In addition to flying on your own, you can also have a friend jump into a plane for dog fights where you chase each other across the island, trying to pop each other’s balloons. After the intensity of some of the more active sports, the relaxing Island Flyover is a much needed and rewarding downtime activity, I only wish it didn’t come with a timer and left you more time to fly.

Wii Sports Resort is far and away a better collection of games than the original, offering both improved graphics and more features. Several of the games are addictive and bound to inspire the kind of parties and tournaments that the Wii has become known for. The best I can say about the game is that the more hours I put into it, the more entertainment it delivers, an important element considering its added expense.

That Nintendo couldn’t find a way to make the MotionPlus controls optional is unfortunate as it takes away one of the Wii’s competitive edges; its lower price tag. Nintendo says that MotionPlus will find its use in future Wii games and will make a difference, a promise that the company cannot meet with Wii Sports Resort alone, and so will need to prove that investment with its next wave of games.