PDC World Championship Darts 2009 (Wii) - Review by Chris

Introduction

Darts, the quintessentially British pub game. Coming to the mainstream during the 1960's, darts soon took pride of place on many TV stations around the world as the sport grew in popularity. Attempts have been made to bring the sport and the raucous atmosphere that accompanies it to games consoles across the many generations to varying degrees of success but none have really nailed down the feeling the you are actually playing the sport. So Oxygen Games have returned with a sequel to their 2008 iteration with more emphasis having been placed on pin pointing the controls and providing the best darts experience yet.

Gameplay

The first thing to say about the title is that you won't be short of things to do. Coming into the main menu, you have a good selection of options, from exhibition mode to career amongst others. The game offers a wide range of flexibility for those looking for different modes depending on the amount of time they have to play. Exhibition mode allows up to two players to jump into a match seamlessly and very quickly, giving you the opportunity to create your own rules and length for the match. It's great because it means that you can instantly jump into the title and start playing and is great for when you have company round. The career mode, though, is somewhere where you'll spend most of your time. It's a very extensive mode offering up all of the sport's major championships and competitions, from the US Open to the World Championship to the World Match Play. They're all in there and replicated well, with the respective arenas reproduced to a decent standard, although small concessions have been made in bringing them to the Wii. Because there are so many events to play through on the career mode, and they'll all take a considerable period of time to play through, you'll always have something to do in it and the inclusion of the order of merit and world rankings of your character within the game means you'll always have something to spur you on to improve yourself and your rankings which is good.

Along with these modes, Oxygen has included a mode titled 'Play It Your Way' where you can create your own mini tournaments and leagues that can be played with up to 8 players. It's a very robust mode allowing for a varying combination of input from the gamer and adds a great deal to the longevity of the game. Unfortunately, like many games nowadays, a Party Games mode has been included and while this allows for some variations on the basic rules of the game and play for between two and four players, it's something that could have been incorporated into the exhibition mode and not made its own mode. It just seems like by calling it the mode Party Games it'll detract from the experience and some gamers may give it a miss because of the title. Finally, the game offers a Custom Characters mode where you can create your own persona and take it in the games various modes. This mode has a stock selection of attributes you can use to change up the style of your caricature yet this selection is very small leaving little room for variation in the overall look of your character and their darts and throwing style. It's a good inclusion but it could have done with some more variety.

Controls

Oxygen Games have clearly put a lot of work in on replicating the experience of throwing a dart for the game. The controls are very intuitive and reminiscent of what you'd actually do to throw the dart. Using simply the Wii-mote, you use the pointer to aim at the region of the board where you want to throw and pressing the A button locks the cursor in place. You the simple gesture to throw the Wii-mote, letting go of the A button at the end of the throw to complete it. It's very simple but does take some getting used to especially when it comes to hitting those trebles or doubles. They have provided a throw meter that shows you the strength of your throw and it highlights where you should aim for in the meter to get the dart to where you are aiming but the meter only fills once you've thrown and so you have no way of working out your speed or trajectory until you've completed the throw. There is also an assist that can be turned to one of three settings to help different age groups or players and while it does help slightly, it doesn't provide much of an improvement. It basically comes down to trial and error until you have fully grasped the controls and when you do, hitting the numbers becomes incredibly easy. It's just getting over the hill that provides some complications.

Graphics

It would be ignorant to say that it seemed that more work had gone into the controls than the games graphical presentation but it does seem that way. It's by no means horrible to look at. In fact, some of it looks good but for the majority of the game it looks very average. Character models are well done, with Oxygen providing 18 real life likenesses to the world's top darts players and they all look like they should, although there are some differences and the animation of these isn't exactly top notch but it's still good enough for the experience.. The arenas themselves are large enough but everything looks low resolution and it seems that the developers have tried to cover this up by using an excessive amount of bloom lighting. The crowd, at least for the player's walk in, is animated amicably but when it comes to actually playing, they remain most inanimate and it doesn't really lend itself truly to the experience of playing darts that you see on the TV. The menus are also incredibly dull, mixing a blue background with a dartboard which has been hued in blue with red tags for the modes and options. It's very minimalistic.

Sound

While the graphics may not fully reflect the overall experience of the sport, the sound sure does. Oxygen have managed to wrangle Sid Waddell in to provide commentary and the referees are voiced by Russ Bray and Bruce Spendley so you get the authentic audio experience of the sport and the crowd's audio is equally well done, if only a little quiet. Overall, the audio is extremely well.

Final comments

I'll agree that darts isn't exactly the most exciting of sports and the playing a game of it doesn't appear to be much fun, especially if you don't enjoy watching it, but what Oxygen have provided with this 2009 iteration in the series is by far the best darts game available on the market. It provides a large amount action to play through with enough here to keep you coming back. The controls are simplistic yet intuitive and really, the games only real shortcomings are a result of the graphics, which do let it down as the rest of the presentation and gameplay is of a high standard. Perhaps it's something that can be sorted with next year's inevitable sequel. As it is, this is the best you'll get if you're looking for a darts title on any console.

Pro: Intuitive controls, plenty modes and options, authentic audio for the complete experience
Con: Some over sensitivity issues with the controls, average visuals, lack of options for creating your own character
Final score: 6.8

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