Wii Played The Wii - Wii Sports

DS-x2 (and thus Wii-x2 too) got invited to Nintendo's to play-test the Wii console. Head inside to read about our findings.

Late last week, DS-x2 got invited at Nintendo BeNeLux's (that's Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg) headquarters to try out the upcoming Wii console and five titles from its launch line-up. Of course we couldn't let a chance like that slip away and thus I (Dennis) head off towards my local Nintendo HQ.

At Nintendo, I got informed that the taking of video footage and/or photo's of the different games or console was strictly forbidden. So what can I bring you? Hands-on reports on each of the five titles (Wii Sports, Wii Play,Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, Elebits and Zelda: Twilight Princess).

Gaming from Dennis' point of view Although I've been around the Nintendo gaming scene since the introduction of the NES in Europe, I don't consider myself as a console-fan. With the Super NES, the amount of buttons on the controllers started to scare me. The Nintendo 64 made it worse by adding even more buttons for me to figure out and the GameCube made it insane with two sticks, a D-pad and a handload of buttons over the entire controller. Hence why I've always sticked to the trusty Game Boy (Color), Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. My sole reason to try out the Wii was to find out whether or not Nintendo would succeed bringing gamers like myself a reason to return to their console. Nintendo makes plying the Wii look easy, but is it indeed suited for someone not really comfortable with the latest trends in videogaming?

Today we'll start with the first title: Wii Sports.

Wii Sports The first title to try out as Wii Sports, the game packed with (at least) the European console. This title includes five different sports to get you familiar with your wiimote.

Tennis First up was Tennis. Tennis brings you a 2 vs 2 match on the tennis-court. The Wii will take care of all the running for you, your sole task is to swing the wiimote to hit the ball.

Perhaps a bit unneccessary to say, but Tennis does require a load of room. Swinging the wiimote is one thing, but when the Wii also takes your speed of swinging in account, it'll be hard to play this near a wall or another person. Perhaps that was the reason why the Nintendo supervisors warned me about hittng the wall with the wiimote. Apparently my predecessors found out about a new way to open up the wiimote, involving said wall.

Tennis played nicely, although it gets boring after a few rounds. Once you and your opponent(s) get the hang of it, rounds can last quite long. When my opponent also found out that by simply twisting the wiimote in the air he could return every ball I hit at him, the game became quite boring actually. Also, due to the fact that the Wii will take care of the running, I was having the feeling I was playing a more intense tabletennis match.

Baseball Second sport: Baseball. Now this was more like it. One player pitches, the other hits the ball as far as possible. The pitcher has to use the wiimote as a baseball-ball itself. Hold the wiimote in your hand and make a throwing gesture at the screen. Make sure you always use the handstrap supplied with the wiimote, as you don't want both your television set and wiimote destroyed. By holding either the A or Z button on the wiimote, players can also chose to throw fastballs or curveballs at their opponent. The wii will also measure the speed of your gesture, and determine by that how fast the ball will go on the screen. Although the Wii does not allow you to choose where to throw the ball, the pitcher does get a nice feeling of actually throwing the ball.

The batter on the other hand, has a slightly more difficult task. Making a swinging gesture, he can control the bat his Mii is holding. After a few batting rounds, I noticed that I actually started standing like a real baseball-player: bending the legs slightly, standing sideways towards the pitcher on the screen and holding the wiimote with two hands.

While it was proven to me that hitting the ball is not that hard one you get the timing right, hitting the ball right proved to be more difficult. Out of the approximately 50 times I tried hitting the ball, I missed three times, hit four homeruns, and threw in about 35 foul balls. Nonetheless a nice game to play.

Bowling Next up: Bowling. At the time I was ready to play this game, some colleagues from CubeZone.nl entered the room ad joined the game. Bowling should be a game everyone can play. What's so hard about rolling a ball down a straight line, one might ask. The truth is less nice. The question asked should be: how do people get to roll a ball even slower than when trying to blow the ball forwards?

Bowling proved to be a fun game in which players get to make a rolling gesture to throw the ball. By holding down the A-button, the Wii knows you're about to make a rolling gesture. Next up is actually making the rolling gesture where you should pay attention to the speed and curving of your motion, as the Wii will take both in account for determining the speed, direction and spin on your ball. One more small detail is that one must release the A-button when the Mii is supposed to release the ball. Unfortunately this was not something everyone could handle during their first Wii-experience.

Nonetheless, Bowling appeared to be a nice party game. Players take turns, which makes the amount of empty space in your living room a bit more appealing. Just like with real-life bowling, the other players will most likely constantly give you advice on how you should roll that bowlingball and tell you exactly what you're doing wrong. Instant party-fun.

Golf Golf was fourth. Golf proved to be the hardest of all. As with Bowling, Golf takes both speed and curving of the wiimote in account when calculatig your shot. A the Wii will take care of aiming the ball straight at the hole, it's very important not to put any spin on the ball (although it could come in handy when there's a bunker between you and the flag).

Actually hitting the ball right can be very hard. At first you have to hold the A-button on the wiimote to make your character step up to the ball. Remembering to hold that button throughout the entire swing proved to be a bit hard after just playing Bowling, where you had to release the button just before the end of your gesture. The result? Hitting air for about 5 times before you finally hit the ball. And that's it, you hit the ball. Hit it either a gazillion miles further than you expected, see the ball drop 20 inches from the point you started or find out that you made a curve so strong, you can see the ball go straight at the bunker which was left of the hole.

Golf was nice to try, but after playing one hole filled with bunkers and chip-ins with twice the strenght they needed, all of the participants decided it was time to move on to the next game...

Boxing And finally the fifth Wii Sport: Boxing. Basically, this is the classic game Punch-Out using your own two hands. Blocking, hitting, jabbing, avoiding punches, all is done by using the wiimote and nunchuk controller simultaneous.

Boxing was, in my humble opinion, the hardest to follow. It wasn't that clear whether I actually hit my opponent, got hit or whether we were hitting air. You're too much busy trying to follow the movement of your opponent, see you opponent himself hitting air a few feet next to where you're standing (and trying to avoid those real-life punches at the same time) and trying to throw in some punches of yourself too at the same time.

Because the game is really intense and keeps you moving constantly, Boxing did prove to be a great workout. Both me and my opponent started sweating within the first round (and no, we're not chubby or geeky gamers who never play any real sports!).

Boxing would not be my favorite Wii Sport, but nonetheless I'm happy that the game is included.

Overall Wii Sports proves to be a nice demonstration for what the Wii can do with the wiimote. Unfortunately there were a few cons I do want to share.

First of all, the wiimote sensitivity did not to prove to be perfect in this title (other titles proved to me that it differs per game). At some points, such as the menu, the wiimote does not exactly follow your moves, is lagging a bit or simply choppy. On the other hand, in the game itself this is hard to notice and does not really stand in the way of your gaming experience. Secondly, Wii Sports requires you to live in a castle. Most of the game can hardly played from your livingroom couch (try playing boxing from the couch) and need you to stand straight just because of the amount of room you need for your gestures. While this will most likely not be the biggest problem when playing a single-player game, playing with three friends will! Unless you're fine with being hit all the time by your opponents, you will need a fair share of room (say, two square meters per person)

But enough with the cons. Wii Sports proved to me that the Wii does invite me to play more. My controller problems with the current (and previous) generation of consoles seems to vanish with the wiimote and nunchuk, although I only got to use the nunchuk once (during bowling). Playing Wii Sports triggered my interest for the new gaming experience, as did the Nintendo DS. I can't say I've been more excited about a console before.

Questions Of course I can't cover every single issue, but I'm willing to answer every question you may have on the games and/or gaming experience. So if you still have questions, please submit them using our contact-forms and I'll try to answer them a.s.a.p.

Next time, I'll try to discuss WarioWare: Smooth Moves.

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