Review: Wii Sports Resort (Wii)

Unless you’ve gotten a Wii using unconventional methods, chances are you’ve spent hours upon hours playing Wii Sports, the game that came packed in with virtually every console to get players to just plug in their system and play.  The game helped create a revolution for Nintendo, being a dark horse to get the company back on top in the console wars from a financial standpoint.  Now with more advanced methods of motion sensitivity, Nintendo has released Wii Sports Resort, a game that’s more than worthy of being called a successor to the original.

Wii Sports Resort comes packed with the WiiMotion Plus accessory, an add-on for the Wii Remote that intensifies the controller’s motion sensitivity, creating a more realistic experience.  Upon booting the game, the game’s memory requires you to watch a few movies to learn the ins-and-outs of installing the accessory, and after that, you’re thrown out of the plane—literally.

One of the many new games you’ll be playing is skydiving.  While you won’t, in anyway, feel the thrill of falling millions of feet from a plane, you do have control of your selected Mii character.  Tilting the Wii Remote (with the WiiMotion Plus attachment) will cause your Mii to emulate its every position, showcasing its impressive accuracy.

In fact, its accuracy is probably what makes the entire game shine the most.  The aforementioned skydiving game is one of a few air games in the game, and the category also includes freestyle flying, and even dogfights while in sort of a World War I fighter plane.  At that, with the exception of the dogfight mode, only a few of the games in Wii Sports Resort can be considered “useless.”  Most gamers will find that the canoeing and cycling minigames might not be as fun.  Ironically, out of every game in the set, canoeing and cycling are actually the two that’ll keep you active the most, but we’re pretty sure it has nothing to do with physical health.  The canoeing game is actually pretty realistic, as it has the player rowing back and forth between sides, but the cycling is pretty pointless as all you’re doing is shaking the Nunchuck and Remote up and down to your sides—just like those awful sprinting games in Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.

Bad games like Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games just make people want to shoot things, and with Wii Sports Resort, you have that option with the addictive archery game. Depending on what your dominant hand is, you play the game by holding the remote with your opposite hand, while the attached nunchuck is in your dominant hand.  By thrusting backward while holding the Z Button, you can aim and shoot arrows at a bulls-eye along with the occasional wind direction.  It can seem pretty complicated at first, especially when you’re not used to holding the Wii Remote in an opposing hand, but once you get the hang of it, shooting bulls-eyes are actually quite easy.

One of the more impressive sets of games in Wii Sports Resort is the swordplay game.  Using the Wii Remote, you can defend yourself simply by holding the remote upwards in front of your face, and from there, you can go ahead and swing away in any sort of way you please; you’ll actually be swiping that direction in the game.  It’s the most responsive in the game, and it’s also quite hilarious because the losing character falls off a platform and into the water.  It’s moments like these that make gamers feel like American Gladiators (and it also leaves a glimmer of hope that Red Steel 2 will actually be good).

The other games featured in this package, in a nutshell, simply demonstrate how creative the developers were with creating authentic experiences.  There’s a basketball minigame that just requires you to treat the remote like a ball as you try to shoot hoops within a certain time limit, a frisbee game that you can play with a cute little beach dog that simply requires you to curve throws out to make the dog catch the disc in a targeted area, a table tennis game that allows for all kinds of power and lob strikes, a jet-ski game that’s reminiscent of Wave Race (but is nowhere near as insane), and even a wakeboarding game that has you pulling tricks as you use the waves left by the pulling boat to get some major air.

Wii Sports veterans who spent most of their time playing golf or bowling should be happy to know that both golf and bowling make a well-deserved return.  But those of you who had lazy tricks will be disappointed because all of them will no longer work due to the newly polished gameplay thanks to WiiMotion Plus.  While golf doesn’t exactly come to the level of realism had in the Wii version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’10, it still comes a bit more polished.  As any golfer can tell you, one of the most important aspects is the swing, and Wii Sports Resort does a good job not only giving pointers for the game, but these pointers will actually work on your real game as well.  As long as your body doesn’t follow the ball too much, you’ll be setting yourself up for a good swing.  As for bowling, the new feature is the spin added to the ball depending on the way you release the hold buttons on the Wii Remote.  These subtle changes make big differences.  Both these improvements may upset veterans at first, but the whole idea is to not only make the game more realistic, but its realism should attract real players as well—which definitely adds to the experience.

There isn’t any visual overhaul from the first entry of Wii Sports to Wii Sports Resort, but it’s definitely a more colorful game due to its “vacation” spot sort of feel.  The feeling you get with the game’s environment, especially while flying, is very reminiscent of Super Mario Sunshine, especially as you’re exploring each element of the Wuhu Resort.  This is the Wii in its most simple and charming form, and it simply works.

Like its predecessor, the Wii Sports Resort soundtrack is quite calming and nothing about will alarm people into making mistakes.  The other cool thing is that when you first boot up the game, you don’t have to listen to that high-pitched short melody.  It might be a staple to the series, but it’s definitely quite a welcome change.  The announcer still gives random praises of support, but that’s all he’s really there for.

Wii Sports Resort is, without a doubt, the most anticipated game to come out for the Wii this summer, and it definitely has met, if not exceeded, all expectations.  The fun and charm from the original is back and the improved controls don’t ruin from the experience at all that is to be had with the 12 categories of minigames.  In fact, if there’s anything to complain about with the game’s depth, it’s probably the possibility that it might be too much to swallow.  But if you think about all the days (and nights) you’ll be spending trying to get better every day this summer, a lot of fun memories are sure to be had.  Wii Sports was a free game that players definitely embraced, and Wii Sports Resort is a game that will leave players wishing that their vacations lasted just a little bit longer because of all there is to do.

Final Score: 8.9 | Recommendation: Buy It

About This Author: Danreb Victorio

Danreb Victorio is SmashPad's longest tenured staff member and has been writing for the publication since its existence as Gaming-Nation, Inside Gamer Online, Amped IGO, Amped News, and Gamer 2.0. Though SmashPad has gone through many branding changes, Danreb has remained the same--he pushes out content while also improving his craft with every piece that gets published. As a Co-Managing Editor, Danreb, along with Chris Selogy, is in charge of assigning, maintaining, and providing SmashPad's editorial content. Danreb graduated with a B.S. in journalism at San Jose State University, where he worked with the campus newspaper and magazine. In addition to SmashPad, you can read his more blunt work on Yelp.com.