Wii Play ^(Wii)

Genre: Party Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo EAD Players: ?

By Keith B (23rd Jul 2007)

Wii Play comes hitting your playfield as a collection of 9 highly amusing mini-games.

Once you begin to come out of your daily Wii Sports fitness training all refreshed instead of all sore, and once it has sunk in that Multiplayer Fun is where the new Nintendo Wii console excels (as long as your living room is big enough, that is), you may find that the time has come to move on to Wii Play. I briefly felt tempted to say “move on to bigger things,” but “bigger” is the one thing, unfortunately, that you absolutely cannot call Wii Play. It was released soon after Nintendo’s Wii Sports, which comes bundled with the console, as we all know, and there are more things than just the similarity in the name that can be cited in favor of the purchase. Most importantly, the game comes packaged with another Wiimote �" which leads some people to say that the game is, actually, as good as free (considering how expensive the standalone Wiimotes are). Wii Play comes hitting your playfield as a collection of 9 highly amusing mini-games. Being not quite as much fun as Wii Sports, all nine of the mini-games included have mostly one teeny-weeny flaw: They are just that, unfortunately �" teeny-weeny mini-games.

You know those days when you sit at your workstation (if you can call anything connected to the internet that, really), and there just doesn’t seem to be anything to do besides looking around and getting caught up in the big ole’ world wide web? Well you can deny it, but I have those days, and usually I end up sifting through rows of comedy show snippets and amateur flash games. Usually, these games are such measly affairs that they only make me feel more depressed about procrastination and all that. Sometimes, however, they are worth the time I waste playing them. And every once in a long while, there even comes along a true little flash gem, the kind of thing that could make you wonder why somebody would put it on the internet for free instead of selling it somewhere… To cut the winding paragraph short: Wii Play has a bit of all the three examples I just gave �" a few of the 9 included mini-games suck pretty bad, some make me forget that I have something better to do, and some just right out kick ass. Oh, and let’s not forget: This preliminary verdict is a comment on nothing but the games themselves, and doesn’t take into account the magic that begins to happen when you strap that all that Wii gear on your wrists…

One of the obvious yet untold facts about Wii Play is that the whole thing is designed to introduce the novice Wii player to the, ahem, unconventional controller. This makes sense, somehow, but only if we ignore the fact that Wii Sports, which does the same thing, came bundled with the console anyways. In Wii Play, there are relatively few moves to master, and every three-year old can probably handle the games in a matter of minutes. This guarantees quick satisfaction when you first start playing… but ultimately, it may bore the living hell out of you (note: not a Hellbored pun!). A few hours of playing has led me to notice that each of the 9 games contained in Wii Play, which you can unlock in sequence, gets you to practice a more advanced Wiimote/Nunchuk maneuver. Hence, in the following I’ll supply the required moves for each game in brackets.

So here is, in brief, what you get on the rather steeply priced disc (but just remember: if you subtract the price for a Wiimote, each mini-games costs just a little over a buck!):
1: “Shooting Range” �" It’s a little like NES Duck Hunt, what more need I say? (Use the Wii to point and click)

2: “Find Mii” �" here, the task is to find your Mii characters, which mill around in ever more busy and fast-paced crowds. (Use the Wiimote to point and click while making quick lateral movements.)

3: “Table Tennis” �" It’s table tennis! And we wonder why it hasn’t been included in Wii Sports… The first to get 11 points wins the game �" no tournament modes, difficulty levels, or any other kinds of frills. (Use the Wiimote to move around even more quickly.)

4: “Pose Mii” �" In a strangely psychedelic skyscape, bubbles float around, containing silhouettes of Mii in various poses. Twist you ankle and drop your Wii on the bubble to get points. (Use Wiimote to twist and point.)

5: “Laser Hockey” �" This one is fun! We’ve all played air hockey (and I’ve even lived in Canada for a while), and Laser Hockey is very similar. Just imagine lots of neon tubes outlining the sides of the court and the goals. (Use Wiimote to twist and move laterally.)

6: “Billiards” �" This is one of the more sophisticated games in the package. 9 balls must be sunk in the right order. The Wii gives you lots of assistance in this, but hitting the white ball in the proper angle and with the proper force is hard enough. As much fun as this is, it would have been great to have the option of playing Pool instead of Billiards. Oh well… (Use Wiimote for slow-paced 3-dimensional movement.)

7: “Fishing” �" In a little cartoonish pond, big cartoonish fish of different kinds are swimming around. Most of them get you points, some of them even bonuses, so be quick and catch them before you opponent does. Apart from quick 3D movements with the Wii, there isn’t much to this. (Quick 3D movements.)

8: “Charge” �" One of the more enjoyable games in Wii Play. The goal is to beat your opponent in a race on crazy fat cows. For this, you hold the Wiimote sideways, and move it in all sorts of directions to speed up, slow down, steer, jump, and evade obstacles. (Wiimote held sideways, quick 3D movements.)

9: “Tanks” �" There are so many games like this one that no-one knows any more who actually holds the original copyright, and therefore Nintendo decided to just make another… Well, I’m making that up, but who knows? Connecting your Nunchuk to the Wiimote, you steer little tanks in a sandbox and try to wipe out your opponents. Use of the Nunchuk is optional, but it’s the only instance in Wii Play where you can actually use the analog stick, so why not make use of it? This mini-game has lots of replay potential, despite its lack of size and depth. (Optional use of Nunchuk.)

Wii Play clearly is a party title. The games contained in the package can be a lot of fun, but not if you’re playing it by yourself. It might actually really be most fun at parties �" sobriety is not a must in order to master the very easy hand-eye coordination tricks required by the individual games. Like Wii Sports, Wii Play doesn’t have a real multiplayer mode. You don’t have to play it by yourself, it’s true, but unfortunately, the game doesn’t make sophisticated use of the Wii’s network port. Another regrettable thing is that even though Wii Play invites you to use your own Miii (no spelling error �" check the Wii Sports review!), their names will never be used. So after having spent 20 minutes to create myself as a Wii personality, I am now still either “P1” or “P2.”

Ultimately, it’s a hard call to either recommend or not recommend Wii Play. Considering the price of single Wiimotes, it seems that you might just as well get the whole package for 10 bucks more. Who knows, perhaps it will be a rare item one day? As for the included games themselves �" they are fun for a while, but basically they do little more than just teach you the basic moves. In the end, we might feel ourselves reminded quite a bit of Wii Sports: We’re invited, I guess, to “imagine the possibilities”… But we are not actually presented with anything getting even remotely close to what we imagine those possibilities to be! We believe in you, Wii, but sooner or later you’ll have to really deliver.