My arm hurts a little, but it's a good kind of hurt.
The North American version of Wii Sports Resort arrived yesterday, complete with a lovely blue lei that my kids took turns wearing around the house most of the evening. And I, with a little help from my wife, have been sampling—for the first time, I wasn't at E3 this year—the much wider range of activities that Resort has over its otherwise-groundbreaking predecessor.
Resort breaks its own ground, of course; it's Nintendo's own showpiece for the Wii MotionPlus, a little box that adds a gyro to the Wii Remote, markedly improving its abilities. Resort's twelve activities (which, in turn, have several modes each—some I'd personally count as their own activities even if the basic mechanics are similar) range from the merely decent (Wakeboarding) to the challenging (Frisbee®, including a delightful disc golf mode) to the abso-effing-lutely inspired Swordplay.
Oh, Swordplay, how I wish I could play you and do nothing else for days on end! It's pretty simple, really: you hold the Remote in both hands (though I find myself swinging one-handed a lot, oops) and either take swings at your opponent or hold B and position your sword to defend. It seems fairly easy at first, but after you've defeated the initial raft of Duel mode opponents, they get tougher. We picked up another MotionPlus to try out the Vs. mode, which is a mind game all its own without the clear telegraphing of intent you get from computer players. Definitely my favorite.
Archery is also a winner. I technically won the round I played, but if we gave my wife points for the shot she accidentally loosed early on, she took the cake. Very much looking forward to later levels in this game; we got a taste of where it could go at the tail end of the beginner round we played. I did try a number of other activities, of course, but those are the notables for right now—and there's a ton of stuff I haven't even unlocked yet, from activities to courses and the whole nine yards.
If there's one current that seems to run through the game, it's that faking it like we all quickly learned to do in the original Wii Sports doesn't really cut it anymore. The MotionPlus can suffer from drift—a sadly unavoidable problem—but it doesn't appear to manifest if you simply stand up and play the game properly. Trying to play with silly fake-out motions makes it a thousand times worse. Play it right, and the game's cleverly integrated recalibration opportunities will make it so that you'll never notice.
Before we shuffled him off to bed, my two-and-a-half-year-old son was darting around the living room swinging a rod-shaped cat toy around, shouting "HI-CHA!" Clearly, my enthusiasm has rubbed off a little... though I promise I wasn't shouting. No matter what my wife says.
The North American version of Wii Sports Resort arrived yesterday, complete with a lovely blue lei that my kids took turns wearing around the house most of the evening. And I, with a little help from my wife, have been sampling—for the first time, I wasn't at E3 this year—the much wider range of activities that Resort has over its otherwise-groundbreaking predecessor.
Resort breaks its own ground, of course; it's Nintendo's own showpiece for the Wii MotionPlus, a little box that adds a gyro to the Wii Remote, markedly improving its abilities. Resort's twelve activities (which, in turn, have several modes each—some I'd personally count as their own activities even if the basic mechanics are similar) range from the merely decent (Wakeboarding) to the challenging (Frisbee®, including a delightful disc golf mode) to the abso-effing-lutely inspired Swordplay.
Oh, Swordplay, how I wish I could play you and do nothing else for days on end! It's pretty simple, really: you hold the Remote in both hands (though I find myself swinging one-handed a lot, oops) and either take swings at your opponent or hold B and position your sword to defend. It seems fairly easy at first, but after you've defeated the initial raft of Duel mode opponents, they get tougher. We picked up another MotionPlus to try out the Vs. mode, which is a mind game all its own without the clear telegraphing of intent you get from computer players. Definitely my favorite.
Archery is also a winner. I technically won the round I played, but if we gave my wife points for the shot she accidentally loosed early on, she took the cake. Very much looking forward to later levels in this game; we got a taste of where it could go at the tail end of the beginner round we played. I did try a number of other activities, of course, but those are the notables for right now—and there's a ton of stuff I haven't even unlocked yet, from activities to courses and the whole nine yards.
If there's one current that seems to run through the game, it's that faking it like we all quickly learned to do in the original Wii Sports doesn't really cut it anymore. The MotionPlus can suffer from drift—a sadly unavoidable problem—but it doesn't appear to manifest if you simply stand up and play the game properly. Trying to play with silly fake-out motions makes it a thousand times worse. Play it right, and the game's cleverly integrated recalibration opportunities will make it so that you'll never notice.
Before we shuffled him off to bed, my two-and-a-half-year-old son was darting around the living room swinging a rod-shaped cat toy around, shouting "HI-CHA!" Clearly, my enthusiasm has rubbed off a little... though I promise I wasn't shouting. No matter what my wife says.