Go Fanboy - Everyone Has A Favorite

Packaged with the system, Wii Sports is equally adept at demonstrating the potential of the Wii-mote and providing an enjoyable experience. Though there isn't depth or content enough to justify a purchase of the Wii by itself, it should be considered one of the stronger reasons to spend upwards of three or four hundred dollars on a Wii, games and accessories.

Wii Sports is the first Wii game to support Miis, and the benefits are apparent. You'll get a real kick out of playing as a virtual, simplified version of yourself, and competing with a virtual version of your opponents. It single-handedly justifies the simplified look of Wii Sports, and allows for a surprising level of immersion.

There are five games in Wii Sports; simplified versions of Tennis, Golf, Baseball, Bowling and boxing. As the game that is supposed to bring the Wii to the masses, simple rules are understandable, but the lack of options for savvier gamers is not. Tennis moves your avatar for you, Baseball handles running and fielding automatically, golf offers you only four clubs, Bowling only offers the ten-pin variation, and Boxing is just flat-out broken. You might suppose that these cuts would gut Wii Sports of its depth - and that's partially true - but there's subtle nuance to the mechanics of each game that gives Wii Sports more than enough depth to keep most of the games interesting.

Tennis is probably the most entertaining game in Wii Sports. Like other Tennis games, it's all about placing your shots outside of the range of your opponents. Player movement is automated, and while this may seem unusual, the game positions the characters well most of the time, so it's rarely an issue. What makes the game stand out is that the Wii-mote allows you to swing with a precision most other Tennis games only dream of. Though you can make small motions if you like, it's easier to make broader swings, as it gives you better control over your shot. Pulling off the timing of the exact shot you want is just as deep as you'd hope it to be, and the whole game has a nice, swift pace. This depth, combined with intuitive play and simultaneous multiplayer, lends Tennis to a party atmosphere better than any other Wii Sports game. Get two or more people in a room swinging their controller like a racket, and you're bound to have a good time.

If Tennis is the best party game, then Bowling is the deepest, and best emulates the real sport. While the Wii-mote doesn't weigh anywhere near a bowling ball, everything else feels very natural. You can move your player left or right, and set the angle of your shot. For instance, you can stand at the far left side of the lane and aim towards the far right. Once you've chosen your spot, hold down the B button to start your advance, make a bowling motion, and release B to throw. Sounds simple, right? But there is more to it than that. The power you put into your swing will affect how fast the ball goes. Depending on how straight your motion is, and how you twist your wrist, you'll add curve to your shot, intentionally or otherwise. Exactly how much emphasis you place on your curve determines whether you release the ball on the ground or throw it through the air a short ways. The longer the ball is on the ground, the more it curves, and vice versa. So a slow ball thrown along the ground will curve much more than a fast ball thrown through the air. It all comes together in a way that is nuanced, deep, and allows for a few different play-styles. Perhaps more than any other game, Bowling will have you coming back repeatedly to perfect your technique. Although it doesn't have the advantage of simultaneous play, it's also a great game to play with friends.

Baseball is notable for being the only game with two gameplay types in one: pitching and batting. Pitching is a simple affair: hold down the A button for a curveball, the B button for a screwball, both buttons for a splitter, or nothing for a fastball. Simply make a throwing motion, the amount of force you use determining the speed of the pitch. Unfortunately, that's about all there is to pitching, and making different motions doesn't seem to have much effect. It is enough to cause the batter some grief, though, and that's where the real fun of Baseball lies. Although it's not any deeper than pitching, getting the timing down in batting is a lot of fun. You know when your timing was off and have swung at a bad ball. It just feels right to bat in Baseball. It's also a nice touch that you can hold the bat behind you in multiple directions, or even jiggle the bat. However that's about all there is to Baseball. Though it's not as deep as some of the other games, Baseball is still a fair amount of fun, and will have you coming back every now and then.

For a game that presents itself as a collection of party games, golf feels suspiciously out of place. You can play with up to four people, but unless you're really competitive about golf, it's not much different from single-player. To the game's credit, it's definitely the most difficult of all the Wii Sports games. Navigating a golf course, compensating for wind, and swinging with just the right amount of force is a challenge. Mechanically, though, golf is pretty one dimensional. After adjusting your direction, you make a swinging motion. Swing too hard, and you'll cause your shot to bend too far. Swing too softly, and it won't go far enough. That's about it for the long game. As for the short game, it's appropriately difficult. You have to compensate for slanted ground, but unfortunately, you have to judge the lay of the land by eye, as the game provides no direct help. Once you line up your shot, attempts to sink the ball are made by making a soft putting motion. Despite golf’s difficulty, it's much easier than real golf because all a swing does is determine power, and an off-swing can cost you several strokes. A few rounds, and you'll be hitting par consistently. Golf is worth putting some time into, but with only nine courses and no real reason to play with others, it's going to be one of your least-played Wii Sports games.

Boxing sucks. If that's all you need to know, skip to the next paragraph. The concept fits Wii like a glove, with its ability to detect the motion of two separate hands and the ability to punch out user-created Miis. The mechanics appear solid. You can raise or lower your gloves to protect your head or body, and punch at either of your opponents as well. If you move the controllers left or right your boxer will sway in that direction. These should combine to make for a fairly compelling game of boxing, but the design feels off. The gloves never seem like they are where they should be, and the game often misses registering your punches. And man are the matches slow. What should be a messy flurry of punches is much more leisurely paced, relying on your timing more than anything. Most disappointing is that punches are always straight ahead, except for inexplicable hooks - which seem to have no relation to your motion - reducing the motion to a button press. It's also really difficult to place your punches on your opponent's body, as all your punches tend to gravitate towards the head. What should have been a messy but fun flurry of punches is actually a broken, slow and overly simple game. At least knocking out the Mii of your choice is entertaining. All boxing does is firmly establish the need for a much better done Wii version of Punch-Out.

In addition to the main games, two modes called training and fitness are included. Training is meant to make you better at a game through three different challenges (through there's strangely nothing for pitching in Baseball). Some of these are surprisingly addictive, and allow you to see the game differently than you might otherwise. One of the Bowling challenges requires you to use spin to knock over pins, and one of the Tennis games requires you to return shots in rapid succession within the court, both things you might not try in the real game. There's definitely a sense that these games make you better at certain aspects of the game. There are also “medals” to earn, which don't seem to unlock anything, but are fun to pursue anyway. Fitness is essentially a rip-off of Brain Age, only measuring your physical rather than mental abilities by getting you to play modified versions of the games from the training modes. It seems implausible that a game that challenges you to flick your wrist could be an accurate measure of balance, speed or stamina, but at least it motivates you to play better when the game proclaims you to be twenty years older than you actually are.

If you're wondering whether Nintendo has actually created something that will attract non-gamers, wonder no more—Nintendo got it right. Wii Sports will win over a good portion of non-gamers with control that is immediately understood. When some non-gamers fail with traditional control, the only way of improving being to deal with a series of strange buttons, they get frustrated. When that same non-gamer fails because they didn't swing their bat right, or put too much spin on their Bowling ball, the path to success is understood. Wii Sports isn't necessarily easier than a traditional controller, but it takes the mystery out of the method. If you're looking for something to bring a friend, relation, or significant other enjoyment or an understanding of gaming, Wii Sports is a brilliant choice.

Wii Sports presents itself in a way that's equal parts simple and bubbly. It's hard to criticize visuals that aspire to be inoffensive and invisible, and largely succeed. Wii Sports looks like a visually un-ambitious N64 game significantly cleaned on Gamecube hardware. Yet it's so simple, it's hard to find any graphical flaws. Everything has a pleasant, happy feel to it. Wii Sports doesn't take advantage of Wii hardware because it doesn't really need it. There's absolutely no reason to be overly critical or overly complementary of the visuals in Wii Sports. It is what it is, and it's fine for being that. The same can be said of the audio. All the sound effects hold down the fort with everything you'd expect. The bump when your bowling ball hits the alley floor, the crack of your bat when you hit a run, and the cheer of the crowd when you land a punch all sound good. It also should be noted that Wii Sports uses the extremely limited Wii-mote speaker effectively, as nothing sounds out of place despite its horrid sound quality.

Simply put, there’s a lot to like about Wii Sports. With the exception of Boxing, everything in Wii Sports is entertaining, and there's a little more depth than the simplistic presentation might lead you to believe. It's not worth buying the system for, but it goes a long way towards justifying the price. As the kind of game that you'll come back to on occasion for years, that's easy to play with hardcore, casual, and non-gamers alike, and as a technical demonstration for the Wii-mote's capabilities, Wii Sports is one of the better launch titles for the Wii. Pick up an extra Wii-mote, and have fun.