Wii Sports Resort review -- fun, but with friends

You can’t argue that the big reason Nintendo is selling so many Wii consoles is because of the bundled Wii Sports — which not only offers great multiplayer fun, but also showcases what the console can do in terms of motion controls. In essence, Wii Sports trains the player in the new controls for future Wii titles, and it does so brilliantly.

Nintendo has now released a sequel for Wii Sports, called Wii Sports Resort, and rather than just building on top of Wii Sports, the game is mean to train Wii players for another thing: Wii Motion Plus, which is included with the game. The Wii Motion Plus accessory is attached to the Wiimote at the bottom, and offers a lot better motion sensing; true 1:1, meaning what you do with the Wiimote is copied exactly in the game. Some would argue that this should have been build into the Wiimote at launch, but we’ll leave that discussion for another time. As for Wii Sports Resort, the accessory offers great controls and showcases the possibilities.

As for the game, it takes place on a tropical island, with several available mini games, which include: Sword Play, where players duel out with swords, Power Cruising, a kind of WaveRace game, DiscDog, where players have to accurately throw discs to a dog who’ll catch it. Those are just some of the 12 new mini games players can play, including the Wii Sports classics, bowling and golf. One of the best games is Sword Play, which really showcases the new Motion Plus attachment’s capabilities, as you duel it out with an opponent. Equally fun is basketball, where players have to time the shots perfectly with the Wiimote. The updated Golf game is better than in Wii Sports, mainly because of better controls (with Motion Plus, of course) and 9 more holes than in the previous version.

If you’ve played Wii Sports, you can rest assure that Wii Sports Resort features the same simplistic design, making it very easy to get into any one of the mini game, and the learning curve is is just right. Graphically, the game looks pretty much the same as Wii Sports, the cartoonish style is carried over and works well for the target audience (being the casual gamer).

In addition to ranking your Mii on a 1000 point scale for each of the mini games, Wii Sports Resort now offers “Stamps” as well, a kind of achievement system where player can unlock “Stamps” by completing certain parts of the game and meeting the criteria (and they’re not easy). It’s a great new addition, however, it only works offline, meaning you can’t show off for your friends online, which brings us to…

One thing that is missing from Wii Sports Resort is the complete lack is online capabilities. Because, unless you have a friend, or rather, three friends, it’s not really a lot of fun in the long run if you’re playing alone. Instead Nintendo should’ve offered online play for this game, it’s rather astonishing how they’re still lacking behind on online capabilities. At least their first party titles, especially those designed for only multiplayer gaming (like Wii Sports Resort), could benefit greatly from online modes. It’s quite a shame, because Wii Sports Resort would definitely have been an online hit.