"Wii came, WE conquered"

It's down to the bottom of the ninth. You've already hit a couple of home-runners, smashed the birdie, and spared the turkey. The final ball now hurtles towards you at sixty miles per hour, but you've already locked onto it with your remote and nunchuk, and as soon as it enters into your lane, you swing with all of your might and score an ace of hole in one.

TKO!

Awesome stuff! But, what sport are you playing exactly?!

Wii Sports, of course!

On the day the Wii was released, not only was a bank robbed *cough*, but thousands of wide-eyed wonderers got to sample a taste of a revolution. Doing away with complex controls, the Wii's image was accessibility to everyone, and what better way than a free game packaged together with all their shiny white consoles: Wii Sports.

Since it's both free and made in Japan (by Nintendo), you can't complain if it's nothing but a lazy, pick-up-and play-and-then-throw-away kind of game. Luckily, it's not. Rejoice in knowing that this compilation of five assorted macro-games, loosely based on five well-known, well-loved sports, is one of the most exciting, thrilling, interactive, fun and family-friendly titles ever made. If you are neither a gamer nor a sportsman, there's a good chance you'll have a blast. If you do fall into one of the above categories, then you'll probably hit the moon and back.

Let us now take a tour through the wonderful world of Wii Sports.

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Tennis
- It's Mii versus Anna Kournikova

What a way to start! If you were blessed with the chance to witness the E3 2006 showcase for the Wii, you will already have seen how silly people can look pretending to play tennis with little wee wii-motes. But once you're serving, slamming and scoring big-time versus the computer or with up to three other human players, you won't care about how un-Agassi-like your body will be.

The rules of the game are simple: someone serves the ball across the net and a battle of racquet-hitting shots ensues. You hold the wii-mote as you would do with a real tennis racquet, swinging back and forth to return, upwards for a lob, or in combination with a variety of twists to perform a slice or topspin. It sounds overly complex, but remember that there is no button pressing or analog stick manipulation required here; it's as simple as moving your body, and I know that you must be able to do that!

While all your concentration is focused upon setting up that sweet swing, moving about the court is automatically controlled by the CPU. This does remove a great deal of technical depth when compared to more robust tennis simulators, but Wii Tennis isn't about complete precision, it's about fluid control, and in this respect it aces the court. And although you don't tell your on-screen Mii where to go, there's a good chance that you yourself will move around the place! If anything, you'd better watch out for any over-enthusiastic team-players!

8/10

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Baseball
- *Smack!* ... Out!

I'm not too familiar with this sport, but hitting a double-fisted sized ball as far as you can and running around a crudely drawn diamond seems to sum it up nicely. One player takes up the batting side while the other commands the pitcher alongside their team of fully CPU controlled fielders. Throwing the wii-mote forwards (or backwards or sideways) will make the pitcher throw the ball to the batter. You can modify the throw slightly by holding down one of two buttons, but it doesn't affect it a whole lot and you don't have any control over where you're aiming. Wii pitching is, frankly speaking, boring.

If you happen to be batting, there's some action at least. Your swing in real life translates to the screen accurately, but there is a slight discrepancy in timing if you're one of those types that lets loose as fast as humanly possible. As such, it will take a while for most to adjust so that they can actually hit the ball. if you play baseball a lot, you'll probably find that you can hit a real ball anywhere you damn well please. Not so in Wii Baseball. Precise smacks will rocket the ball anywhere within the acceptable sector, but where it goes for sure, nobody knows. This randomness coupled with an insane CPU fielding squad that always seems to be able to catch you out on your most spectacular shots, makes for a long, tedious play by numbers.

3/10

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Bowling
- Keep bowlin', bowlin', bowlin'...

This is the arguably the best (Wii) sport. Ten bright-white pins stand mockingly in front of you. You've got an oversized, spherical weight in your hand. What to do? Step up to the lane, drop your arm and let it rip! Is there anything more simpler? Nope. Anyone can play Wii bowling -- mum, dad, grandma, nephew from hell -- anyone.

The perfect score is a smooth 300 and to achieve this mean feat you'll need to strike ten pins, ten (plus a bonus two) times in a row. Chances are that you will miss... a lot. Thus the variation in realistic scores lying somewhere more in the range of 50-250. Wii bowling is definitely easier than the real sport, and with a guiding line that never fails to hit its targeted area, gutter-balls have been virtually eliminated.

You set your desired position and bowling direction before you press the magic B button, and then imitate the on-screen Mii's motion and drop the ball (release magic B) whenever you like. Depending on how early or late you let go, and also modified by a subtle twist of the wrist, the ball will hurtle down the lane and spin accordingly towards the end to smash into as many pins as it can touch. The motion is somewhat unrealistic with respect to the results you yield (that is you knock down a heck of a lot more than you should), but it feels very natural and that's what really counts. Plus, not only is it addictive to play and replay to beat any highscores, but this is a great spectator sport that goes hand-in-hand with Wii Tennis to promote simple, but addictive fun for everyone.

8/10 - My father is the current Wii Bowling champion over here; how embarrassing LOL!

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Golf
- A Wii-ch man's sport

Here's another sport that is soooo much easier than the real thing, but at the same time soooo much more interesting than the next PGA tour (opinion subject to change upon achieving status: filthy rich). There's a little white ball instead of big multi-coloured ones here, and instead of throwing it, you whack it as hard as you can with a big metal stick. Sounds a bit like GTA there, but it's golf so you should know better.

Press in B to step up to the tee, pose for the camera with hands help up high, swing like a pro. You'll also need to take into consideration the wind direction and speed if you want to actually play properly and nail that hole-in-one. It's entirely possible (on smaller courses), so Wii Golf is actually quite a good representation of the real deal, with bunkers, roughs and bumps factoring into how well your ball actually travels.

Fun to play? Yeah, especially if you're looking for some gaming relaxation. Fun to watch? Golf? What do you think?

6/10

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Boxing
- No, you can't bite my ear off

Not button-mashing, but... wii-mote thrashing?

This could've been the Mike Tyson of all boxing games, but sadly Wii Boxing rounds off this five-game run on a rather un-noteworthy score. One-on-one, red vs. blue, all your hooks, jabs and uppercuts beating your opponent senseless -- it would've all been great if it wasn't for how hard it is to actually connect with your blows. You punch left, Mii swings right. You uppercut, Mii goes for the low blow. WTF?!

This is the only Wii Sport that demands both wii-mote and nunchuk to play, one component in each hand. It strives to capture the essence of real boxing with a variety of punches and the ability to duck and weave as your body pleases. But when your opponent gives you a hiding by simply shaking the Wii controls like a pair of maracas, it won't be long before you drop the "I'm a real pugilist" act and jump around like a crazy baboon to inexplicably cause major pain.

At least you get a good workout from it, though.

3/10

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Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing. There you have it.

All are there for you, your family and your friends to enjoy whenever no-one feels like playing Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Smash Brothers, Fire Emblem, etc. etc. etc. Or when you feel that you really ought to get some exercise, but it's just way too hot/cold/*insert lame excuse* outside.

If you are keen to spend some solid time with Wii Sports, there is a bevy of training modes to keep you occupied. These take each sport and gives them a slap on the back that only video games can do. The result is a selection of fifteen quirky takes on a theme, from bowling over 91(!) pins, to golfing target practice (it's actually quite fun!), or attempting to returning a constant, flying barrage of tennis serves. High scores are the name of the game here, and along with medals awarded for top scorers, this mode will see you coming back from time to time.

There are only three aspects of Wii Sports that fall from grace. Baseball and Boxing are two of them. The other is -- wait for it -- the audiovisual department. Graphics are pretty... pretty simple, that is. But did they really need to be super hi-res with lots of lovely textu.. nah. I'm happy with my well-rounded Miis, thank you. Music captures the ambience of each sporting equivalent, so in Wii Boxing you will hear the crowds cheering/jeering, and in Wii Golf, silence is golden. It's light on the ears, but the guffaws of people having loads of fun on your side of the screen nulls this remark. So really, Baseball and Boxing (excluding the training modes which are all good) are the only two real culprits here. And you can't have your meat and potatoes without your green veges*.

Five different sports, five different ways to exert yourself indoors without risk of injury (or so they say). Wii Sports is seriously fun for anyone, everyone, and above all it's free with your Wii! Sports has never been more appealing.

VERDICT - 7.5/10

* If you didn't know already, green veges are actually GOOD for you. With such natural bitterness, who would've guessed?

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/13/07