Wii Sports (Hands On) (Wii) Preview

Well, almost only good things. The sheer simplicity of Wii Sports will undoubtedly make it an instant hit, but there are subtle depths to this title that will make it the sort of game you come back to time and time again. The five sports included in the package are: Golf, Tennis, Baseball, Boxing and Bowling; the sort of mix that will appeal to people of all ages, all cultures and all tastes. What we love about each of the games is the simplicity in which they can be played.

In Wii Tennis for example, all you have to do to hit the ball is physically swing your arm (holding the main Wii controller like a tennis racket) and off flies the ball. You can add top spin by hitting over the ball, backspin by hitting under the ball and slice and sidespin by hitting the ball at different angles. You can hit lob shots, drop shots, passing shots, power shots, smash shots, volleys...whatever you like. And nothing feels awkward or difficult to do. If you want to hit a power shot you simply swing your arm faster, if you want to hit a lob you simply swing your arm up a bit. It is just like playing tennis, only here you don't have to run, which will be good news for the obese amongst the gaming populous.

And all the games follow a similar premise. In baseball, the faster you swing your arm the harder you will hit the ball. You also have to get the direction and the timing right, so there is also a lot of skill involved and the same can be said for all the Wii Sports titles. In golf you have to get the power just right or the ball will travel too far or not far enough. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds as you literally do have to get the power exactly right or the ball will go way off target. This can cause some rather considerable problems when trying to putt or attempting an approach shot onto the green. However, with a certain amount of practice we did start to get the hang of things and the game was a lot more enjoyable as a result.

Problems with motion sensitivity did arise however. In Wii Sports Boxing, if you move around too much the sensor bar doesn't pick up your movements and sometimes if you do things too quickly the game simply gets confused. In the baseball title, when batting if you don't assume a particular position (with the Wii controller behind your head ready to swing) quickly enough the character on screen has a frantic spasm and you get a strike against you because you can't hit the ball. The same can be said for tennis as well. A worrying trend, but one that we hope will be ironed out in the final versions of the software and hardware.

Boxing is once again great fun, thanks mainly to the subtlety of movement that the Wii controller will pick up. You can do all sorts of punches and blocks and by using the main controller and the nun-chuck in combination it makes for a great example of all the different ways in which the unique control system can be used. Unlike in some Wii titles, all the Wii Sports games allow for really nice big movements, and boxing is perhaps the one game to benefit from this the most. Swinging around your arms like a madman whilst trying to knock out your best mate is going to be great fun and no doubt a good method of settling arguments in a unique and amusing way.

And all the movements are intuitive and simple to pick up, but like with all good games, there is a lot of skill involved in mastering them. In the bowling game (as you might imagine), all you have to do is swing your arm backwards to swing the ball back and forwards to throw and release it. The angle and speed of your movements determines the direction and pace of the ball respectively allowing you to really manipulate the in-game action in exactly the way you want.