PDC World Championship Darts 2008 (Hands-On) (Wii) Preview

PDC World Championship Darts on Playstation 2 was somewhat of a surprise hit when it first appeared. Unexpectedly, in the run up to Christmas 2006 it became a big seller, reaching into the upper end of the best seller charts with online retailers such as Play.com

This isn't the only area of improvement, though. The modes that existed in the first game have been expanded to include more

What of the actual controls, though, which are surely the most important part of a darts game? Well, you might expect Wii to be the perfect console to host a game of darts on, if any console was to do so, and we're happy to report that Mere Mortals haven't let us down. We anticipated that the game would control in a similar way to Wario Ware: Smooth Moves' darts mini-game (wherein the Wii remote is held like a dart itself and thrust forward), but the developers weren't having any of it, claiming Wario Ware's method to be too inaccurate as the target is shifted when you 'throw'

Work has also gone into the physics of PDC 2008, with different barrel weights on darts affecting their trajectories and changing the outcome of games. You can now use the stacking method employed by the professionals; darts that are already in the board can be used to guide others into place by interlocking them on the board, and darts can and will be knocked out of the board if another projectile strikes in just the right place. Along with advanced controls such as adding a bit of twist to send your dart off at an angle rather than straight on, the addition of the new physics engine is sure to spice things up a bit in games between experienced players, though we did not manage to get too in-depth with trying out differing barrel weights, nor did we really work out the angling controls very well in our relatively short playtest.