Wii Sports Resort

[Cyndair]

OK, I searched high and low and I didn't see a thread for this (kinda couldn't believe it) so I'm starting one now.

Has anyone picked up Wii Sports Resort since it came out on Sunday? What are people's impressions so far?

I'm really enjoying the game. My wife and I broke it open last night and gave Archery, Sword, Table Tennis, and Frisbee a try. The game has a lot more meat to it than the original Wii Sports. Each "sport" seems to have around 3 different modes to it that are all very different. I'm especially enjoying the sword fighting. The dueling was kind of disappointing. My wife was able to waggle really fast and beat me every time. The mode where you have to slash objects in certain directions as fast as you can is a blast, however. As is the mode where hoards of Miis run at you with swords and you have to fend them off.

What say you?

[Gorvi]

I want it, but I know I don't have the time for it right now. Eventually, though, it looks like a lot of fun.

[Orca]

Played through all the games and there's some clear favourites - archery, swordfighting, table tennis, and frisbee. Of those, the swordfighting shows off the 1:1 the best but is the weakest of them in multiplayer because of the flailing mentioned earlier. I liked archery the most, followed closely by frisbee, but it required recalibrating the controller the most of all the games.

The flight game was okay - not great, but decent controls and a lot of hidden stuff to find.

I didn't find the rest of the games worth playing again though. Wakeboarding, especially, was just frustrating. About half the time you can't even see the person you're controlling, and the camera is almost always off to the side so landing 'flat' is way harder than it needs to be.

Hated three-point shootout, with a lack of feedback as to what I was doing right/wrong, but the half-court game was okay.

Same real complaints as Wii Sports - it's a bunch of tech demos that didn't really get fleshed out into games. The most full-featured of them is the flight. It's hard to complain when it's a combo with a control mechanism you NEED to get, but when is Nintendo going to turn out a REAL Wii Sports game?

Also - kind of sucked to play it with my nieces and have to keep telling them that we couldn't play any two-player games because it only came with one Motion+ attachment. If you're going to play it with kids, get another attachment.

[Ravenlock]

I haven't gotten to try it out yet, but my copy is sitting at home in my mailbox waiting for me to open it tomorrow night. Really looking forward to it. :)

[JayK47]

I imagine if I wanted to grab it, that it is sold out everywhere like any other halfway decent Nintendo title. So maybe for my wife's birthday next March. I hope they are in stock by then.

[Cyndair]

I imagine if I wanted to grab it, that it is sold out everywhere like any other halfway decent Nintendo title. So maybe for my wife's birthday next March. I hope they are in stock by then.

I was expecting to have trouble finding it as well. I walked into a Gamestop yesterday; no pre-order, no nothing and just picked up a copy. Depending on your area it may not be a problem at all.

[Purple Santa]

I want it, but I know I don't have the time for it right now. Eventually, though, it looks like a lot of fun.

Same here. Love to play, ADD and I would have a blast with it but I think it will be a title we play next year when we have our hovel.

[Orca]

I imagine if I wanted to grab it, that it is sold out everywhere like any other halfway decent Nintendo title. So maybe for my wife's birthday next March. I hope they are in stock by then.

Tons of copies on shelves here.

[GrenMag]

I fired it up last night. I haven't played through everything yet but I'll echo Orca's sentiment on favorite games. The island flight game is a lot of fun and archery made me decide I was going to get a new recurve and start shooting again. I also like the update to bowling -- I always found the Wii Sports version to be a little "mushy".

I'll be able to give cycling a pass after I manage to get the stamps for it but it was pretty amusing to watch my wife play it.

[Ravenlock]

Got a very little bit of time with it.

Have tried so far:

Swordfighting: Dueling is fine but until I try it with another person it's secondary to the Showdown mode. Whacking your way through tons of opponents is crazy fun, and it does legitimately get challenging after a few levels. You need to take defense into account, and the 1-to-1 tracking of the sword is extremely satisfying. Speed Slice was fun for 10 minutes, don't know if I'll go back to that. Showdown is a keeper, though.

Table Tennis: Makes me weep for what Rockstar's game on the Wii could have been if they made it now. Maybe they'll update it. As it stands, a very solid table tennis implementation. The first time I intentionally banked a spin shot off the opposite corner of the table and it just barely touched the edge exactly as I wanted it to, I knew they'd done a pretty good job with this.

Archery: Strangely, it took quite awhile for me to get used to how I have to angle the Wiimote for this to feel right, but having gotten it down, I like it. Only played a couple rounds of this, though.

Frisbee Dog: Difficult. I started to get better by the end, but consistently popping balloons and getting the jump catch (if you land it close enough to the target the dog jumps to grab it and you get double points) is going to be a real challenge. Haven't tried disc golf.

Looking forward to getting into the rest of it later. All in all, it's a great demo for WiiMotionPlus (as the original was a great demo for the Wii), and makes me really excited for the potential future WMP games could realize. And even without hypotheticals, it's a solid game in its own right. Given the $20 value of the WMP pack-in, I probably would have bought it just for the (minimal) stuff I've played so far.

[EternalGamer]

Sword Fighting:I haven't opened the "showdown" mode in sword fighting yet, but I find the multiplayer mode kind of mediocre. It's like the Boxing in the original in that it just results in flailing.

Frisbee: By far my favorite. Frisbee golf in particular is great fun with a group of 3 or more. And it's very well done. You can even skip the frisbee off water by angling it appropriately.

Basketball: This just doesn't really feel right or accurate. I found a way to nail the points most of the time, but if I were throwing an actual basketball that way, it wouldn't have come close.

Jetski: Sucks.

Bowling: It's ok, but I honestly don't notice a big difference over the original, at least not one that really sells its necessity. The original bowling worked fine even if it wasn't super authentic. I don't really see the need for this.

Cycling: Sucks far worse than jetski.

Archery: I don't get it. I played several rounds and it feels nothing like real archery. You don't actually have to pull back the nunchuck, it will just zoom in all the way automatically with a small pull. I don't really see the big difference between this and any other game that requires you to aim the pointer at the screen on the Wii.

Those are the only ones I've played so far. Overall, I think its ok, but I don't really get all the hype and raving in the reviews. It's pretty much exactly what I would expect from a "Wii Sports 2," no better or worse. If you thought the original was fun with some friends, this is no different, but it's equally shallow and a weak single player game.

[Savok]

Swordfighting, Table Tennis, Archery, Bowling and the Frisbee are all excellent, hell I even got around to making The Dude and Walter for bowling. Waveboarding was meh. Basketball was terrible, haven't tried anything else.

And who cares if they aren't "fleshed out". Was Space Invaders fleshed out? Hell I see it as an advantage, there's no stats or other bullshit to concern yourself with, it's just pick up and play. Good old fashion fun.

At any rate, I look forward to every other company ignoring the capabilities of the WMP and giving us more crappy rail shooters.

[Ravenlock]

I would think that if you're flailing in the swordfighting, you're doing it wrong. The angled blocking is implemented well enough that I'd think somebody not trying to make deliberate strikes would just get blocked and knocked off balance constantly and lose every time.

I won't get a chance to try actual multiplayer until this weekend, so that's speculation, but that's certainly how it works out for me against the AI in Showdown mode after the first couple of levels.

As for archery, I'd say the difference for me is that it's a physical action unique from anything else I've been asked to do on the system. The whole point of using the IR pointer in shooters (rail shooters or FPS's) is that it's very easy, if the controls are implemented properly, to be rapidly precise. WSR Archery, on the other hand, puts the fine aiming control on the subtle movement of the upright remote, which makes steady and accurate aiming a lot more challenging. I don't know if you tried Expert level, but getting a good score on that is legitimately tough.

Now obviously if you don't find it fun, then you're not going to like it regardless. But I do think it's substantially different from, say, Link's Crossbow Training or any of the other "shoot a target" style things I've seen on the Wii.

[Savok]

Only thing odd in archery is the drawing back motion. Sometimes it only takes slight movement for it to spring right back, other times you're stretching the cord.

Cycling is hilarious until you actually start playing then it's awful.

Also, I'm sick of the game telling me to stop or to check for invisible wombats or whatever else it's paranoid about. I mean shit, first time you start the game you get a 3 minute video on how to plug the WMP in (spoiler: it slots into the bottom of the Wiimote) you can't skip, it's insane.

[EternalGamer]

The Archery seems implimented fine, but I just don't see the big deal in holding the Wii mote upright versus holding it like a pointer. The action you are doing is essentially the same and drawing back the nunchuck is not well implimented, so you can't subtly adjust the tautness of your shot, which is what archery is largely about.

[Cyndair]

The Archery seems implimented fine, but I just don't see the big deal in holding the Wii mote upright versus holding it like a pointer. The action you are doing is essentially the same and drawing back the nunchuck is not well implimented, so you can't subtly adjust the tautness of your shot, which is what archery is largely about.

I don't think the nunchuck is really capable of the accuracy that you are talking about. It would have been neat if they had you use a second wii-mote to represent your string hand that used the IR tracking to determine how far back you were pulling the string. That may have been a bit much for people though (and requires two controllers for one mini game).

[Wolvie]

Well I came to the conclusion that all my games were played out today, and I needed something new. So I picked up Wii Sports Resort today. And this is easily one of the best investments I made all year(My iPod touch is still the best though).
At first I was digging into this game by myself. But soon my daughters wanted to play bowling with me, and actually succeeded this time because of the automatic control scheme.
Even the wife got in on the action when she saw archery. She was addicted almost immediately. We played many rounds trying to out do each others scores. I haven't seen her this smitten with a game since Rock Band.

Anyways, the following is what games I played, the order I player them in(or the order I vaguely remember playing them in), along with some brief thoughts on how awesome and/or crappy they were.

Bowling: Almost identical to the original Wii sports offering. The characters are a bit more detailed, the ball physics feel a bit more nuanced due to the Wii motionplus. I liked how you can split the multiplayer into teams or singles too.

Frisbee: Pretty cool. Kinda took a bit of getting used to. I think once I get the hang of things a bit more I'll come back to this one more often.

Archery: Easily one of my favorites. The whole draw and lining up of the shot just feels right. I played this one a ton, and it even earned the games title of "favorite".

Sword fighting: Took a few moments to get the timing down. But once I did, I was a defensive fiend! I was holding the Wii-mote like a samurai sword, and was brandishing it with a very serious posture and demeaner. I must have looked ridiculous. I was having a blast though.

Wake boarding: Sucks. I was dissapointed by this one massively. It looked like loads of fun, but as others have said, the camera seemed to hide where you were at, and hindered any fun that could be had with this.

Jet Skiing: Not bad. But not much fun either. The steering feels... off.

Canoeing: Pretty cool. Just a lot of work to get going in the direction you want to go in. In other words, it made me build up a sweat from paddling so hard. I'm too lazy to sweat, so I don't see me playing this very much.

Table tennis: This is another favorite. They just nailed the controls and ball physics. It's as good as bowling IMO.

Basketball: Another game that falls into "if I could get the hang of it it might be more fun" catagory. The premise is cool, I just couldn't get the timing of my throws down. This feels like the baseball of this Wii sports, since the timing takes some getting used to... although Wii sports baseball at least told you, you were swinging late or early. Hopefully a future patch will add that feature.
On a side note, I haven't tried the "pickup game" mode yet, so I might like this game a bit better with more play time.

Cycling: Sucks. The controls force you to pump your arms and makes you exert yourself... yeah another game that makes you hot and/or sweaty. And the turning controls are unresponsive crap. This is this Wii sports boxing. No thanks.

Air sports: Pretty cool. Haven't tried the dog fight mode, because I need a HUMAN OPPONENT! And I don't have a second Wii-mote. The island flyover is cool, but kinda boring. The skydiving is alright, but I don't see myself playing it much.

Golf: Like bowling, not much is new but I still had fun. The controls are more sensative, and register your wrist bending, so shots are more tricky. But you also seem to have more control over the ball, and can add some backspin for when you get on the green. Nothing really new, but still a welcome return of an old favorite with some slightly better and updated controls.

[Ravenlock]

Good writeup, Wolvie. After playing more of them both last night, archery and table tennis have become definite favorites of mine. Trying to hold your arm steady to nail a 50-yard shot on a moving target against the wind in archery is pretty great, and the table tennis controls are just incredibly intuitive. I do with the Wiimote what I would do with a paddle, and the ball behaves the right way, end of story.

I'm also somewhat ashamed of totally loving 100-pin mode in bowling. Yeah, it's the same old bowling, but getting a 100-pin strike just feels great. :D

Really excited for Meghan to get home on Saturday so I'll have someone to play this with.

[GrenMag]

I played with the island flyover and I had to stop after 15 minutes. I started pining for a Wii Pilot Wings... Anybody else get that feeling? Or am I just a little Nancy-boy?

[Ondo]

Hopefully a future patch will add that feature.
Wii games don't get patches, unfortunately.

[Tayaya]

I played with the island flyover and I had to stop after 15 minutes. I started pining for a Wii Pilot Wings... Anybody else get that feeling? Or am I just a little Nancy-boy?

I got that feeling too. I'm sure we'll get one eventually, but whenever we do I'll be the first person to start a thread saying it's been a long time coming, and is way way way way overdue.

I loved Pilotwings sooooo much, even the N64 one which didn't pan out as well as I wanted it to.

[Wolvie]

Good writeup, Wolvie. After playing more of them both last night, archery and table tennis have become definite favorites of mine. Trying to hold your arm steady to nail a 50-yard shot on a moving target against the wind in archery is pretty great, and the table tennis controls are just incredibly intuitive. I do with the Wiimote what I would do with a paddle, and the ball behaves the right way, end of story.

Yeah, table tennis and archery are easily as addictive as bowling. Those three games are worth the price of admission alone.

I also played some frisbee golf last night... holy crap that's fun! I also tried the sword fight mode where you take on waves of fighters. I can see that mode getting quite a bit of play time.

Wii games don't get patches, unfortunately.

Actually, Wii sports has gotten an update or two if you can believe it. I don't know how, but Nintendo must have snuck in something in one of their dashboard updates. They added some small presentation tweaks to Wii sports, like new intro's and other things. I played Wii sports when it first came out, and these weren't in the game back then.