Wii Play, alongside bundled launch title Wii Sports, is perhaps the one launch game that is most exemplary of Nintendo’s ‘gaming for all strategy’ with Wii The real bonus is that the game comes bundled with a spare Wii Remote, which is vital for you to fully enjoy the multiplayer action on offer.
Basically, Wii Play is comprised of nine very different mini-games, all designed to help you master the unique Wii Remote, plus at the same time providing hours of entertainment for both the hardcore gamer and his/her less hardcore family and pals. If you are buying a Wii then buying a copy of Wii Play along with the bundled controller is pretty much a no-brainer. Even if you tire of the mini-games in a few months time, then you still have the essential extra Wii Remote. And while all of the games can be played alone against an AI opponent, Wii Play is around a million times more fun when played with others.
So what of the games? The best, and the easiest for aging arcade fans to pick up and play, is Shooting Range, which does what it says on the tin. The game is reminiscent of the classic arcade/ NES Duck Hunt. It’s a basic ducks, balloons, clay pigeons, Wii-Mii-stealing aliens-shooting kind of a thing. You aim the Wii-Mote at the target on screen, and, erm, kill it. The game is hugely satisfying in two-player mode, as you both compete to shoot the maximum number of targets first. The fact that you have infinite ammo is also a bonus, although you soon find that blasting away willy-nilly doesn’t necessarily bag you a good score! Find Mii involves picking the right face out of a crowd in an environment that constantly changes - racing both against the clock and each other! The simple premise of this game is that you have to match up two identical Miis in a crowd using the Wii-Mote as a pointer. The game gets increasingly harder and as you move through the levels. One level involves having to identify the fastest-swimming Mii, which is a real synapse-snapper as your brain races to process the information on screen faster than your opponent’s. Pose Mii requires players to make their Mii characters fit into the shapes in the Wii bubbles. Pose Mii is equally as hard and perhaps even slightly more addictive than Find Mii. The psychedelic colours and quirky graphics involved in this puzzle make it instantly addictive. It’s both huge fun and incredibly childish, very similar to a “baby’s first match the shapes” game. Perhaps the best game in the pack, certainly technically, is Billiards.
This uses the Wii-Mote to simulate the movement of a pool cue, and it does it remarkably well. You take a top-down view of the table, then (in first person view, looking behind the cueball, as in actual billiards) you line up your shot on the white ball. After selecting the direction of the shot and the type of spin on the cue ball you simply pull back the Wii-Mote and hit the ball.
Other games included are Charge, where players have to hold onto a rampaging bull and try not to fall off! You steer a bull and make it jump by moving the Wii Remote in the right direction, attempting to knock over scarecrows on the way. Tanks, which also makes use of the Nunchuk controller, tests your strategic skills encouraging you to leave trails of mines for other tanks to stumble across. Wii Play also features a few more throwaway sports titles, including Table Tennis, Fishing and Laser Hockey (a cross between air hockey and ping-pong) all fun diversions and good ways of improving your skills with the Wii Remote, but none of these games are going to set your life on fire and you will instead return to the Shooting Range and Billiards games time and time again.
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