WII Sports is one of the original showcase games for the Nintendo Wii, and remains a good example of why the game controller that the console is famous for is such a good development in the gaming world. It's bundled with a lot of WIIs, but even if you didn't get it with your console, it's well worth getting hold of.

You get five sport games in this pack, which are:

Tennis - though I've heard from many people about how great the tennis is, I felt it was actually the weakest of the five games. All you do is hit the ball, the players move round the court automatically. You can to some extent choose the type of shot you play by your timing, but it doesn't seem to recognise whether you've played a forehand or backhand shot - this is dependant on the position of your player on the screen.

You can only play to the best of 1m 3 or 5 games - you can't play sets, and you can only play doubles (you can play up to 4 people; the WII controls any other players if you have less than 4 human competitors). It's relatively fun for a while but I feel it would have been much better if you controlled the player position with the nunchuck and the racquet with the Wiimote. At least having the option of this would be nice, anyway.

Overall I found Tennis pretty disappointing, but as I mentioned, to me it's the weakest of the games. The graphics and sound for this one are okay, nothing more.

Bowling is next up. This is perfectly suited to the Wiimote and the bowling action itself feels very realistic. (My tendency to swerve to the left, which I always battle with when bowling in real life, is just as present in this game - but rather easier to compensate for than in real life!) It is perhaps a little too easy, after a while getting turkeys (three strikes in a row) and scores of close to 200 - definitely beyond me in real life! - quickly become attainable. However it retains its essential fun factor throughout and is a great multiplayer game, especially as anyone - even those who've never played a computer game before in their lives - will be able to quickly work out how to play this one. Sometimes the timing for releasing the B button on the Wiimote (for releasing the ball) is a little pernickety, but that doesn't get in the way of the game being very enjoyable.

The graphics are simple but nicely portray a bowling alley. There are replays if you get a strike or spare, and the enthusiastic commentator is quite fun. Bowling is definitely a game I'll be playing now and then for a long time to come.

Baseball also uses simplified controls - all you do is bat and bowl - but this doesn't detract from the game in the way it did with Tennis. As far as I can remember the fielder controls in computerised versions of the game have never been particularly successful, and the fact that the fielders here sometimes get their catches and sometimes don't mean that you'll be egging them on to make or miss the catch, depending on whether you're batting or bowling at the time. The batting is quite difficult but great fun, particularly when you manage to hit a home run of course. Bowling works well using the Wiimote for the action and A,B or both buttons to opt for a curve ball, screw ball or a slider. Just chuck it for a fast ball. (I couldn't seem to get a slow ball or change-up to happen, so not sure if they're possible or not!)

The graphics are nice enough and the sound effects reasonable. Baseball was perhaps the perfect game to choose for showcasing the Wiimote, and it works very well indeed. The lack of being able to play 9 innings games (the games here are 3 innings long) will be disappointing for some, and perhaps some kind of proper tournament mode would have been a nice addition. Anyway, the fact remains that Baseball is a very playable and enjoyable game, if perhaps slightly limited.


Golf is a game I've never played in real life, but this version is fantastic. You can play a 3-hole or 9-hole game, so purists will no doubt be disappointed that you can't have a full 18-hole game, and there isn't a great choice of courses... but when a game's this enjoyable, who cares?!? Golf on the WII is fantastic, very challenging and supremely replayable.

The game lines up straight to the hole for you (at least in Beginner mode), but you still have to take the wind into account, judge the camber of the green, and occasionally decide whether discretion is the better part of valour when it comes to taking an easy shot onto the fairway a long way from the hole, or going for broke and trying to get nearer the hole, but possibly ending up out of bounds / in the rough / in a bunker. The swing action is great, it makes me feel like I would have no problem going and playing the game for real (though of course that is probably a false impression!), but the putting action is often quite awkward.

The graphics are good, nice scenery in the different courses, and the sound is great. You have quite a few environmental effects - the wind rushing around you, water lapping the banks, etc. You might get applause or cheers at various levels of volume and intensity depending on how good your shot was, and of course the ubiquitous commentator is there with the occasional "great shot!". The oohs and aahs of the crowd when you come close to a successful putt but don't quite get it never fail to make me smile.


Boxing - this is something I've never done and will never do, but two things surprised me about this game (which is a very simple three-round affair) - firstly that it was a lot of fun, and secondly that it gets you in a sweat very quickly. In fact a study done at Cleveland University showed that compared to working out with a punchbag, playing WII Boxing burned almost as many calories - though it was slightly less on the WII, the difference was so small that it was not statistically significant. (See http://www.bitburo.net/game-consoles/wii/nothing-virtual-about-wii-boxing-workout/)

The game has no realism to it - there is no blood or gore, your characters don't have arms so you can see the boxing gloves swing out but nothing connecting them to the body! - and at the end of a bout, the defeated player is standing smiling just as happily as the victor. It's the ultimate non-violent violent game (if you see what I mean), and results in complete exhaustion on the part of the players. Again, this is great fun but in a limited way.

You control your boxer with the remote and nunchuck - you can jab, hook, block and feint to either side. The graphics and sound are decent, nothing special but good enough for this game. You get a split screen, each side showing the eye view of one player. Admittedly it's sometimes a little difficult to immediately judge who is the victim of a knock down, but that only adds to the enjoyment of the game with the split second of not being sure whether to gloat or groan. All in all, Boxing is another very fun little game.

In addition to the games themselves, there are two extra modes: WII Fit, where you get rated for your fitness by playing games related to the above five sports, and WII Train, where you are given objectives to complete in relation to the sports (i.e. timing your shots in tennis to get the ball into a certain area of the court). These modes do add a little extra life and interest to the game.


Overall WII Sports is a great title and a lot of fun, though there's no denying that with a few more options and longer game modes (3 or 5 set tennis matches, 9-innings baseball, 18-hole golf, perhaps 12-round boxing?), this would have been an absolutely essential game for the WII. The only game that seems about perfect is Bowling, since I don't think there's much more they could have done with it.

As it stands you will still get a lot of enjoyment out of this game, and the solo modes aren't bad either (though obviously you will enjoy the game more with one or more other people to play it with. I suspect that even when I've had my WII for a couple of years, I'll still be dusting off my copy of WII Sports every now and then. 4 out of the 5 games are really enjoyable, which can't be bad!


Other WII Game Reviews:

Big Beach Sports
WII Play



Update:

16th January 2010 - yes, I still play Wii Sports every now and then!

Recommended: Yes