Wii Sports Resort Review

Wii Sports was, despite its simple nature, one of the most played games on my Wii, if not the overall most-played game on my Wii. As the Wii's pack-in title, Wii Sports was the best example of how motion control can enhance gaming in 2006, and by many measurements, still is in 2009. While plenty of great games have found a home in my Wii (Tiger Woods '09, Super Mario Galaxy, Rock Band 2 being among my favorites), Wii Sports always was the best show-off for just-plain-fun on the Wii.

Wii Sports Resort, a proper sequel, comes along to knock Wii Sports back, and to help show its age, brings along the Wii Motion Plus, a hyper-sensitive accessory that enhances the accuracy of motion and position data reported by the Wii Remote. To be short about this: it works. One-to-one motion control is finally possible on the Wii, and it feels pretty good, but I do have my reservations.

For one - and maybe this is just Nintendo being careful in Wii Sports Resort - there is a need to constantly calibrate the device. Before all of the twelve events in Wii Sports resort, the player is asked to calibrate the Wii Remote by either setting it on a flat, level surface or aiming it at the screen so the sensor bar can do the work. This irritates me, especially because some events - such as swordplay - require fast swipes of the remote and quick button presses, and these motions don't always line up. Wii Motion Plus is accurate for sure, but perhaps a tad bit slow when I wish it were not, and this led to plenty of games that just did not feel quite right.

But without further ado, I will briefly discuss my thoughts about each game in the package.

Swordplay: My favorite game and also the best demonstration of Wii Motion Plus' strengths and weaknesses. Swordplay maps the Wii Remote to a 1:1 sword that follows every twist, thrust, slice, and block that you can manage. This looks and feels great; true motion control. The events are fun, slicing at opponents and blocking in real time with all the proper angles. Skill is involved, and with another human player presents quite a challenge. However, this is the game that demonstrates a weakness of the Wii Motion Plus: it all-too-often becomes disoriented and misaligned, making a quick block difficult when the game thinks your pointing the remote down still but it is really at your side and hasn't caught up yet. This is a rare event, but has still happened enough that I had to mention it, and thus-far hasn't ruined my enjoyment of the coolest sport in the game.

Wakeboarding: Largely forgettable, wakeboarding sees your Mii character gliding left and right on water as you perform stunts while hoping the wake of your boat. Honestly I don't see why this couldn't have been done on the standard Wii Remote: tilt the remote left and right to steer, and shake it to jump on the wave and catch some air, performing a stunt. Nothing more at all.

Frisbee: An oddly-accurate recreation of throwing a frisbee, this sport maps the Wii Remote to your hand holding a frisbee, and tracks every dip and twist of your hand perfectly. Even better, throwing a frisbee feels good, leaving your hands without making you feel cheated. You can angle high and watch the frisbee plop to the ground or aim low and richochet it off the ground. A solid example of what Wii Motion Plus can do without the pitfalls of Swordplay. One of my favorites.

Archery: My second-favorite game to Swordplay, Archery builds a bow and arrow set out of the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. With the remote as your bow handle and the Nunchuck as the string, a scary level of accuracy and tracking is on display here. Once you zero in on your distant target and pull back on the Nunchuck, you can see just how sensitive Wii Motion Plus is as the view shakes by the tiny motion of your hands. Letting an arrow rip and hit your target feels as good as Frisbee or Swordplay. Bravo.

Basketball: Another not-so-hot sport, this is another sport that seems like it could have been done without Wii Motion Plus. Just flick the Wii Remote upwards and watch basketballs lob through a net. I'm far better at 3-pointers here than I am in real life, and it feels much too forced in the game. Pass.

Table Tennis: A semi-sequel to Tennis from Wii Sports, Table Tennis can be either very mindless or very accurate. As long as you time your swings right and position them correctly (left or right side of your body), this is a recreation of Wii Tennis. Greater depth does exists, since Wii Motion Plus also measures the speed and angle of your swing, so lobs, slices, and other advanced moves are available via natural motion control. I haven't really gotten the hang of the finer controls yet, so for my this is just a scaled-down version of Wii Tennis.

Golf: Exactly like Golf from Wii Sports with much more sensitive controls, sometimes for the better (great draws and fades) and sometimes for the worse (too easy to draw and fade), so it can be frustrating for casual players. I prefer the swing mechanics of Tiger Woods '09 over this.

Bowling: Plain and simple, exactly like Bowling from Wii Sports with slightly more sensitive controls. Nothing more and still just as fun. I'll take it.

Power Cruising: Power cruising really wants to be Wave Race Wii. With great wave physics and classic slalom gameplay, it's off to a solid start. However, the motion controls really do not do the sport justice. Using a Wii Remote and Nunchuck held in front of you as if they were handlebars, you manuever the watercraft by learning into turns and twisting the Wii Remote for a speed boost. While serviceable for short play sessions, I would hope this sketchy control style is never adopted for a full-fledged game.

Canoeing: This should have been in Wii Fit. Seriously. Canoeing is a major workout, involving thrusting the Wii Remote from side to side as you guide a canoe down a short course. Quite realistic in terms of effort and accurate, and while not necessarily fun, it does provide a satisfying experience and workout. I play it on occasion, but not necessarily as a recommendation.

Cycling: Stupid, stupid, stupid. "Peddle" up and down by shaking the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, then learn with them to turn. Manage stamina, rendered as three on-screen hearts. Not quite an involving game, nor fun to play for me. What the hell, Nintendo?

Air Sports: One of my favorite games solely because it brings back extremely fond memories of Pilotwings 64, one of my all-time favorite games. Indeed, flying around the island in Wii Sports Resort is so similar to Pilotwings that I am now longing for a proper Pilotwings sequel. I have not had a chance to play the two-player "battle" mode that involves popping an opponent balloons, but the challenge sounds reasonable enough and the mechanic is simple enough for anyone to pick up. Love it.

And there you have it - my take on Wii Sports Resort. While not perfect by any means, this is definitely a worthy follow-up to Wii Sports, and I feel every Wii own should pick this up. Wii Motion Plus is positively the future of the Wii, and this game teases the future very well.

B3 out.

Define "Change"

Ask a friend to define what "change" is. Change is such a loaded word.

While change can be used to describe coins leftover after breaking a dollar, or used to describe how you put on new clothes, change for me means something much, much more valuable.

I define change from the perspective of a fiction writer, and as a fiction writer, change is one of the most important aspects of writing a solid story, but what does it mean in relation to fiction? How is it used best? With this definition, of course:

Change is an event - spoken dialogue, internal emotion or a physical action - that causes irreversible consequences, creates challenging differences between characters and alters the expected outcome of future events.

Now think about your life and consider when changed happened for you, what it impacted, and what the outcome of that change was.

Thought so.

B3 out.

History of 3D Game Engines

Great article on the history of 3D game engines, lots of screen shots included. Check it out if your a gamer too.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/3d_game_engines

B3 out.

More Privacy Issuse

Facebook is at it again. Ah well, at least this time you can opt-out of this terrible program.

See, Facebook is able to use any of your photos, particularly your profile picture, in advertisements elsewhere on the site. I'm not fond of this, and luckily here is how to get out of it:

(Thanks to Erv at work for the link.)

http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/2009/07/19/your-photos-now-featured-in-facebook-ads/

B3 out.

You Got Some Costed in My Monies

A comment I saw on YouTube recently for a "21 Guns" video:

"I love this song :D I got tickets for Greenday in Melb on Dec 14 and it costed $101 dollars."

"Costed $101?" I sure hope not all Green Day fans are this... unique.

B3 out.

Digsby, The New Awesome

Digsby is an awesome IM client that also happens to support access to many email services and social networking sites, with directly-updatable status feeds, like on Facebook or Twitter.

However, the main download at the Digsby site is a bit malicious, since it uses something called InstallerIQ to download and install the application. In short, InstallerIQ also pulls and installs dubious registry keys and potentially installs pop-up advertising on your computer.

To install the awesomeness of Digsby without the crappiness of InstallIQ, follow the directions I found at this blog:

http://gaetandhont.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/installing-digsby-without-installiq/

B3 out.

Catching Up... Sorry!

Holy hell, it's been a buys couple of weeks. We are in the midst of Summer 2009, and in a couple months I will be looking back to reminiscence, and it looks like I will have a lot to reflect on.

• Bash '09 was July 4th at Korinne's place out near Weston, and it was a fantastic time. I got to meet a few new people (Korinne's family, mostly) in addition to see fireworks and have a ton of fun outside. The whole event was a great success, and although I've said that three Bashes are enough, I might reconsider this position in the future.

• I've been searching for a use for my new Twitter account, and to be honest, I've been baffled as to what to do. I have a few "tweets" (I hate that when used as a buzzword, by the way) up, all work-related, but nothing consistent. I do believe that I may have come up with a decent use now, however: as a note-taking device. I have access to Twitter from anywhere (iPod, netbook, cell phone, work and home), and I intend to jot down quick ideas, notes and thoughts about fiction concepts or characters that come to me throughout the day. I can then periodically review these and compile them into (hopefully) future fiction.

• I saw Green Day in Detroit yesterday. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. While a good portion of today's music fans talk down on Green Day for abandoning their indie-punk roots and taking a calculated approach to their music (by the way, I agree with this), they sure as hell do put out music with fairly-universal appeal and put on an even better concert. Opening song "21st Century Breakdown" was as good as it ever was on the album, and dives into music 15 years old with "Minority" or back to modern-hit "Holiday" or "Jesus of Suburbia" were awesome. This variety of classic songs kept the show from ever becoming stale, and plenty of pyrotechnics and shenanigans from Billie and Co. proved to be surprisingly mature. Green Day are seasoned punk veterans who gracefully made the transition to influencial stadium-filling rock band. This is one show I would see again.

With that, I have to head to bed for another long day of work. I'm probably looking at another weekend of work, which sucks, but hey, whatever. B3 out.

Now on Twitter

I'm now on Twitter:

B3 on Twitter

... but the question is, with my life so entrenched in Facebook, why join Twitter now? I'm not sure, but I have a couple of neat ideas for how to use Twitter. Perhaps a scratch pad for creative writing ideas, or leave it as I begun it, a work-exclusive status updater. Hmm.

B3 out.