manicsounds

I got the Japanese version recently, and although I can't really compare it to the original Wii Sports (because I never got that one) this one is really something in certain games, and really bland in others.

Frisbee ****
Power Cruising **
Fencing ****
Table Tennis ***
Golf ****
Air Sports ***
Basketball *
Archery ****
Cycling **
Bowling ****
Canoeing *
Wakeboarding **

Those are just my ratings personally.

All 12 modes are playable from the start, with unlockables in each, for example, Frisbee has a second mode, Frisbee Golf, and Bowling has 100 pin bowling unlockable.

For the Airsports, there is a mode to just fly around the island, which is the Wii Fit Island with a few extra new additions, and just that is really fun to check out, kind of like in Pilotwings64 (remember that?) to see the little things all around, and try to collect 80 tourist locations hidden around the islands. One thing I wished for was to be able to run, walk, or drive around the island too... but you never know, I still have a lot to uncover.

People want to know about the extra motion sensor. Is it better?
I guess.... I just really didn't notice a drastic difference.... but again, I don't have the original game for reference.

Michael Corvin

Thanks for the early review.

Good to hear that 100 pin bowling is back. I'm a little disappointed with your Wakeboarding score. How does it compare to Waverace?

Jcheckel

Watched some videos of this and it appears that the 100 pin bowling is different this time. There appears to be 100 pins each frame and you can go for the spares too, instead of just 1 ball per set of pins.

manicsounds

Wakeboarding doesn't have much variation to it, but I also haven't gotten all the unlockables yet. But for now, it just gets 2 stars for being too simple. The water graphics are nice, but the motion-plus seems to have no big effect here.

Bluth54

I can't wait to play Airplane, I loved played Pilotwings 64 back in the day. Nintendo really needs to put it on the Virtual Console.

Arthur Dent

I read that as waterboarding.

kstublen

Me too, lol.

Brent L

So...did no one here pick this up yesterday?

I saw it at Walmart, totally forgot it even was coming out yesterday, so I picked it up. So far I love it - archery is my favorite so far, but I haven't tried all the games yet.

UncleGramps

The archery and sword battles are awesome. The mode where you fly around the island looking for "hotspots" is strangely addictive as well.

Michael Corvin

I tried out about 9 of the events last night. Just one round of each, starting at beginner for each.

Frisbee - this was the most surprising for me. I think this game has been dogged (ha ha) the most, but I liked it quite a bit. It has a kind of Super Monkey Ball feel to hitting the targets.

Fencing - not bad. I was playing against my wife though so I let up on her. Could be fun with two decent players.

Table Tennis - finally, what Wii Tennis should have been. Topspin, slices, slams, power hits, etc. Good stuff.

Basketball - Fun. I can definitely tell the difference with the WM+ here. If your arch and release aren't just right, the shot isn't going down. Very cool.

Archery - three rounds of Archery was already more fun than all of Link's Crossbow Training.

Cycling - was probably my least favorite thus far. It was okay with two people riding tandem, but this(alternate Wiimote / nunchuck shake) is something that belongs in Mario Party

Bowling - MOTS (more of the same) I haven't played Wii Bowling in quite some time, so I can't really tell if the WM+ is doing much more than before. Of course, Wii Bowling was awesome so MOTS isn't necessarily a bad thing here.

Wakeboarding - fun but far too simplistic. Hopefully the higher difficulties add more to it.

Haven't tried:
Power Cruising
Canoeing
Air Sports
Golf

DJ_Longfellow

Do you NEED the motion+ for this? I'm thinking for the 2nd player....

Michael Corvin

Yes. If you unplug the WM+ an alert screen pops up telling you to plug it back in.

dvdsteve2000

Does the game come with M+, what exactly is it, how do you 'use' it, and can you buy it seperately (Seriously)?

Jadakiss

I was waiting on this game for a while. I've been watching the previews for it since E3 and it looked like a lot of fun to me. Picked it up yesterday and I've been enjoying it quite a bit.

My favorites are the 3 point contest, archery, fencing and frisbee. Table tennis is fun but I only played a quick round of that, definitely going to try some more later.

I like the air sports too, it's fun to explore the island and look for the various spots. I didn't really like power cruising too much. As a wave race fan, I was kind of looking forward to it. But my arms just kind of hurt holding the controllers out like that. It's not a terrible mode but it's not too great either, in my opinion. Haven't tried wake boarding yet.. it looks very simple and kind of boring from the videos I've seen of it.

I also like the version of bowling on here. It's a lot easier without having to let go of the B button to release the ball, especially for newcomers. Plus it's easier to add spin with the WM+.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun especially if you have some friends around. But even if you don't and you liked the original Wii Sports, you'll probably enjoy this as well. Only a few of the games are subpar while most of them are really enjoyable.

auto

So, you must buy an extra sensor just to play two players?

Jadakiss

The game comes bundled with a Wii Motion plus. You can buy an extra one for 20 or 25 bucks if you want to do things like multiplayer sword duels. But some of the games on here allow you to do multiplayer using one remote that you just pass around.

darkside

I'm really enjoying this so far. The flying tour of the island is my favorite, but Ping Pong, Frisbee Golf, Archery and Sword Fighting is right up there and I'm enjoying most of it so far.

Also liking all the hidden stuff. I was playing the canoeing game with my daughter and just doing the practice and ended up playing a game where we had to return the baby ducks to the mother. Found some of the food during archery as well.

steebo777

I want to get this, but have zero interest in playing it right now. I may just stick it out and wait until closer to the end of summer.

Michael Corvin

Interesting twist on 100 pin bowling, it's now 100 pins for a regular game of 10 frames of bowling. First attempt was close to 1,300.

Frisbee Golf was fun. I'm looking forward to playing a whole round with friends.

Flying around the island is fun.

The table tennis challenge is very addicting. All you do is see how long you can rally without fucking up. For a twist they put a soda can on the table for you to hit for bonus points. I probably played this a dozen times already. My high was in the 60-70 range.

The stamps you collect is a nice 'achievement whore' addition, unlocking various things in the game.

I finished the training and the first 100m race and found Canoeing damn near unplayable. Doubt it will ever get booted up again.

3 on 3 was similarly frustrating. I can't seem to move my guys more than a few feet. Just give me a nunchuck for controlling my guys. I'll probably give this a few more tries, but the 3 point contest is where it's at.

So that leaves Golf and Power Cruising as the only two things I haven't done. There is a lot to do in this game. Lots of bang for your buck.

DJ_Longfellow

So, what games are 2 players at the SAME time? I'm assuming the WM+ is essential for most people....

Michael Corvin

Most of them are played separately. The only ones that require you to play at the same time are Sword fighting, table tennis, cycling and I think you can on canoeing and 3 on 3 B-ball.

I found the last three not very fun, so that leaves sword fighting and table tennis.

adinar

Read a cheat yesterday about enabling 11 pt table tennis games. Tried it last night and it works. You need to hold down the "2" button through all the selections, starting with selecting table tennis from the main screen. Just keep the 2 button held down until the match starts and it will enable an 11 pt game. *woot* It works for both 1 player as well as 2 players versus.

I tried going back & figuring out if it was during a specific selection that the 2 button needed to be held down, but couldn't narrow it down. The only way it worked for me was holding it down the entire time.

That being said, I've played WSR for about 6 hours and have enjoyed it immensely. I haven't even gotten to try every single event yet. Archery, swordfighting and table tennis are awesome. I can see myself spending many many hours on just these three events alone. Golf is much improved from Wii Sports (better control, more varied club selection, more courses). 100-pin bowling is a blast. I actually enjoy the canoeing quite a bit as well, but I've heard mixed reviews on that game. Not sure how much "depth" there is to it either.

The only games I felt were somewhat lacking were cycling and basketball. The 3-on-3 seems very simplistic although I only played one game. It doesn't seem much more than pass, pass, dribble, shoot on offense and blocking on defense.

All the other games are pretty fun as well, even against the computer. I can only imagine how much better WSR gets when playing against competitive people.

ltrain

I picked this up yesterday, but haven't had a chance to play it yet. For anyone that's on the fence about it, Toys R' Us has a deal where you get a free $10 gift card with the purchase of Wii Sports Resort. (Apparently it was a $20 gift card, but only on Sunday 7/26.) I didn't realize that the game was out yet so I missed out on that deal. Anyway, you could put the $10 card towards another Motion Plus add-on or something.

The ad also mentions a free $25 gift card if you purchase WSR and another Wii game, but it's only on select titles. It reminded me of the great deal they had back when Super Mario Galaxy came out. That was a no-brainer! I believe that the gift card deal is good through Saturday 8/1, but I'm not positive.


P.S. The cashier told me that I had to wait 6 hours in order to use the gift card. WTF? Mildly annoying, but whatever. I'll just swing by sometime next week and find something to use it on.

Michael Corvin

Actually, if you pre-ordered (as late as Saturday even) you got an additional $5 Gift Card. So if you picked it up Sunday you got a $25 gift card for WSR and if you bought an additional game you got $10 on top of that.

ltrain

Man, I wish I would've been aware of that ahead of time. Poop. It's funny, because I tried searching for a thread on WSR a couple of weeks ago to see if there would be any deals, but I didn't even find this one until it was too late. Oh well.