|
Thursday 21 February, 2008
[Gameplay]
For the second gaming session I played multiplayer with a friend who had never played on a Wii. The creation of a my friend’s Mii (I had a Mii before playing this title) factored into his enjoyment of the game as the customizable avatars are the same avatars used in game. We decided to play tennis against each other which turned out better than expected. While the tennis couldn’t be on par with actual simulation tennis titles like Vitua Tennis or Top Spin it instead offered, much like the bowling game, a simple and fun play mechanic.
Messing around with the player fitness age test, which utilized three randomly chosen training tests, was also a neat feature to include. The visual feel of the game became a slight annoyance as the bright shiny colors gave me a migraine headache. We finished up by playing both baseball and golf which left much to be desired. The baseball ended up being a pitch and bat home run derby full of monotony while the golf’s controls were too difficult to learn.
[Design]
There was definite innovation in terms of gameplay mechanics with the use of the Wii Remote. That however did not make up for the lack of any true depth or aesthetic prowess. The game offered very little in terms of reward aside from winning or losing a contest while the visuals felt flat and uninspired. The backgrounds chosen for each sports locale were also bland (though the growing crowd size at tennis and boxing matches was a cool sight to behold).
There existed too many holes in the gameplay mechanics that allowed for the sports to be both exploited in the case of easy strikes in bowling or simply too difficult in the case of golf. The developers should have honed the motion sensor more on the Wii Remote as controls were erratic at times detracting from the overall gameplay. In the end the games were overly simplified with very little replay value.
|
