vacation recreation with wii sports resort

although probably everyone has already played wii sports resort (which was released 4 (!?!) years ago) i just finished the majority of the swordplay sports modes so i thought i’d post some thoughts on the game. i’d enjoyed wii sports when it came out, but its sequel, like many sequels, improves upon it in every way. there’s a satisfying variety to the games, and each sport includes multiple modes, almost all of which are worthwhile to some degree and also available for multiple players. for better or worse the game includes “achievements” which definitely extend the experience, although the game doesn’t avoid the trap of making some of them fairly arbitrary and pointless. one of the game’s most brilliant features is that the action all takes place around a single location, wuhu island. the locale had previously been seen in wii fit, but here it serves to provide a unifying theme to all the sports as well as giving the feeling that you’re actually on vacation. the “island flyover” mode, in which you pilot an airplane and learn more about the resort by finding (i.e. collecting) information spots in classic 3-d platformer fashion, really brings the world alive.

as for the sports themselves, it’s surprising how deep some of the experiences really are. working through all the swordplay modes definitely takes some time, and the wii motion plus feels fantastic in this as well as most of the other sports. at the time i’d given skyward sword‘s swordfighting the upper hand, but now that i’ve mastered the mechanics in wii sports resort i’d definitely have to give it the edge. i also spent time with frisbee, which also feels great, and table tennis. some of the sports felt a little shallow on casual acquaintance, but i can already tell that in most cases if i delved into them more i would find them to be deeper experiences.

like the original, this is a game that you could pour hours into (and apparently people have: according to the nintendo channel the current average amount of time per wii is 37 hr and 19 min). i have little doubt that there will be a wii u iteration, but this is still a great game for the summer, and, for me at least, a nice substitute for actually taking a trip to a resort.

take a vacation with these wii sports resort links:
– basic info at the official site
– comprehensive list of all the tips ‘n tricks
– some info at strategywiki.org
– entertaining video of 4-man canoeing from thebitblock.com
– iwata asks feature
– snippet on the sports that didn’t make it into the game
– entry at wikipedia