“Wii Sports” is without a doubt the best Wii title to date. This is a good and bad thing. While the presentation is very simple and straight forward, it is the addictive game-play of Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Baseball and Boxing that makes Wii Sports great while other release titles like Zelda are lackluster at best. Sure Zelda is legendary but the slow pace of the game and the constant reading of TEXT is way too annoying not to mention the action in the game is sporadic leaving me bored at many times in the game. Last week Nintendo released Wii Play. Wii Play is a set of 9 casual games that are designed to challenge your hand to eye coordination. The 9 games are: Billiards, Charge, Find Mii, Fishing, Laser Hockey, Pose Mii, Table Tennis, Tanks and Shooting Range.

When you first power up the game you are prompted to choose your Mii for use in the games you will play. Your Mii will be used in many of the games such as Charge, Find Mii, Billiards and Shooting Range. After choosing a Mii you are taken through each game once as a training of some sort. I did not like not being able to jump into a game of my choosing right away. You are actually REQUIRED to run through the training once, then you can play any game you like.

“Billiards” is as simple as it sounds. You pull back on the Wii Remote while holding the B button, and then you release the B button while moving the cue forward to the cue ball. I found the controls to be very decent in the game as I had no trouble striking the cue ball but it was very difficult to “cut” the cue ball. This part of the game needs to be improved. One cool feature is your “Mii” is displayed on the cue ball. I found this to be unique use of the Mii characters. Billiards is OK but in real style and presentation which makes the game a bore after a few rounds.

“Charge” is my favorite game in the entire set. You (your Mii) are mounted on a cow and run a course knocking down scarecrows and jumping hurdles. You control the Mii/Cow by holding your Wiimote sideways and moving the Wiimote left and right to steer left and right. You tilt the controller forward to go faster and back to slow down. To jump the hurdles you simply lift the controller in the air “quickly”. Charge is simple and a lot of fun.

“Find Mii” is an interesting game of perception. Several Mii’s are displayed on screen and you are asked to identify the two “Mii’s” that are alike. Sometimes the Mii’s are wearing different cloths or have different hairstyles. As you win each round more Mii’s are added to complicate the selection process. As you have probably guessed, you use your Wiimote to choose the correct Mii’s.

“Fishing” is completely LAME (in my opinion). Basically you wiggle your fishing pole in the water using your Wiimote to try and get cheesy looking fish to bite. I suppose if you actually enjoy fishing in real-life you may like this game.

“Laser Hockey” is one game I really looked forward to playing. Laser Hockey consists of a hockey table, two goals and a “Laser Hockey Puck”. You hit the puck by moving the Wiimote back and forth in addition to up and down. You can also twist and turn the Wiimote to hit the puck at multiple angles. Playing the AI is easier than playing a real-person but a real-person is far more fun. Laser Hockey represents one of the better looking games in the package, mainly due to the Laser Hockey Puck.

“Pose Mii” is another annoying game. Your Mii Character is inside a bubble that falls on the screen and before the Mii falls off the bottom of the screen you must use A or B button to pose your Mii in the exact position of the Mii in the bubble and then place the “posed” Mii over the Mii in the bubble. This game is not fun and proved to be a waste of my time. Little kids may like it, but even my 12 year old son hated this game with more than a passion.

“Table Tennis” was another game I really looked forward to playing and unfortunately was another disappointment. The ball is served by the AI and you move your Wiimote to the left and right to hit the ball. The movements you need to make are very “SUBTLE” with no “SWINGING” required which makes the game very tedious and not really much fun. The game becomes much worse when actually playing with a human being. This could have been an awesome game if the table was not so small (leading you to make subtle movements) and some type of swinging was involved. This represented my biggest disappointment in Wii Play.

“Tanks” is a game that is fun for a short time and is the only game in the set to use the Nunchuk. Essentially you use the Nunchuk to aim and the Wiimote D-pad to move while using A and B to accelerate and shoot. Playing with the Nunchuk deepens the learning curve but makes targeting much easier once you have adapted.

“Shooting Range” goes back to the days of Duck Hunter on the NES. You are presented with bullseye targets (some with your Mii on them) to shoot along with ducks, disks and finally flying saucers that try to take Mii’s that all look just like your Mii character. If they manage to pickup your Mii, you must shoot the saucer before it disappears off screen. The game is as simple as “point and shoot” with your Wiimote.

Unfortunately I was extremely disappointed in Wii Play. After a strong showing by Wii Sports, Wii Play has proven to the opposite with lame games and tedious game-play in addition to poor level design on a few games (such as Table Tennis). At 49.99, the best part of Wii Play is the Wii Remote that is included. With Wii Remotes hard to find, how can Nintendo bundle them with Wii Play? Without more games that are fun to play like Wii Sports, the Wii may end up being the “fade” of the Next Generation of Gaming. I really hope I am wrong.

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