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Classroom Facts
Math is a significant part of the game, used to calculate scores and other information in many of the games. Tables displaying players’ performances and high scores are available, as well.
Resort features a number of real-life sports, including bowling, archery, golf and more, and each of these uses real-world mechanics and rules. Table tennis has players holding the Wii Remote exactly as they would their paddle, and swinging the remote as a golf club offers players the opportunity to recreate their own natural hooks and slices in the game. Other real-world concepts – wind speed and target distance in archery, for example – are introduced in many of the games.
Creativity & Imagination
By the Player:
Wii Sports Resort doesn’t offer any sort of narrative or progression, but players have plenty of freedom when playing the games. Games like Frisbee golf and archery require extremely precise movements, and players are free to experiment in these games and several others to develop specific skills and strategies. While any one game may not provide a huge amount of depth, the wide array of different sports available ensures that players will always have new skills to work on.
By the Developer:
Wii Sports Resort contains a dozen sports, and each of them uses the Wii Remote to great effect. While the game is structurally very similar to its predecessor – more a collection of minigames than one cohesive experience – the new control scheme really manages to elevate the experience past what the original Wii Sports had to offer.
The different sports are kind of tied together this time, taking place in different areas of the resort on Wuhu Island. One game allows players to fly a plane around the island at different times of day, checking out the different areas. This lends the game a certain depth over the original, which had players simply picking games from a list.
The games are almost entirely new, and each uses the new controls to incredibly creative effect. Other new features include a collection of stamps, awarded to players for completing various tasks, and a handful of secret challenges and rewards in certain games.
Between the variety of games included and the innovative new controls made possible with the new Wii Remote attachment, Wii Sports Resort is something nearly anyone can enjoy.
Business Skills
Business skills are not a factor of Wii Sports Resort.
People Skills
Each of Wii Sports Resort’s twelve games can be played by a solo player, but almost all of them invite multiple friends to join in. Resort can’t be played online, reinforcing its goal of bringing friends together – along with other friends and family members who might not usually join. The common-sense games that use the Wii Remote to play sports that are themselves intuitive encourage players of every age and experience level to participate. Anybody that has bowled before can play Resort’s bowling game with minimal coaching, and anyone at all can figure out how to have fun in the swordplay game. That the game is so accessible, fun and, pretty often, funny, which does a lot to help bring players and non-players together.
Problem Solving
Problem solving in Wii Sports Resort varies widely from game to game. Some have players attempting actions that would be done when playing the actual sport in question – returning a serve in table tennis or making a long putt – and the subtle movements necessary to perform these actions in Resort are often surprisingly true to the real-world counterparts.
The goals put before the player are very clear, and a number of tutorials and practice modes allow players to become comfortable with the controls and rules of each sport. Some games have players competing against an opponent, while others simply have players attempting to climb a high score board. Either way players are challenged to use the games innovative control schemes to succeed at a given sport or game, usually working towards a goal that is either intuitive or one already familiar through experience with any of the sports during the course of life.
Simulation
Resort is meant to be a literal simulation of most of the games and sports included. Fencing, archery, bowling, Frisbee, golf, table tennis, canoeing – each has players use the Wii Remote as a replacement for the instrument used in the real-world game. While there are some exceptions, most games use the Wii Remote to extremely accurately replicate the sport in question.
Popularity
Wii Sports Resort has received fairly positive reviews since its release. While some reviewers have criticized the relative simplicity of the game, most have recognized the step forward in control that the MotionPlus offers as reason enough to praise the title. The game has also sold exceptionally well since its release, both in its original Japanese release and its more recent North American incarnation.
Extra Credit
Wii Sports Resort offers little violence of any kind, with the possible exception of the fencing game. While this game does focus mostly on swordplay between opponents, the swords look anything but sharp and players are depicted wearing a kind of padded armor.
Controls & Options
Resort constantly offers players the choice between right- and left-handed controls, and many games offer choices between manual and automatic controls for players of different skill levels. Most games offer different difficulty levels, with the higher ones sometimes being unlocked through play. Standard audio and visual options are also available.
Tips
Wii Sports Resort received an E from the ESRB with a descriptor for Cartoon Violence. The game includes one MotionPlus controller attachment, required for play. Extra MotionPluses are sold separately, though all but a handful of the games’ many modes can be played multiplayer by passing a single controller around. |