Ever play Wii Bowling the American way? Give it a shot. While sprawled on a couch, jerk your wrist randomly, and your Wii character will nail a strike almost by default. Leave that bowl of Rold Golds on your belly, champ. It's not going anywhere.
Wii Sports was a pretty good ruse, limiting its games to tiny swipes becauseâhey nowâthe Wii remote only senses tiny swipes. It's more fun to think the Wii knows your real movements, Gramps, but your full-on bowling swing is for naught.
Or is it? This month saw the release of Wii MotionPlus, a doohickey that plugs into Wii remotes and promises 1:1 motion controlâevery angle, swipe, and shift of your hands is now, finally, so-long-awaitedly replicated. But it must suck to market this to the people who've already bought into the original Wii promise. What do you tell fun-lovin' Gramps? That it will sense "more" of his motion? Lost cause, Nintendo.
I've spent the past week testing the first few MotionPlus games and figuring out what "more motion" really means. Short answer: angular, not positional. Wave your remote around while standing still, and the sword on your TV will twist and turn in kind but stay frozen in space otherwise.
The latter issue kills EA's Grand Slam Tennis. The game plays fine at first when it senses your wrist angle while swinging a tennis racket; aiming and adding top-spin is better than the old Wii Sports. But the Wii can't tell where you stand in the room, so your on-screen guy will often hold the racket to his right while you're tilting it to your left. In high-speed tennis, this screws you.
Slower, simpler games do fine, which makes EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10 the most impressive MotionPlus game so far: full swing motions, front and back, are measured for power, while swing angles will hook and slice with consistent precision. Any dork who has slammed a trackball on a Golden Tee arcade machine should pay heed. They'll never recover from the rush of nailing a golf shot with MotionPlus. I, king dork, can attest to fist pumps. It's a typical, solid golf game otherwise, padded with 27 full courses and a long career mode. But the swing, it is everything.
For great Wii tennis, you're better off waiting for next month's Wii Sports Resort. This weekend, I got my grubby hands on the early Japanese version thanks to an import-happy pal. Just like the original Wii Sports, this sequel is a mini-game explosion, upped from 5 games to 13. Most of them show off the MotionPlus's abilities, particularly the table tennis game, whose accuracy is startling. Paddle angle, stroke speed, shot location... whatever, all you need to know is how fucking good this mode feels.
Similarly, the best games focus on the angular motion of MotionPlus, like the dinky frisbee-throwing game, the samurai sword duels, and the bit where you hold the remote like a paper airplane to fly around an island. Others are clunkers that are probably more fun with three drunken friends, such as the awkward basketball mode, the wonky water skiing, and the canoeing game. Yep: four people row one canoe as quickly as possible. Get ready to hate your condescending friend who orders everyone else to row to the left and right alternating.
If you're burnt out on Wii Sports, you're not going to get much wow factor here after smiling at the accurate sword game for a few minutes. But it's a solid package of varied mini-games, so long as you ignore the stupid bicycle one in which you pedal with your hands (???). You'll love the table tennis mode, and Grandpa will delight in the rest.
Speaking of Grandpa, golf and bowling are back from the original Wii Sports, and both are smoother. Your golf swing no longer randomly wobbles out of place, and in bowling, you don't have to release a button to let the ball goâa tiny change that makes a big difference. But just to get you depressed, Gramps, I tested the new bowling mode on the couch. Bowl of chips on the tummy, and I rolled a 154. No spills.
