Nintendo invited me over to take a look at some of their upcoming games for 2009. How could I refuse? Here is what I found.
Wii Sports Resort, according to Nintendo, is the sequel to Wii Sports. I always kind of thought the sequel to Wii Sports was the mediocre Wii Play, but since Resort has “Wii Sports” in the title, I guess I can’t argue the point. This is a shame, because I love to argue points.
Resort is a more elaborate game than Wii Sports, which was simply a bunch of sports mini-games. Resort is also a bunch of sporty mini-games, but now you can actually progress; the game starts you in each game on the beginner level and as you play moves you up; I couldn’t use the Nintendo PR flack’s character because it had leveled up too high for a beginner (I played as a guest).
Wii Sports was a way for people to instantly get into the Wii, and Wii Sports Resort attempts to do the same thing for the Wii MotionPlus add-on. From the little I played I don’t have a clear sense of how different motion control is with the MotionPlus. I didn’t get much of a sense of an improvement from the sword fighting game (how, by the way, is fighting an onslaught of sword-wielding knights a sport?) but perhaps I would on a more advanced level. There is an interesting archery game in which the Wii Remote is used as the string of the bow, and I’m inclined to think you could not do this without the MotionPlus. Playing ping pong also seemed a little less random, but just a little.
Resort looks to be a lot of fun, and will probably help Nintendo really move the MotionPlus, which is, for them, the whole point. The game is set to be released July 26, 2009.
Wii Fit Plus is an enhanced version of Wii Fit; it’s the original game with some added exercises and mini-games, and when Nintendo starts selling Wii Fit Plus, they will no longer sell the original. Nintendo didn’t show me any of the new exercises, but I did get a quick look at the mini-games. Of the ones I saw demoed, the most interesting is one in which you fly. You stand on the Wii balance board and flap your arms, which generates enough of a weight shift so that the game can tell how fast you are flapping. I was pretty impressed by that, but I didn’t get a chance to try it out for myself.
The mini-games were the best part of Wii Fit, so if enough of them are fun it could give me a much improved view of the Wii Fit experience. The game is scheduled to be released around the end of this year
New Super Mario Bros. is generating a lot of anticipation among those who feel the Super Mario Bros. series represents a shining, glorious part of the video games world. But as someone who did not have a Nintendo system growing up, I never had a chance to develop that huge fondness for Nintendo’s brand of side scrolling platformer. Thus, I don’t feel completely qualified to opine on this new take on that old formula.
The big new feature is that the game has 4-player coop. As long as at least one of your friends is alive then you will be revived if your avatar is killed. The game looks and plays like what little I’ve seen of the old series, so I’m going to assume that fans will love it. Whether I will love it remains to be seen. I'll find out when the game is released; presumably around the end of this year
