Wii Play!

Had a friend pick up a copy of Wii Play for me today. Wii Play is a collection of nine sport-y games and comes packaged with a wiimote. Which as most of you Wii-tards (Is there a better slang for us geeks?) know, is impossible to find a single controller in the store, along with the Wii point cards for some odd reason. They're just paper!! Arrrghh....

Pirate imitations aside, Wii Play is really really fun. Not A+ fun, but comes darn close. Here's a quick rundown of the nine games....

Shooting Range: Similar to Duck Hunt, you aim the wiimote at the screen and fire at balloons, plates, alien saucers, and ocassionally ducks, if you're fast enough. Simple point and shoot. Easy to play. Speed increases the further you go along making the game more challenging. (This theme is used throughout the game to keep you on your toes.) 5/5

Find Mii: Another point and shoot, but a step down. You're looking at a group of Mii's trying to locate two similar Miis in the crowd. That's pretty much it. A Memory board game video game? Eh. 1/5

Table Tennis: That's it. Playing ping-pong by swaying your wiimote back and forth. Authentic ping-pong ball 'tic-tack' sound- really helps the experience. I love ping-pong and I love this game. It's also cool when Mii's start crowding the table in anticipation. 5/5

Pose Mii: A step up from Find Mii, this time you pose your Mii into falling bubbles with a similar silouette. As the game progresses, you have to rotate your Mii as well- in addition to changing his pose. Gets really challenging and rather annoying. I'll probably like this once I get the hang of the different poses. 3/5

Laser Hockey: Very Tron-like in appearance. Move your paperclip blocker to send the puck around the rink and into your opponents goal. Very loose controls- also involves rotating the wiimote. The blocker noise is very similiar to a light saber... Not a huge fan...yet. 3/5

Billiards: The most complex game in the set. Plays similar to Wii Golf. Trys to match the physics of actual pool by where you make contact with the cue ball (backspin, topspin,etc.) Have to take some time to play around to really appreciate it. 3/5

Fishing: The worst of the bunch. Dangle a fish hook over a pond to catch fish. Each fish is worth different points-you try to catch what the Wii tells you to. Shoddy controls, overly simplistic graphics, not worth a play after two or three times. 1/5

Charge!: The best of the bunch. Your Mii rides a cow plowing over scarecrows and jumping over hurdles to the finish line. Control is tight, very responsive. Fantastic! 5/5

Tanks: Plays like the old Combat! games of the late Atari 2600. Move your tank, fire a round of five bullets, and drop mines. Tanks move a little too slow- but then again, they are tanks. Feels like I'm playing with Micro-Machines on a workbench. Neat! 5/5

So...four out of nine doesn't sound like a great purchase, but I've only played a little of each. Will become a group favorite I'm sure. Sad that it isn't four player, but two. Would have been awesome to have four player Charge!

Keep 'em coming Nintendo!