Wii Play silly games

Wii Play makes a nice little add-on for the Wii system. This is no hardcore gamers game by any means! It’s an amusing little collection of games that can provide some goofy fun competition against anyone who might want to sit down with you to see what the Wii is all about or just to have some family fun for a bit when winding down. The games are fairly short and quite easy to learn. There’s nothing to solve or work your way through. In some respects, it’s like an old fashioned arcade game… but with the added interest of the Wii’s motion sensing remote. We’re a four-person household, two adults and two elementary-age kids. We’ve had Wii Play a number of months and occasionally pull it out to play a few rounds of one of the games. The short games are also nice when there’s just a little time before leaving to go somewhere or before bed or whatever…no worries about having to fight about finishing up a game in time!

Wii Play comes with an additional remote, which makes it a good value. This is no $40 or $50 game by itself, but once you factor in the value of the remote, you’re really paying about $10, so it’s definitely worth it, even if you only like a few of the games. One aspect I like about Wii Play in general is that similar to Wii Sports, there’s almost no learning curve. So it’s great to pull out for company, even when they are non-gamers. It’s good for any age. Teenagers would probably yawn at it more quickly than anyone though. Wii Play is really best as a two player game. I can’t see playing it alone.

Wii Play comes with nine games. I suppose you’d really call them mini-games. It seems that anyone can find at least a few that are amusing, and I think the other reviews attest to this. That’s not bad for a $10 game!

The games can be played by one or two players. That makes it another good game to have for family play, parties, or with company. Some games are head-to head, others are one at a time. I’ll comment on this with each game below. All of the games make use of the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii remote in some capacity.

The sounds and graphics are on par with Wii Sports. They just work. Nothing that makes your eyes pop out, but everything well done. There’s no great musical score, but the sounds you do hear just seem appropriate for the cartoon style of the events, which are mostly just sound effects.

The first time you play Wii Play all the games are locked except for the first one. You only have to play a game once in order to unlock the next one, and most games can be played in just a few minutes, so it’s not long before they are all unlocked. All games are played with your Mii.

Shooting Range
This is an old fashioned “duck hunt” type shooting range. Shoot at ducks in one round, clay pigeons in another, soda cans in another, etc. In one round you shoot the flying saucers that keep landing and kidnapping Miis that run around on the ground in hysterics. Cute! Another round has targets that appear on screen in a grid and you shoot all the standard targets for one point, shoot yellow ones for five points, but avoid shooting ones with Mii faces on them or you lose points. Just aim with the Wii remote and shoot by pressing the B button. When playing with two players you compete for the highest score, both shooting simultaneously on the same screen. Get the targets before your competitor does. I’d rate this as one of the better ones in the batch.

Find Mii
Different Mii characters are moving around in different environments such as walking around on the street, moving up and down on escalators, or swimming. You’ll be presented with a task that usually involves finding look-alikes before the timer runs out. For example, you might have to find look-alikes from a group of 10 Miis within 20 seconds. The look-alikes will have the same face, but sometimes different color shirts to make finding them a little more difficult. In some scenes their heads turn from side to side, also adding some challenge. The environments are pretty cute. In swimming, the Miis occasionally duck their head under the water as they swim. Each round gets a little faster and there will be more Miis. As you create Miis and save them to you Wii, they’ll start appearing in this game. That makes it a lot easier if you’ve used them in other games. We found ourselves saying “hey, find all the Tom’s in this one!” When you play this with two players, you’re competing in each scene to see who can find them first. This one is difficult to rate.

Table Tennis
This is nothing like Wii Sports tennis. The only control you have is moving your paddle right and left. The player swings automatically. This is not much more fun than the original “pong” game where you move the white sick up and down to return the ball. I would rate this as the most useless of the games in the package. Actually, it’s the only one of the batch that no one in the family ever wants to play.

Pose Mii
This is an odd one! There’s also not much call in our family to play this one. Bubbles float around, slowly moving towards the bottom of the screen. Each one has an image of your Mii with a given pose (hands out or arms up, etc.). You move our real Mii around on the screen by pointing the remote and change its pose by pressing A or B so that it matches the pose of the one in the bubble. You then move your Mii over the one in the bubble to get it to match up. You have to twist the Wii remote to get it to line up. Once you get it centered over the one in the bubble, the bubble pops and you score points and move to the next one. You want to line them up before the bubbles float to the bottom. In two player mode, bubbles for both players are gliding around on the screen at the same time. This gets my 2nd lowest approval rating after Table Tennis.

Laser Hockey
This is actually somewhat like a cross between the old fashioned black and white pong game and air hockey. It’s not 3D and no Miis are involved. The walls, puck, and paddles look like they are neon. You point the Wii remote to move the paddle. It’s oblong and you can control its angle by twisting the remote. Another reviewer said that you don’t even control the speed, but this is not true. If you move it more quickly towards your opponent’s side as you hit, it goes faster. If you’re backing up towards your own goal when you hit, it brings the puck almost to a stop. Good play in one or two player mode, head to head. You are limited to keeping your paddle on your side of the board. I’d give this a middle to high rating out of the games.

Billiards
It looks cool, but there’s not a lot of control. The system picks what ball you must hit, and you’re not allowed to hit any others on the way to it, which is not always possible. This is not traditional 8 ball. I think this was more a display of a possible creative use of the Wii remote than anything. You really do have to pull the remote back towards your body then push it forward just like it were a pool stick. I’d give this a middle of the road rating.

Fishing
My kids like playing this one with me. The controls are interesting. This is more like the type of “fishing” you do at a carnival where there’s a string attached to a pole and you dunk it down into the water then pull up whatever ends up stuck to the end. There’s no casting or reeling in this little game. You can reach all areas of the pond by reaching the Wii remote out in front of you or to the sided. Raising or lowering it a bit will make your hook drop under the water. The fish look like 2D paper fish swimming around. Cute. Try to get your hook in front of a good one and when you feel it start to tug, yank it out! Don’t let the little guy get on the hook or you lose points. Average game play is a few minutes.

Charge (Cow Racing)
Pure silliness! We put this at the top of the family list. It looks ridiculous on screen, and it looks ridiculous watching someone play. How can anyone not smile at this one. You race your cow down the street, jumping hurdles as you go. Run into scarecrows to gain points. Run into your enemy to slow them down. Controlling your cow is quite odd. You old the Wii remote with two hands by the ends and tip it forward to make the cow go. The more you tip it, the faster the cow goes. Tilt right and left to move sideways. To jump your cow, fling the whole remote upwards quickly. That’s the part that looks so funny when watching someone play. This is another one that tops our list out of the nine.

Tanks
This is the only game that uses the nunchuck, although it’s not required. The game is quite similar to the old Combat game that came with the Atari 2600. You move the take with the nunchuck or with the four way controller on the remote. You point the wii remote to move crosshairs on the screen to aim where you’ll fire. You’re out to blast the other tanks before they shoot you. In two player mode you can also blow up the other player, or you can agree to work with them to kill as many enemy tanks as possible and advance to the next level.