As I waited those 10 hours in line at Wal-Mart to get my Wii, Wii Sports was pretty far down the list of reasons I was excited. Twilight Princess was the big reason I was there on launch day, and as we went to my friends house afterward to play I figured we'd do a round or two of tennis before we put in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz and had the real multiplayer sessions. Wrong. Wrong.Wii Sports is incredible for how deceptive it is. No one really anticipated 1) how quickly it would seize the general consciousness and 2) how much value it would hold for people. I count myself amongst those who underestimated it. I went on record to my friends when the Wii came out that, having heard that it would be relatively well supplied (relative to the PS Triple, at least), that the Wii would be outright easy to find that holiday season. I assumed that the Wii would take a DS style trajectory, failing to really catch on (catch on beyond the Nintendo fan subset, like myself) until it saw software that really captured what the system was capable of. For the DS this came in the form of things like Kirby: Canvas Curse and Nintendogs. I simply didn't realize that the Wii would have its existence rationalizing title packed into the box. So where I figured the Wii would be relatively easy to find until it later exploded (when, say, Mario Galaxy came out) it exploded right out of the gate. In fact, you still can't find them that easily - I actually saw one on a retail shelf for the first time ever within the last few months - some 16 months after release.
Also unanticipated was the level of staying power Wii Sports has had. I assumed that, while it was sure to be fun, that the lack of features (baseball is 3 innings, golf is 9 holes, etc) would harm its long term value, but I guess I didn't realize quite how much fun it would be. Now, yes, I've mostly moved onto other titles, but I'm also a big time gamer here - even if Wii Sports had 5 fully featured sports games I'd be moving on eventually. It does remain, however, high in the rotation of good party games - joining the ranks of classics like Bomberman 64 and TimeSplitters 2 as something of a defauly source of fun for the entire console generation. For those not as 'hardcore' as myself (I really despise that term, but it is useful) Wii Sports has also been something of a touchstone. In my time at work only three games have come up in conversations - Guitar Hero/Rock Band, that 'Wii driving game' (Mario Kart Wii), and Wii Sports. This is a degree of permeation that games typically don't achieve.
Some time should be spent talking about what's included in the package here. Of the 5 sports available - boxing, baseball, tennis, bowling, and golf - boxing can be tossed out pretty much immediately, it simply proves too tiring for extended sessions and too imprecise to be actually fun in the first place. Tennis and baseball are decent enough ideas but are harmed by a seeming lack of 'to do'. Tennis is overly simplified - I'm not even referring to the fact that you don't move your character, but rather to the fact that your shot angle is pretty much entirely defendant on timing and not on, say, method of swing. With baseball it simply is too hard to balance hitting and pitching - either you're going to be going scoreless due to being unable to hit or you're going to be racking up runs because you got your timing down. That the game is 3 innings further harms things, especially when you can't hit, as the game ends before you've begun to feel comfortable with the timing of your swing. Golf is nearly a winner - I quite enjoy it, at least, though I know others have trouble with the consistency required to swing. If one can achieve this consistency, however, it becomes a very fun and rewarding mode. Bowling is the real winner of the package - pretty perfectly capturing the feeling of the game (barring getting used to holding down b when back-swinging, or however that mechanic works) and not feeling as if the sport has been truncated in its incarnation here.
The power of parts coming together to form a whole is on strong display here - none of these titles would, individually, stand well on their own - even if free pack-ins, but taken together they prove a resounding success. Also, as simple as they may seem to do it is worth noting that no other collection for the Wii has yet matched Wii Sports in quality or accessibility - witness things like Deca Sports or Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games - even Nintendo's own terrible Wii Play.
9.0/10
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