Wii Play Review

I’m fairly certain that 98% of the people that bought this game primarily purchased it because it came with a Wii Remote. The other 2% bought it for the cow racing.
Wii Play is basically a group of tech demos, and it shows. Comprised of nine mini-games (which given the games is pretty sparse even considering the free remote) with each one being unlocked by just playing the previous one (which I think is just a devious ploy to make me play the terrible table tennis game included), WP doesn’t really bring much to the ballgame in terms of content or substance.
The nine mini-games can be divided neatly into two categories: mild diversion for ten or fifteen minutes and total garbage. Let’s break them down one by one, shall we?

• Table Tennis: Total and absolute garbage. When I first heard table tennis, I thought “Cool! It’s another game like the Wii Sports Tennis but on a smaller scale.” No dice. Instead we get a glorified Pong clone with poor control responsiveness. Bleh.
• Fishing: This is less a fishing simulation and more a simulation of one of those fishing carnival games where you dip a fake plastic pole into a cardboard hole and someone attaches a toy prize to it. There is absolutely no skill to this and the only people I’ve heard from that enjoy it are less than seven years old.
• Find Mii: Meh. It’s like Where’s Waldo with Miis. If you are the sort of person that enjoys those grocery store picture puzzles in the 99 cent rack of puzzle books, then you might find this mildly entertaining.
• Pose Mii: A surprisingly tricky twitch puzzle game where you have to twist your remote around to correspond with the actions the Mii is performing on the screen. It’s a sort of fast-paced Simon-esque game that may provide a mild diversion for puzzle addicts but get too difficult for less patient people.
• Tanks!: This reminds of an old Atari game I once played where you and another player drive little tanks around shooting each other with them. This works a little differently in that you and the person you’re playing with are actually competing to destroy more enemy tanks than each other. I think of the few times I played this multiplayer it basically devolved into the other guy and I just shooting each other a lot since it does allow friendly fire. Bottom line: If you have a friend hanging around bored, this isn’t a bad way to waste 15 minutes. So there you go.
• Laser Hockey: This is some sort of crazy Tron-esque version of laser hockey decorated with intense neon lighting to give it an edge over other competing laser hockey games (the thousands of them available out there, har har). I found this one to be fairly entertaining and is one of the few games in this pack I’ve actually played more than once. The controls are a little imprecise but aren’t so bad that the game is unplayable.
• Charge!: Yea, it’s cow racing. You sit on a yarn-based cow and race it to the finish line in a 3rd person perspective, jumping hurdles and what not on your way to victory. The concept is pretty stupid and cheesy, but some people seem to love this one. I thought it was decent but, like every game in this set, lacking in depth.
• Billiards: I felt this to be one of the strongest games in the set, being a fairly straightforward but acceptable rendition of 9-ball. The controls are responsive and the graphics and music understated but fitting. I had no real complaints with this one other than just the lack of features. Given that it’s a tech demo, I feel it does what it seeks to do well. Would’ve been nice to have a Snooker feature or at least other variations on 9-ball though.
• Shooting Range: This game feels the most fleshed out despite the fact that it’s still not very long and will most likely keep you entertaining for 15 or 20 minutes max. It is essentially several levels with various targets like soda cans and balloons, culminating in a shootout with some UFOs trying to capture your Miis. As a nice little reference, you can also shoot down ducks a la Duck Hunt. I personally would have preferred just a straight up remake of Duck Hunt though for nostalgia’s sake with one stipulation – that you can actually shoot the dog.

So overall, given the hodge podge quality of Wii Play, I don’t know if I could recommend the game in good conscience unless you need an extra Wii Remote.