Wii Play is bundled with a Wii Remote, Wii Play offers a little something for everyone who enjoyed the pick-up-and-play gaming of Wii Sports. Wii Play is made up of nine games that aim to test the physical and mental reflexes of players of all ages.
You can pick up the Wii Remote to play the shooting gallery that harkens back to the days of Duck Hunt or use it to find matching Miis. In addition to these games, Wii play offers billiards, air hockey, tank battles, table tennis rally, Mii poses and a cow-riding race. Update: No doubt thanks to the Wii Remote shortages; by the end of 2007 Wii Play sold 9.23 million copies worldwide.
System: Wii
Genre: Party, Arcade
Release dates: December 7th 2006 (AUS), December 8th 2006 (EURO), February 12th 2007 (USA)
Players: 1-2
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Origin: Japan
Wii Play is a pack-in game with the special Wii Remote bundle. All nine included games are designed for 2 players, but can also be played by a single player, with a computer-controlled second player in games where it is necessary. No Nunchuks are required for any of the games; however, you have the option to use a Nunchuk as a substitute for the D-Pad for the Tanks! game. Like Wii Sports you can create your own personal Mii character with the Wii console’s built-in Mii Channel and then play as yourself in Wii Play.
When Wii Play is first played, only one game is available. After playing each game another game is unlocked, until all nine games are available. In single player, points are earned in each game and the top 5 highest scores are stored. Getting high enough scores in single player awards the player bronze, silver, gold and platinum medals for that game. It also puts a message on the Wii Message Board saying which game and medal were unlocked, and gives a short tip for that game.
Watch the Wii Play launch trailer.
What follows are the nine games included in Wii Sports and a gameplay descriptions for each of them.
Shooting Range: A modern version of the Nintendo classic Duck Hunt (released on the NES). Shoot the targets on the screen simply by aiming your Wii Remote.
Find Mii: Can you spot a face in the crowd? Use your Wii Remote to point out the correct Mii characters as quickly as you can.
Table Tennis: How long can you ping pong? Use your Wii Remote like a paddle to bat the ball and try to beat the computer or human opponent.
Pose Mii: Twist the Wii Remote to rotate the Mii characters and quickly slot them into the correct positions as they fall down the screen.
Laser Hockey: Tilt and turn the Wii Remote to bash the puck into the opponent’s goal, in this high-speed arcade-style game.
Billiards: In this version of Nine Ball, aim the Wii Remote at the screen to line up your shot, then pull back and push forward to strike the ball.
Fishing: Move the Wii Remote like a rod: dip the hook in the water, wait for the fish to bite (the controller will rumble) and pull back hard to land it.
Charge: Take the bull by the horns! Steer your wild steer by holding the Wii Remote sideways, as if gripping reins, and topple scarecrows to score points.
Tanks!: Take control of a tank with the Wii Remote; aim the cannon, bounce shells off walls, and blast your opponent to bits.
See some more Wii Play gameplay footage.
Now let’s see how much fun the Wii Remote controller bundle with Wii Play is on a scale from 1 to 10?
FUN FACTOR – 6.0
Out of the nine simple games, Shooting Gallery, Tanks!, Laser Hockey and Billiards are good fun for a few minutes at a time. Don’t expect anything special, but I suppose it’s enough to warrant the extra $10 you’ll pay for the Wii Remote controller bundle to get some two-player gaming going.
Graphics – 7.0
Like Wii Sports the graphics and animations are incredibly minimalistic. It’s got a clean look.
Audio – 7.0
Solid sound effects and new variations of elevator music that plays in the background. At least it’s got a very catchy soundtrack.
Ingenuity – 6.0
Very simple gameplay controls. Too bad the gameplay options aren’t fleshed out, what you see is what you get, nine simple games. Amongst the arcadey titles it was nice to see Thanks!, which reminded me of playing the Atari 2600 classic Combat. It’s a fun bonus a lot of the games use Miis as main characters, some even unexpectedly as the Shooting Gallery’s UFO’s trying to abduct your Miis!
Replay Value – 4.0
Since the game in this bundle comes at just $10 above the price of a loose Wii Remote controller, you can’t really go wrong with it. You could end up liking it and get a few hours out of these two-player games, so you might as well get this bundle if you’re going to get an extra Wii Remote anyway.