One of Nintendo’s most popular sports titles on the Wii was Wii Sports.  So when the Wii U first came out, naturally Nintendo had a Wii Sports title for that, too.  But they released it a little differently.  Shortly after the launch of the Wii U, you could download and play games on Wii Sports Club.  You could pay for each sport separately or pay to play by the hour.  But now Nintendo has just released a disc copy of Wii Sports Club with little to no fanfare, so I thought I’d write about it a bit in this blog.

As much as I like Wii Sports, I never downloaded the Club version.  I’m not against downloadable games or anything like that, though.  Heck, if it wasn’t for downloadable games, I wouldn’t be able to review as many games as I do now!  But when I download a game, I never really feel like I ‘own’ it.  I know most of that is psychological, but I like to try and buy a physical copy of a game when I can.  Plus I didn’t like the payment plans set up for Wii Sports Club, and how much memory it would take on my Wii U hard drive. So when I learned that there was going to be a disc version, I jumped on that opportunity.  One thing you should know, though, is that the game requires you have at least one Wii Motion Plus controller or accessory.

Wii Sports Club takes five games from Wii Sports and gussies them up with HD graphics, Motion Plus and Wii U pad controls, and online play.  I haven’t played online with anyone, but that’s because I’m not much on playing online anyway.  When the original Wii Sports came out, my friend from work and I said that if it had online play, it might’ve been as big as Halo!  I don’t know if it’s too little, too late now, or if we were just talking big, but at least you can play online with Club.  You can also use Miiverse to post words of encouragement to other players, but I don’t know how that works or how you’re supposed to post while playing.  But that’s OK because I don’t really mess with Miiverse much either, as cool as it may be.  When you first start up Wii Sports Club, you’re also asked to join an online club based on your region.  You can pick any you want and change after 24 hours, but I kept it real and local and joined the Texas Club.

The five games on Wii Sports Club are Bowling, Tennis, Golf, Baseball, and Boxing.  You can play each sport in three different ways: Online, Local, and Training.  The training modes offer three different mini-games that let you practice the skills you use in each of the sports.  So let’s take a quick look at each sport you can play.

Bowling

I think Bowling is the least changed sport that made the transition from Wii to Wii U.  I can’t tell that it uses the Motion Plus controls very much, and all you see on the gamepad are Miiverse posts.  But even so, bowling is my favorite game on Wii Sports, and I’m sure it’s many others’ too.  Bowling is so good here that I never felt the need to buy another bowling game on Wii U or Wii.  You know what was another good bowling video game?  Monkey Bowling on Super Monkey Ball on GameCube.  Similarly, I never felt the need to buy another bowling game on GameCube because it was so good.  My favorite arcade bowling game is The Simpsons Bowling.  Konami made it a few years after their Simpsons beat ‘em up title, when they probably still had the license to do Simpsons arcade games.  It was pretty good, though, and very funny.  It had PSOne era 3-D graphics, but still looked good for the time.  The only other bowling game I ever wanted to try was Ten Pin Alley with Animaniacs on PSOne.  And the only reason why I wanted to try it was because it had Animaniacs in it, and that cartoon rocked.

Tennis

I’ve never really liked Tennis on Wii Sports that much.  But that’s mostly because I’ve never really gotten into too many tennis video games because I feel like they’re just glorified Pong clones.  And also because I’m not very good at them either.  And now that Tennis on Wii Sports Club uses Motion Plus controls, you need more finesse and control to play it.  And finesse and control are two qualities that I do NOT have!  I think the only tennis game I really got into was Sega SuperStars Tennis.  It had a lot of cool gameplay modes based on classic SEGA titles, and any game that has Ulala and Tails in it can’t be all bad, right?  Remember when companies used to sell attachments for the Wii remote that looked like tennis rackets, baseball bats, and golf clubs?  That was so useless.  I also remember seeing Wii remote attachments for Cooking Mama that looked like frying pans and spatulas.  I remember the box for those said “Cooking Mother” on the front.  Man I’m glad the days of useless Wii attachments is gone and done!

Golf

Golf is fun on Wii Sports, but also has the highest learning curve.  Swinging with the Wii remote remains the same, but now you put the Wii U gamepad on the floor to see your club and the ball on the screen!  I heard that one of the courses on Wii Sports Club is based on the courses found on NES Open Tournament Golf!  Golf games really took off on the Wii, and I have a few of them.  Capcom’s We Love Golf and Tecmo’s Super Swing Golf series (based on Pangya) to name a few.  I’m surprised there was never a Mario Golf on the Wii or Wii U.

Baseball

I find baseball boring to watch on TV, and I certainly can’t play it in real life with my poor vision.  But as long as they keep things simple and arcade-like, I do enjoy me some baseball video games pretty well.  Batting remains pretty much the same in Wii Sports Club, but I can never get the hang of the timing!  But then, it’s like that with me and other baseball games, too!  But pitching and fielding now use the Wii U gamepad!  Point the Wii U gamepad at the TV screen and pick your pitch style and strength, and tilt to aim where you throw.  Catching fly balls is fun with the Wii U gamepad.  You have to point the gamepad in the direction the ball is falling, and line it up so you can catch it!  I’d like this game a lot better if I were better at batting, though!  You know who makes really fun baseball games?  Namco!  I love their Family Stadium and World Stadium games (the first was brought to the US as R.B.I. Baseball on the NES), and Namco also made the Mario baseball titles, too.  Speaking of Namco, I wish they’d make another We Ski and Snowboard or Go Vacation games.  Those were really fun Wii sports games as well!

Boxing

I think Boxing has changed the most due to the Motion Plus controls.  On the old Wii Sports, you just wailed like a spaz maniac with the remote and nunchuck.  But here you can use two Wii Motion Plus controllers or just box one-handed if you don’t have two.  This way you can execute more accurate punches and dodge blows more effectively.  I’m sure Boxing on Wii Sports helped prompt Nintendo to make the Punch Out game on Wii.  I never played Wii Punch Out, though.  I tried the one on NES and rented the SNES Punch Out once, and I didn’t play the arcades ones much because all the bigger kids hogged them.  But for some reason I could never get into Punch Out games.  So I never bothered with the Wii one.  But then, I’m not much of a boxing fan anyway.  I admire the athletic men and women who do that, but I don’t like seeing them getting hurt.  One of the Wii Sports Club Boxing training games is Dodgeball, where you must dodge balls coming at you.  I wish Dodgeball was a sport on Wii Sports Club!  Super Dodge Ball on NES was my favorite sports video game before Wii Sports came along.  Mario Sports Mix on Wii had a dodgeball game on it, and it was pretty fun.  Speaking of Mario Sports Mix, that game was made by Square, and since they made it, did you know the final thing you did in the single player mode is fight a giant Final Fantasy purple Behemoth using your sports skills?  True story!

Conclusions

And that’s all the games in Wii Sports Club!  Since the games use the Motion Plus controls a lot, you have to have more finesse to play them, so since I don’t have any finesse or grace (I’m a real klutz), I guess I’ll just have to learn to enjoy playing the game poorly!  In the comments section, tell me your favorite Wii Sports games, and other sports video games in general.  That’s all for now!  Later!  –Cary

Tags: Game Reviews