Fun, challenging and intriguing
Post Via amazon in Wii Games ReviewWinter Sports The Ultimate Challenge
We haven't tried all 15 events in Wii Winter Sports yet, but wife and I completed the 7 event competition earlier this evening. My second day of playing with it, her first. It took 55 minutes to complete the 7 event competition although there were a few pauses, as reported by the game itself. I'm not sure if it stops timing during pauses, but it wouldn't have made much difference either way. We were both breathing hard and sweating (and I swim about 500 yards each day). Then I did curling, which isn't in the 7 event competition and now my arm is sore from sweeping.
We've done ski jumping, 4-man bobsled, skeleton, figure skating, alpine skiing, 500M speed skating, and slalom skiing. You can compete against time or the Wii, depending on the sport, or against another team. You can have multiple people on a team. Many of the activities require you to use both the controller and the nunchuck, but there is very little use of the buttons on the devices. You use them to control or gain speed and to control direction. In curling you also use the controller to sweep.
There is an opening ceremony like the Olympics and medals are awarded - if you earn one. There are a pair of announcers and they don't mind making fun of poor performances.
Winter Sports doesn't use the Mii's. It does have more lifelike characters although you have no control over what your character looks like. Operating these games is more complicated than any of the games in Wii Sports, and the manual is only OK. I still don't know what carving is in downhill skiing, but the onscreen instructions tell you how to do it. For each event the game presents illustrated on-screen instructions before the event begins. It is easy to skip them and even to prevent them from being displayed. You also get to control the relative volume of the background music, the sound effects and the voices of the announcer. I have to reduce the volume of the music for the announcers to be understandable.
Overall, so far it isn't as natural to us as tennis or any of the other games in Wii Sports, but it is fun and exercises different muscles. These are sports that we've never actually participated in so none of them are as natural to us.
I've posted a note in the Amazon Forum asking for tips on how to use the controls in the curling event. I'll also ask in a Wii Usenet newsgroup.
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