They found the games and control in general fun and enjoyable. These newbies, some of whom had not actually seen the Wii remote before, had a pretty easy time navigating the controls (once past the character select screen). Since Wii Play is meant to introduce people to Wii and get non-gamers into gaming, I had several people who don’t play games try out the compilation. Unfortunately, the game is limited to only two players, even though some of the games would have worked just as well with four. A bit of light competition (without the crazy arm swinging of Wii Sports) makes these games more fun than single player mode, and their brevity means that more than two people can switch off watching and playing. In multiplayer, Laser Hockey, Shooting Range, and Pose Mii are perhaps the most fun due to their slightly more frantic nature. Wii Play is best played like its title suggests, “we play." The two-player modes are generally competitive, though Tanks! is more cooperative. For instance, players must complete the same twenty Tanks! stages in the same order every time. More variation or customization would have gone a long way in some of the games, but each run-through is essentially the same, which quickens the onset of boredom. Wii Play could have done so much more, but Nintendo chose to essentially tack on a menu in front of their tech demos. Since the mini-game uses Miis stored on the player’s system, difficulty can vary depending on how similar the Miis found in the system are. While normally carrying a certain charm, the inclusion of Miis may actually be detrimental to players’ experiences in Find Mii. And unlike their counterparts in Wii Sports, these Miis actually have arms. The game makes extensive use of Miis, beginning with random characters parading around the background of the title screen. Pose Mii is similar in operation, though significantly simplified and not a worthy substitute. Sadly, one of the more enjoyable tech demos, a Kuru Kuru Kururin-like game, is absent from the collection. Though everyone will have their favorites, I personally found the “simpler" games more fun than the later games. Lasse has already described the nine games in his review, so I won’t recount them all again here. The games are extremely basic, intended to expand the gaming market to those who wouldn’t normally play games. Also in question is the target demographic for the collection. This brings up an interesting question of quality versus value, since the collection isn’t worth the price of a normal game. For $10, the compilation of nine games is certainly worth it.
#Nintendo wii play games free
Wii Play definitely does a decent job of introducing the controls, but its hand-holding approach is almost insulting when intuitive controls should be enough to get the player going.Īlthough marketed as a $50 game with a free Wii remote, since the Wii remote costs $40 by itself, buying Wii Play is essentially, and more appropriately, viewed as buying a $10 game. Though it won’t take long to complete the set, such an unnecessary limitation can impede those players wanting to take the game to a friend’s machine and play a specific game. The first time through the collection, each of the nine games must be played in sequence in order to unlock the following game.
Each game is intended to demonstrate ways in which the Wii remote can be used. Wii Play is a collection of nine simple games and is designed as a tutorial for using the Wii remote. Of course, its late release was partially due to the emergency strap replacement program. Coming out months after launch, the release of Wii Play is a strange one since other games have surpassed almost everything it tries to do.
The origins of Wii Play are a set of tech demos first shown to the press and displayed at E3 2006 titled “Remote Pointer Demo." While I was hoping that E3 wouldn’t be the last time we saw the demos, it would have been more appropriate to include the Wii Play games either directly with the console or as free or cheap Wii Ware titles.