If you own a Wii, it's a safe bet you own more than one remote ... and you probably picked up that second remote with a copy of
Wii Play. Why not? For an extra ten bucks, Nintendo threw in some mini-games, and for some reason, this aroused the ire of selected gamers and reviewers around the globe (including some who
didn't even bother to play it).
Want a spare controller for your 360 or PS3? You're going to drop a similar amount of cash and get ...
a controller. Want something extra? You're boned, friend; take your controller and like it. Not so for Wii owners, for whom a second controller is pretty much a necessity; after all, so many of the Wii's games depend on an in-house multiplayer experience, rather than the single-flesh-person online experience the other consoles tend to offer. Sure, that's a drawback in a lot of cases, but it's fact: the Wii is great for party games, so you need a spare remote or three. Period. Which is why the
Wii Play bundle is not only brilliant, but an excellent bargain for Wii owners. You get nine small games for ten bucks -- and that's a deal any way you slice it.
But this goes beyond the idea of price. Not only is
Wii Play a surprisingly good mini-game collection for ten bucks, but it's an effective game in its own right. Sure, it lacks the depth of most full-fledged games, but it beats the pants off a few, namely
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz and
Carnival Games. Pound for pound,
Wii Play is certainly a better deal than either of those titles. The first features a few completely unplayable mini-games (and has
review scores I will
never understand), and the second feels half-finished in many respects.
Wii Play, however, can be a blast! Grab a friend and sit down for a few rounds in the shooting gallery, or half an hour with
Tanks! or
Charge!, and then tell us that it was the worst experience of your life. Unless you
hate fun, you're probably going to manage to have a little.
Further, the mini-games of
Wii Play seem tailor made to teach new gamers how to use the Wii remote in different ways; simply by playing, you learn to point and shoot, to grab and move items, and to "drive" while holding the remote sideways. There's a good reason for this --
Wii Play started its life as a tech demo, but that actually makes it very useful as an in-home title. Like it or not, many Wii owners (or users) are new to gaming, or returning to the hobby, and games like
Wii Sports and
Wii Play get them accustomed to manipulating the controller ... which means they'll probably want more games. That gives the more robust gamers more people to play with. Everybody wins.
Does that mean the experience is perfect? No, not at all, but despite the perfect review scores that are being tossed around more and more often, few games are. What's important is that
Wii Play is exactly what it sets out to be -- an inexpensive bonus training game that offers shallow fun -- and for that, the bundle deserves the crazy sales. It's one of the best bargains out there for
any Wii owner.
