Wii Play Review

Wii Play comes packaged with a Wiimote and it is only $10 more expensive to buy the package than it is to buy a single Wiimote. The package will not be out in the United States until 2007, but it’s out in Europe right now alongside the Wii launch, and since I’m from Germany, you get a review early. Call it Ortwin’s Christmas gift to you. So the question this review that needs answered: Is yet another collection of mini-games worth spending $10 on?

The mini-games in Wii Play are not simply designed to be original or particularly fun. The most important thing is that they subsequently introduce you to the different methods involved in using the Wiimote. The first game is simple aiming and kind of the Wii version of the NES classic Duck Hunt everyone was wanting, though there is supposedly a stand-alone Duck Hunt in the works.

Each of the next games introduce another function such as rotating, moving forward and backward or holding the Wiimote sideways and just using the accelerometers for steering a cow. That the games are designed to introduce you to the Wiimote does not mean they are not any fun. On the contrary: There are some pretty challenging, fun mini-games in this package. There are gold medals to earn and of course you can always come back for a multi-player match.

Still, you won’t spend more than a few hours with Wii Play, especially since multi-player is for two people at most. There are better mini-game collections already out, such as Rayman and the packaged Wii Sports. Even more are coming in the future, like Wario Ware, for example. Still, Wii Play is well worth it’s $10 price, though probably not much more. I think it would be awesome if Nintendo released another package like this (maybe with Wario Ware?) for when I buy a third Wiimote.