![select a course wii sports golf select a course wii sports golf](https://cdn.toucharcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/letsgolf1.jpg)
Whether you’ll enjoy the events enough to explore all of the content is up to you, but Sports Champions is a game I will take out from time to time to play with friends or to convince naysayers that there’s more to Move than an attempt to cash in on Nintendo’s success.We didn't think we'd be writing about new Wii Sports discoveries in 2021, but even the oldest games retain dedicated communities. Even with head-to-head play, tournaments, challenge modes, and unlockable outfits and equipment, the gameplay never attains much depth. Volleyball is also the least conducive sport to mimic in your living room, and the shallow gameplay made me feel like I was back at the Wii resort.ĭespite some missteps, Sports Champions is a solid offering for gamers, provided you can accept the shallow nature of a compilation such as this. You’ll bump, set, or spike the ball, then repeat ad nauseum. The gameplay is more gesture-based than the other events, requiring the player to follow very specific motions. Volleyball is the only complete dud of the bunch.
![select a course wii sports golf select a course wii sports golf](https://images.nintendolife.com/screenshots/6150/900x.jpg)
Despite the more complex controls, bashing the other player in the head doesn’t involve much strategy, and the gameplay quickly grows monotonous. A slight lag between swinging your controller and your avatar’s follow through is frustrating, and even when my swings hit where I wanted them to, they didn’t feel powerful. Gladiator, on the other hand, has the most depth of any of the events – in addition to wielding a shield and melee weapon with your controller, various gestures and button combinations perform additional moves. Different courses switch up the gameplay a little, but ultimately you’re still just shooting targets. Archery is overly simplistic, requiring the same gesture repeatedly to aim and shoot your arrows. The archery and gladiator events are slightly less enjoyable, but they are both improved when using two motion controllers in tandem (though you have to buy the second controller separately). I’ve been a skeptic of motion controllers in the past, but the enjoyment I had with these three events convinced me that motion-based gameplay has an important place in the future of our industry, even if only a small one. These events work so well because the game accurately translates your hand movement in real-time, instead of using exaggerated gestures to simulate movement.
![select a course wii sports golf select a course wii sports golf](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/43/63/13/43631333a34e46bbcc4c345222cf681c.jpg)
Table tennis, disc golf, and bocce ball all feature control schemes that are so accurate and responsive that playing them feels almost as natural as their real life counterparts, yet all of them benefit from adjustable difficulty levels, and video game elements like flaming skill shots and fantasy courses. Although none of these events offer a huge amount of depth, they deliver more variety and nuance than most gimmicky motion games have given gamers in recent years. Sports Champions offers players six games to play: table tennis, disc golf, bocce ball, archery, volley ball, and gladiator. But after playing Sports Champions extensively, I’m confident that Sony made the right choice: No other title does as good of a job showing off the exciting feats the new peripheral can accomplish. Sony didn’t help its cause by selecting Sports Champions – a collection of sports-based minigames in the same vein as Wii Sports – as the title to be included in the Move bundle. When Sony first debuted the PlayStation Move, many gamers were quick to dismiss it as a simple Wii clone.