Deca Sports Demo

For most of you Wii owners, I’m sure that you (like myself) probably shelved Wii Sports/Wii Play a few months back and subsequently don’t pick it up very often. Well, to my surprise, I was greeted by a demo version of Deca Sports, Hudson’s new sports title. Hudson Soft, makers of classics like Bomberman, Adventure Island, and the Mario Party series brings you the next new sport title to take advantage of the Wii motion controls. From what I understand, each demo version that was sent out was a random draw on four of the possible ten games you would get on your disc. I have to say I was kind of disappointed not get a hold of Curling, but I know that will just leave something new for me to try when the full game releases.

On my disc, I was “blessed” with Figure Skating, Beach Volleyball, Badminton and Supercross. If you’re like me, your first intention may be to completely dismiss a sport that sounds like it will be a disaster. But, let me say that the ones you think would be bad actually turned out shockingly fun. Let’s move down the list.

[Figure Skating] – Sure, I’d love to be able to go out on the ice and do what those amazing athletes do, but let’s face it, I’m a gamer. That measn I can do it better! I can get out on the ice, flip around like crazy, fall down and get right back up and not feel a thing in the morning.

Figure Skating is one of the two titles to utilize the Nunchuck controller. Basically, you are put out on the ice and follow a path of small yellow rings with your Nunchuck while you move into big green rings. Once in these green rings, flick your Wii remote in any direction and your skater performs a beautiful triple sow-cow or whatever trick is next in the program. If you flick too early, you fall. If you land too far outside of the ring, you fall. You are graded on how well you stayed on the path and how many tricks you land. This one is VERY fun with a few friends, but the computer cheats like a mother. 

 

[Beach Volleyball] – I think it’s safe to say that we men love a good game of volleyball, as long as it includes two to four women in bikinis flopping around in the sand. Anything else is just a bunch of guys acting like fools. Beach Volleyball works much like Tennis from Wii Sports. Control your two men keeping the ball in the air by just flicking on time. Drive the ball into the sand to score a point.

[Badminton] - *snoreeee* Badminton works EXACTLY like tennis except for one small change: you can time hits. Meaning when your opponent hits the Birdie to you it lights up red at its highest point right before it stalls. If you swing at that time by flicking forward, right, or left, it sends the Birdie soaring through the air, making it difficult for you opponent to catch it. This one I played with the computer and I almost fell asleep half way through the match. Definitely not my top pick.

[Supercross] – Controls are horrid. You control your motorcycle by holding the remote horizontally. The 2 button acts as gas, and the 1 button is brakes. Control the pitch of your bike by tilting the remote forward or back to minimize your speed loss when landing jumps. You can execute tricks when jumping by waggling the remote. There’s a lot going on with the controls in Supercross, but I don’t think it works as well as I’d like it to.

Even though there are only four titles out of ten on the list, and I only really liked two of them, the rest of the titles are enough to keep my interest. Here is a brief breakdown on the full list and some of the control basics.

[Archery] - Hold B on the Wii Remote, then pull the remote backwards to draw your bow, arrow nocked. This sport requires a steady hand to be accurate. Looking forward to this one.

[Basketball] - The Wii Remote and Nunchuck are both used, with the Nunchuck used for player movement.

[Curling] - To push the stone down the ice, first hold the B button down, then move the Wii Remote forward at the right time to throw. Twisting the remote to the left or right will add additional "curl" to the stone. As the stone moves down the ice, you can sweep the ice in front of it by wiggling the Wii Remote back and forth.

[Football(Soccer)] - The Wii Remote and Nunchuck are both used, with the nunchuck used for player movement.

[Kart Racing] - Control the kart by holding the remote horizontally. The 2 button acts as gas, and the 1 button is brakes. Drive by tilting the Wii Remote left and right.

[Snowboard Cross] - The Wii Remote is pointed at the screen, and turns are executed by twisting the controller left and right.

Overall the game is looking great. Coupling with Wii Fit for a May release, it looks like Nintendo is ready to do war with Rockstar and Sony/Microsoft with their upcoming GTA4 release, though I’m not sure how well they’ll do. Regardless, let’s see if Hudson Soft’s Deca Sports revitalizes the casual sports craze that has made the Wii unique amongst its competitors.