Yet another mini-game mish-mash for the Wii, Hudson’s Deca Sports fails where most of the other slapped together compilations do. It’s simply not fun, featureless, and few of the games actually work. The 10 sports included here don’t even make sense to be on the same disc as they’re all unrelated.
There’s little question Hudson is aiming for the Wii Sports crowd. Character design is one step of shy of infringing on Nintendo’s Miis, the cover art is similar, and general menu progression feels oddly familiar. Sadly, none of this comes close to capturing what made Wii Sports special.
The sports include Wii Remote controlled versions of basketball, badminton, figure skating, soccer, snowboarding, curling, kart racing, archery, and supercross. The best of the lot is arguably curling. The controls work to an extent, though the power meter necessary to determine the speed of the stone is touchy.
Figure skating is an ugly joke for potential consumers, requiring nothing else other than flicking the Wii Remote up at certain points on the ice to do a pre-determined trick after moving there with the Nunchuck. Archery requires nothing more than pointing and factoring in wind. There’s no innovative means of actually shooting the bow other than pressing a button.
Snowboarding, supercross, and kart racing are practically one in the same. Tilting the Remote to its side, players tilt to turn their clumsy vehicle/boarder in a race to the finish line. Tanks would have controlled better than the karts. Badminton follows suit, with a painfully simplistic engine that gives no control over movement, only how hard you’ll strike within the awkward camera view.
Basketball and Soccer are the most complex. Basketball is three on three, and soccer goes with a five on five approach. The Nunchuck moves the chosen player around, and Wii Remote handles many of the other tasks. Soccer is finicky, misreading a shoot motion for a pass. Basketball seems slightly more responsive, though the sluggish pace hardly represents the real sport.
Most of the games support four players, and that’s local play only. That’s a positive since the single player modes are worthless. You can enter into a tournament in a specific sport or play a “season,” which requires the player to challenge the AI in each game type. There’s nothing to earn or unlock.
The multiple teams that are available (eight in total) are a mix of male and female. They each carry a set of statistics, yet once in game, they all feel the same. You can select a specific set of players (or solo player) before each event to suit you. What purpose this serves since there is no creation option or real discernable difference is unknown.
Deca Sports is everything the Wii shouldn’t be right now. It’s lazy, plays poorly, offers no innovation, and its sole purpose is to draw in an unsuspecting consumer as to its faults. Those waiting for a true Wii Sports challenger have a wait in front of them.
1/5
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