I finally got the time to sit down and enjoy out Wii Play last night at a pals house and I know I’m a little late to the party, but if you haven’t checked it out and are wondering what the minigames are all about, read my thoughts below. We played all nine minigames and overall I would have to say they were quite fun with none of them standing out as being overly bad. I’ve played all of the current minigame titles out including Monkey Ball, Wario Ware, and Raving Rabbids, and in the case of Monkey Ball and Raving Rabbids, they both had a couple of minigames that just didn’t work or were flat out no fun. Read along for my take on all of the minigames and overall thoughts on Wii Play:

Table Tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping pong to some, is similar to Wii Sports Tennis, only this time you are doing more than just swinging the racket to volley the ball back. You have to actually line up your paddle with the ball as it’s coming at you then volley it back. After playing both, Wii Sports Tennis and Table Tennis, I have to say I appreciate the more simple mechanics of Wii Sports Tennis a bit more. While the Table Tennis game was overall enjoyable, some of the fun was taken away trying to lineup the paddle with the ball. Where I thought I had the paddle ready to swing was sometimes just out of reach of the ball. Given the fast paced nature of the game, this turned out to be a fatal error based on perhaps a learning curve of where to hold the Remote to correspond with the on-screen paddle. We did have a couple of heated volley exchanges going on during the game and it’s not bad or boring by any means, I just enjoy Wii Sports Tennis a bit more.

Laser Hockey
Laser Hockey is like everyone’s favorite game of air hockey, only on a TV screen from a top down perspective with glowing laser graphics. The controls handled a tad easier than Table Tennis perhaps due to the fact you are only dealing with a 2D plane and didn’t have to deal with the 3rd dimension. Twisting the remote causes your paddle to change it’s angle, allowing for some very tricky shots. We never really felt like the paddles didn’t respond as we had intended, the connection between our in-air Wii Remote movements and the on-screen paddles were spot on with no lag whatsoever. The graphics were very clean and added to the experience with their futuristic looking “lasery” feel. We played a few rounds of this and agreed it would be in our top three favorite games on the disk.

Fishing
Fishing in Wii Play is much like the first fishing mission in Zelda: Twilight Princess. Nothing fancy, it’s actually quite basic, just drop the lure into the pond and as a fish bites, whip the Wii Remote up to catch it. When playing this against a friend, you will want to attempt to catch larger fish than your opponent to add to your overall score. There are various types of fish swimming around and eventually, the game throws in some rather comically large fish for you to attempt to catch. Catching a small fish detracts from your score so just let them bite and move on. You can move the lure to a better spot in the pond at any time if you see a bigger fish you’d like to catch. While a fun little minigame overall that did a great job of handling the fishing controls for the system, it wasn’t one we spent too much time playing. There were just other games that brought more fun to us than this one, but it is a great addition to the title.

Find Mii
This minigame is very “Where’s Waldo”-y having you search groups of Mii’s for a certain type according to the current level’s rules. Playing against an opponent can get frantic as you are scanning through the on-screen Mii’s looking for the matching pair or for the one who is running faster than the other. To pick out the Mii’s the game is asking for, you simply aim your Wii Remote at the TV and the corresponding target reticule will hover over them, then you push the A button to select that Mii as your choice. It’s a very simple game that is fun for everyone and very easy to pick up and play. It also uses your collection of Mii’s so it’s fun to find the matching Chewbaccas or Uncle Earls or whatever other crazy creations you might have in your Mii collection. Overall, very fun and I can see us playing this one as a way to introduce new people to the Wii system along with a few other titles on the disk.

Pose Mii
Pose Mii is similar to the Find Mii game in the sense that it’s easy to pick up and uses the recognizable Mii’s as the main characters in the game. It actually uses the Mii you chose to play as and the object in the game is rotating the Mii and getting them into various poses to match the silhouettes in bubbles floating down the screen. To rotate your Mii, you rotate the Wii Remote. To put them into the positions shown in the bubbles, you will need to use a combination of A+B button presses. As the levels go on, the poses will rotate and change calling for you to constantly alter the position of the twisting Wii Remote as it challenges you to remember which button combos equate into the poses shown. You can imagine how complicated the game can get after a few levels of it changing so much. This was a great 2 player game that emitted laughter from everyone watching as we frantically tried to keep up with the falling bubbles and match the poses inside them. The game caused both of us players to get quite animated throughout as we played and overall, it was a fun time.

Shooting Range
This minigame could be called Duck Hunt 2 as it features the players shooting at on-screen ducks and targets in efforts to increase their scores. As the targets show up, you both aim your reticules at them and fire, hopefully faster than the other player to rack up points. The position of the targets constantly change and there are sometimes surprise targets that will popup offering more points than the others. Another simple game that anyone could pick up and enjoy, we found this game to also be in our top 3 from the title.

Billiards
Billiards, or pool as some would call it, is a simplified on-screen game of 9 ball. This game really helps show off the versatility of the Wii Remote by giving players the ability to lineup and take shots using the Remote as the in-game cue stick. You play from a behind the cue ball perspective and once you line up your shot, draw back the Remote and then quickly press forward to strike as if you were playing a real game of pool. Graphics wise, the game is very sharp with a basic pool table and balls rendered on-screen. There is a helpful marker that will let you know which ball you need to strike with the cue ball next. The controls for me were spot on as after my opponent fouled by sinking his cue ball, I ran the table and won the game by knocking in each of the remaining balls needed. I now consider myself the Wii Play Billiards King and if anyone wants to challenge me, you let me know! The game is a good interpretation of billiards and further, how the Wii Remote could be used by a developer to flesh out a more feature filled game that had various types of billiards available.

Charge!
Charge is a fun little racing game that has you holding the Wii Remote sideways to navigate your player who is riding on a cow down the racetrack. Along the way, you will want to run into scarecrows for more points and twist the controller forward to go faster. You can bounce the Wii Remote up to make your cow jump over obstacles that would otherwise slow him down. He who makes it to the end of the race fastest with the most scarecrows ran over wins! Charge! is a fun game that makes use of the sideways controller racing style very well.

Tanks!
If you’ve ever played Combat! from the Atari 2600 days, then you have the basics of Tanks!. In Tanks!, you and your buddy take on computer controlled enemy tanks on various levels in attempts to reach the next level. The levels are laid out with various obstacles you must navigate your tank around and one or more enemy tanks which you must destroy. Be careful though as the enemy tanks are also out to get you and are sometimes equipped with fast launching rockets, exploding mines, and other tricks. You control your tank with the nunchuk and Wii remote for best results, driving the tank with the nunchuk and aiming and firing with the Remote pointed at the screen. While rather simplistic for hardcore gamers, out of all the games on the disk, this one is about the most complex but at the same time, the most fun. We had a blast working through the levels as a team trying to destroy the enemy tanks in the simple maze type levels presented. When you both die on a level, the game is over and you start all over again. After getting a gold and finishing the first 20 levels, you can unlock a massive 100 new levels which present new enemies and maps for you to enjoy. Overall, our favorite game on the disk that never got old for either of us.

In the end, I found Wii Play to be a very fun title that would make a great addition to anyone’s collection of Wii games. Throw in the complimentary Wii Remote that the game comes with and it’s really a no brainer to pick up this title if you are already looking for an extra Wii Remote. It’s got something for everyone and will be a hit if you have friends over for parties or even bringing your Wii and this game to holiday gatherings and showing it off to folks that perhaps aren’t into games as much as we are. We all had fun with the title and already can’t wait to play it again when we visit our pal next time.