Wii Sports Club

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Wii Sports Club
Sports
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Wii Sports Club

Wii Motion Plus support. Players are organized into clubs that represent different regions, and scores and stats are tracked on Nintendo's social network Miiverse
. Players could also communicate with each other during and after online matches using Miiverse. Each sport can be purchased individually or rented for a certain amount of time via a pass.

Wii Sports was remade per the request of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, as well as to take advantage of Wii Motion Plus and GamePad technology. Since online play was demanded by fans it was prioritized, as well as Miiverse support, which was designed with a sense of community. The game was announced in a September 2013 Nintendo Direct and released in October 2013 with only Tennis and Bowling available, while Baseball, Golf, and Boxing would be released in the following months. The game released in full physically in July 2014. The game received mixed reception, being praised for its new additions and controls but criticized for its technical issues. It was followed by Nintendo Switch Sports in 2022.

Gameplay

See also: Gameplay of Wii Sports
An online match of Tennis. Players are chatting with each other using Miiverse.

Wii Sports Club is a remaster of Wii Sports with

whack-a-mole using tennis controls and playing a game of Bingo by hitting golf balls on a golf field.[6]

The main difference between the two games is the addition of

online multiplayer. The player can compete against others online in all sports; Tennis, Baseball, and Boxing feature real-time gameplay, while Bowling and Golf are turn-based. Online gameplay is against other regions, and stats and rankings are kept track of on Nintendo's social network for the console, Miiverse. Players join a group depending on their region, referred to as clubs, and clubs compete against each other online and are ranked on Miiverse. In matches, players can use the "Online Banter" feature to communicate in-game using pre-set messages and drawings from the GamePad.[1][7]

Upon playing each minigame for the first time, the player had access to it for the following 24 hours, upon which they would need to pay to use it again. The player could purchase the "gold pass" for 10 dollars, which was used to purchase and use an individual sport forever, or they could purchase the "day pass" for 2 dollars, where they had full access to all sports for 24 hours.[8]

Development

Katsuya Eguchi, the game's producer, with the Wii U GamePad at E3 2012

Wii Sports Club was developed by

Nintendo EAD and Bandai Namco Studios. Although the game was originally to be developed only by Bandai Namco, the staff from Nintendo EAD had "strong feelings" about Wii Sports and wanted to be involved with its development regardless. Takayuki Shimamura, lead director of Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, reprised his role; he volunteered to do so, believing he would regret it if he didn't. Ryunosuke Suzuki and Kozo Makino served as coordinators between the two development teams, but would be more actively involved with the game itself as development progressed. Although working in different areas proved challenging for the companies, it made testing online gameplay easier. Katsuya Eguchi was the game's producer, who also produced Wii Sports.[1]

Design

When the Wii U was released, Nintendo president

Iwata Asks interview with the Wii Sports Club team in 2013; he personally enjoyed the Tennis demo.[1]

Iwata also requested that the game support Miiverse, a social network made by Nintendo for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The developers feared that Miiverse would become a toxic community because of this; they believed only people who won would want to use the network, discouraging those who did not. In order to create a sense of community, they grouped up players on the network into their local states, provinces, and prefectures, to encourage competition against regions instead of individual people. This function, referred to as clubs, became the center focus of the game. Competing clubs were organized in a stats board that changed in real-time; the developers used the clubs' winning percentage over games won overall for this stat so there wouldn't be favoritism to regions with larger populations. Other stats that were kept track of, such as the total amount of pins knocked over in Bowling, that didn't involve winning to encourage the player to keep playing if they lost. Handwritten Miiverse posts from a players' club would also show up during gameplay, congratulating and encouraging them, for this reason. During an online match, the developers included a feature called "Online Banter", where players can send each competitive remarks to each other in between gameplay, to encourage further competition between clubs.[1]

Minigames were made purchasable so the developers could release the sports over time, allowing them more time to figure out online play for more difficult sports. Wii Sports Club was included on the Wii U automatically if the player accepted

SpotPass support when using the Wii U for the first time; to encourage the player to purchase the game, it was made playable for free for the first 24 hours. So the player could test the new sports as they were released, they were also made playable for the first 24 hours.[1]

Announcement and release

The game was announced during a September 2013

Nintendo Direct presentation on 18 December 2013,[17] which later received an update including 9 courses from Wii Sports Resort,[18] and Baseball and Boxing were released on 27 June 2014, worldwide.[17] A bundle containing a Wii U and a copy of the game containing all five sports was released in Japan 27 March 2014.[19] The complete version was sold separately as a physical on 11 July 2014 in Europe and the following 17 and 25 July in Japan and North America respectively.[20][21] According to Iwata, the game got a physical release to help boost sales.[22]

Reception

Wii Sports Club received a 68/100 on review aggregator website Metacritic based on 22 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[23]

GameSpot reviewer Heidi Kemps enjoyed the more complex motion controls and how it affected gameplay more than the original Wii Sports.[6] The motion controls were also praised by IGN's Scott Thompson, who was impressed with their complexity, and was surprised how much they have improved since Wii Sports Resort. Thompson also lauded the use of the Wii U GamePad in Golf and Baseball for making them more entertaining and realistic,[24][26] although Kemps cited concern in the GamePad being placed on the ground, where it could possibly be damaged.[6]

Tennis was praised for its precise controls, especially because it was absent from Wii Sports Resort.[24][25][27] Thompson also lauded Bowling for its precision,[25] but Nintendo World Report was disappointed in the lack of GamePad support.[28] Golf was praised for replicating its sport most accurately with the GamePad;[6][25][26] Nintendo World Report considered Golf to be the best sport in the game for this reason.[29] Baseball was praised for its addition of more advanced controls for pitching,[25][30] with Thompson calling it "a fun sense of sort-of augmented reality in its execution."[25] Boxing was considered to be the weakest entry in the game similar to Wii Sports for its unintuitive controls,[26][24][25] although cited controls to be more precise controls.[24][25][31] Kemps considered the side modes "a nice distraction".[6]

While the addition of online play was overall seen as a positive, critics derided its technical issues.[6][25] Kemps criticized the online gameplay for technical reasons, such as real-time lag and matchmaking process, but also its restrictive options that allowed little variance in matches.[6] Thompson expressed frustrations in games like Bowling and Golf that were turn-based, resulting in slow gameplay that involved a lot of waiting. He also noted what he referred to as "someone who skipped the tutorial" in every match online, as he was often paired with someone of considerably less skill resulting in more extensive waiting. However, games like Tennis and Baseball fared much better with more focus on real-time gameplay.[24]

Notes

  1. ^ Wii スポーツ クラブ (Wī Supōtsu Kurabu) in Japanese

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Iwata Asks: Wii Sports Club". Nintendo of America Inc. Archived from the original on 2 July 2022. Retrieved 29 October 2013.
  2. ^ a b Bailey, Kat (29 July 2014). "Wii Sports Club Wii U Review: Party Like it's 2006". VG247. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  3. ^ Karmali, Luke (18 September 2013). "Wii Sports Club Announced For Wii U". IGN. Archived from the original on 20 September 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
  4. ^ a b Yin-Poole, Wesley (18 September 2013). "Wii Sports Club is Wii Sports mini-games in HD for Wii U". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
  5. ^ Robinson, Andy (18 September 2013). "Wii Sports set for HD, online Wii U release". Computer and Video Games. Archived from the original on 20 September 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Kemps, Heidi (7 August 2014). "Wii Sports Club Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 28 November 2021. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  7. ^ a b Robertson, Andy (19 September 2013). "'Wii Sports Club' Brings Record Breaking Top Seller To Wii U". Forbes. Archived from the original on 26 September 2013. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  8. ^ Cook, Dave (18 September 2013). "Wii Sports Club announced, 24 hour play passes revealed". VG247. Archived from the original on 21 October 2021. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  9. ^ Pitcher, Jenna (29 October 2013). "Nintendo wasn't confident in achieving online capabilities with Wii Sports Club on Wii U". Polygon. Archived from the original on 29 November 2022. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  10. Nintendo Life. Archived
    from the original on 28 March 2023. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  11. ^ East, Thomas (18 September 2013). "Wii Sports is coming to Wii U". Official Nintendo Magazine. Archived from the original on 29 October 2014. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
  12. ^ Sliwinski, Alexander (18 September 2013). "Wii Sports Club brings back Wii Sports in HD, various pricing models". Joystiq. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
  13. ^ a b McFerran, Damien (18 September 2013). "Wii Sports Club Takes The Competition Online With HD Visuals And Wii MotionPlus Support". NintendoLife. Archived from the original on 20 September 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
  14. ^ Whitehead, Thomas (22 September 2013). "Reaction: Nintendo Reminds Us of the Wii's Glory Days With Wii Fit U and Wii Sports Club". NintendoLife. Archived from the original on 23 September 2013. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  15. ^ "Wii Sports Club International Releases - Giant Bomb". Giant Bomb. Archived from the original on 18 July 2018. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  16. ^ "Nintendo gives players the chance to get fit for free with Wii Fit U for 31 days". Nintendo Australia. 19 September 2013. Archived from the original on 2 November 2013. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  17. ^
    Nintendo Life. Archived
    from the original on 6 May 2023. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  18. ^ Phillips, Tom (14 March 2014). "Wii Sports Club updated with Sports Resort levels". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 16 August 2022. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  19. Nintendo Life. Archived
    from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  20. Nintendo Life. 18 January 2021. Archived
    from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  21. ^ "Wii Sports Club". Famitsu (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  22. ^ Mahardy, Mike (5 November 2013). "Wii Sports Club May Become Packaged Software". IGN. Archived from the original on 1 February 2023. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  23. ^ a b "Wii Sports Club for Wii U Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 22 January 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
  24. ^ a b c d e f Wii Sports Club Review: Rejoining the Club, 8 August 2014, archived from the original on 9 February 2021, retrieved 19 April 2021
  25. ^ a b c d e f g h i Whitehead, Thomas (10 July 2014). "Wii Sports Club Review". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  26. ^ a b c Martin, Liam (22 July 2014). "Wii Sports Club review (Wii U): A great multiplayer game for parties". Digital Spy. Archived from the original on 28 May 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  27. ^ Koopman, Daan (4 November 2013). "Wii Sports Club: Tennis". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on 13 March 2023. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  28. ^ Koopman, Daan (4 November 2013). "Wii Sports Club: Bowling". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  29. ^ Koopman, Daan (23 December 2013). "Wii Sports Club: Golf". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  30. ^ Koopman, Daan (29 June 2014). "Wii Sports Club: Baseball Review". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on 9 January 2021. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
  31. ^ Koopman, Daan (29 June 2014). "Wii Sports Club: Boxing Review". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on 9 January 2021. Retrieved 7 June 2023.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wii_Sports_Club&oldid=1209847086"