Page 6
WII SPORTS: AIRPLANE
Danny: Another game hinted at in the TGS trailer. After playing Wario Ware, I realized I should have held the Wiimote like a paper plane but regardless, this game fit the controller perfectly and I've never felt so much in control of a videogame airplane ever before. The game set you flying above a small island complete with a small town, mountains, a couple Wii Sports characters, and slutty seagulls that seemed to like you more when you flew through the rings as you were supposed to. I immediately thought of how awesome it would be to play Pilotwings with the controller and started fantasizing, rendering me completely unable to remember anything else for these impressions.
Jordan: I really don't have much to say about this title. It was the second Wii game I tried and it controlled far better than Tennis did, so it's got that going for it at least. It was fun to play but, like Tennis, I don't think there's much depth to this one and I can't see it holding up well for extended play.
Jared: Although the entirety of Wii Sports reeked of demo-turned-game syndrome, Airplane was a lot of fun, and a good introduction to the Wiimote (it was the second game I'd played after Tennis). The controller was very responsive and I felt much more in control of the Airplane than I did of the previous tennis racket. I found myself
instantly aware of just how much of my movement the controller was picking up and adjusting my play to it, to the point that I don't believe I missed a single ring in the entire two minute demo, going for rings that seemed tucked within little canyons or other seemingly difficult nooks and crannies.
The fact that flying a plane gives much more time for observation and correction than a third-of-a-second tennis racket (or baseball bat, golf club) swing helped a lot in learning how to use the controller, so it could simply be a better setting for the Wiimote to shine rather than better programming for it. Regardless, were Airplane fleshed out into a full-fledged Pilotwings clone, I'd be all over that.
As it was, however, I can't imagine anyone paying for it. The entire Wii Sports compilation, in spite of being a generous helping of demos-turned-games, are still that: demos. There's no real depth to any of it, and I don't really want to think about the kind of nut that would invest a substantial amount of time to any game in the series, unless they were made into more than what can already be accomplished with the pervasive plug-and-play sports sims, or the Eye Toy. I'd suggest simply packaging the game with the Wii to both increase the casual gamer appeal––eliminating the need for skittish non-gamers to search blindly for the perfect game to start out with––and increase the justification for Wii Sports to exist.
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