Wii Sports Resort (Wii)

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We get hands-on with Nintendo's follow-up to Wii Sports

This is what I'm talking about. This is the new, gaming for everyone Nintendo at its very best. This is what the Wii promised from the very beginning, finally realised nearly two years after its release. This is motion sensing gaming the way it should be.

Once again, I'm sitting in front of a wide screen television in a down town LA hotel with Matt Wilson, a demonstrator from Nintendo of America. Having been left speechless by Wii Music, I'm now praying Wii Sports Resort, the follow-up to console pack-in Wii Sports, will act as a slap in the face, shocking me from my stunned stupor into child-like video game enthusiasm once again.

It does.

For those of you who didn't see Nintendo's announcements at E3 2008, the Japanese company revealed Wii MotionPlus, a new accessory that clips on to the end of the Wii Remote and provides proper 1:1 motion in a 3D space. What this means is that the Wii will finally be able to accurately match your movements in games.

As Wii Sports pretty much served as a glorified tech demo for what the Wii could do when it was launched, Wii Sports Resort serves a similar role for the Wii MotionPlus. I begin our hands-on with a Frisbee-throwing game called Disc Dog, and get my first taste of how the new technology works. I see my Mii in third person, standing on a sandy beach. He's holding a virtual Frisbee in his right hand, standing at a right angle to the dart board style target on the sand ahead. A super cute panting dog excitedly waits for me to throw. I need to match the Mii's position if I'm going to be able to accurately throw the Frisbee at the target in the distance.

Isn't the dog cute?

But first, Matt asks me to move and twist the Wii Remote to get a feeling for the 1:1 movement. As I lower, raise, twist and turn the controller I see the Mii mimic my action in real time and with almost zero lag.

It's all in the flick of the wrist, Matt says. I don't need to press any buttons, the game just knows when to release. I give it a shot, moving my arm back and then flicking to throw. And yes, somehow, magically, the game just knows when to release. The Frisbee flies, the dog chases and, where he catches it in his mouth the game spots, awarding you a better score the closer you are to the centre of the target.

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