Deca Sports (Wii) Review
Posted by Ramon Aranda on 06.09.2008
Hit the slopes, get on the court and on the field with Hudson's latest for the Nintendo Wii.
Title: Deca Sports
Publisher: Hudson Entertainment
Type: Sports
Players: 1-4
We've seen various titles make their way to the Nintendo Wii that try to take aim at Wii Sports but neither of them have really made a splash. Enter Deca Sports, from Hudson Entertainment. I had a chance to get some hands-on time with an early build of the game as well as a demo in the last few months and what I saw was a game that had some potential. Now that Deca Sports is available, I managed to get through the full version and finally got some questions answered about the game's repertoire of mini-games. Did Deca Sports fall short or will it become a welcomed edition to the Wii's growing library? Let's find out.
Gameplay
Deca Sports is broken down into two main game modes; the multiplayer and the single player mode.
I'll get into the single player mode first as it's the most robust. When beginning the game in single player, you have a few different options. You can play quick exhibition matches of any of the ten sports which are Kart Racing, Badminton, Motorcross, Basketball, Soccer, Archery, Curling, Volleyball, Figure Skating and Snowboarding. You can also jump into a little practice mode and get the hang of the controls for each of the sports before continuing any further. Once you feel somewhat comfortable, you can jump into a single elimination tournament or get into a season. In the tournament, you pick a sport and then play your way through the championship game. The A.I. goes from being relatively easy to outright ferocious if you make it to the final game.
Getting into the sports themselves, I found Badminton to be the most fun to play. You flick your wrist to hit the birdie and you can aim in which direction you want to hit it by swinging downward and diagonally to the left or right. If you time it just right, you'll see the birdie with either a red or a blue glow which means you can slam the birdie or hit it sofly. Volleyball plays in a similar way though you also have to hit the ball in the air to your teammate or receive it if they get a hold of the ball first. As you can imagine, both the kart racing and the motocross games use the Wii remote on a horizontal fashion as with Excite Truck. There isn't much depth to any of those two games but they're a decent side diversion from the rest of the sports. Figure skating is the one game that requires the usage of both the Wii remote and the nunchuck. You use the analog stick to maneuver your skater around while shaking the Wii remote to pull off moves, making the experience feel like a rhythm game which is pretty cool. Some of the more disappointing games however are soccer and basketball. Strategy is thrown out the window as you can easily steal the ball and have it stole from you as well. I would have like to see both of these games have faster gameplay as well as the ability to play smart, but they're both slow, sluggish and just plain boring. Archery is another fun game that takes a trained eye as well as patience to succeed. You start off by shooting from 30 meters away and increase the distance to 50 meters. You have to take into account the distance you're shooting from as well as the wind factor. I found myself playing this one pretty often. For the most part, the games are relatively easy to play but some of them do have plenty of strategy while others are throwaways.
If tournament play isn't your cup of tea, you can play a season. You are put into a league with three other teams and you play each of the sports against one team or all three, depending on what the sport is. You're awarded points for winning or tying a game as well as for not being last in a sport that has 4 teams but get zero points for losing of course. You can also check out the trophy room to see what tournaments you've won and what season's you've conquered. You can also tackle various challenges and your recorded are recorded as well.
Graphics
The game won't win any awards in the graphics department and it's easy to see why. The design is pretty basic which includes cookie cutter characters. Some of the sports look pretty decent, such as volleyball, and snowboarding as they seem to have a bit better details and higher resolution than the rest of the games but even still, everything seems to be a little pale in the color department. The colors seem a little washed out.
Sound
The melodies are non-intrusive and seem to flow with the style of the game but you won't miss out on anything if you have it on mute. Sound effects are on-par with the action and the Wii remote uses the speaker to give you some extra sound that adds to the experience.
Fun Factor
The single player is pretty robust in that you have quite a few options but the games can get stale after a while if you're just playing by yourself. On the other hand, if you jump into multiplayer mode which can accommodate up to four players, the fun begins there. This is at heart a party game as is Wii Sports or any other title of the same genre. Though some of the games aren't very exciting, others do very well with other players such as Volleyball and Curling. Archery can be a nail-biter if you have three other decent challengers.
Lasting Appeal
One of my biggest issues with the game is that there's no online multiplayer. It would have been nice to use the season mode to go online and battle it out with other players for supremacy in Badminton or Figure Skating, but alas we didn't get it. On the other hand, the game features ten sports, so there's a lot more to play with in comparison with other similar titles. The fact that even the single player has more than a few game types as well as record and trophies, players who don't have others to compete with can get some pretty good mileage out of the game.
The 411
Sure, Deca Sports isn't anything revolutionary for the Wii and it lacks some of the polish of Wii Sports, but it does do some things right. I think a sequel to this game could probably fix some A.I. Issues, and at the least, improve on some gameplay mechanics and graphical quality but still, the game is pretty fun if you play the right sports. Single player isn't bad but multiplayer is pretty good. A rental it surely deserves for when you've got a group of friends coming over, and a purchase may not be out of the question either. Give it a try first before making the decision.
Graphics
6.0
Nothing to brag about but not worth complaining about either.
Gameplay
6.5
Some of the sports work very well like Badminton and Figure Skating while Soccer and Basketball need help.
Sound
6.0
The music is passable while the sound effects coming from the Wii remote are welcomed.
Lasting Appeal
6.0
Good sized single player game while the multiplayer mode should keep it around.
Fun Factor
6.0
Some of the games are pretty fun to play though others seem unecessary. A.I. also beats your ass in the finals of tournaments.
