*Yawn*

It’s yet another collection of uninspired minigames for the Wii, which use the console’s motion controls in “exciting” and “innovative” new ways. You’ll never be as good as Raving Rabbids or WarioWare, so why bother?

These were my thoughts when I first got wind that a review copy of Wacky World Of Sports was on its way to us (as well as thoughts of wanting to stab Vince, our gaming editor, in the eye for even suggesting such a thing).

So, around came the friends and out came the Wii – and you know what? Within a few minutes, I was actually starting to enjoy it. So were the others present. It was *almost* like a Raving Rabbids session as far as the level of enjoyment was concerned, and on we played into the night. It soon became apparent that Wacky World Of Sports was – dare I say it – actually pretty good.

The game features a collection of 10 wacky sports, which I shall list thusly:

• Tuna Tossing
• Cheese Rolling
• Mud Sliding
• Lawnmower Racing
• Furniture Racing
• Extreme Ironing
• Log Cutting
• Card Boxing
• Ice Golf
• Fierljeppen (polevaulting over a river)

Not all of these available in party mode from the start which upset us a little, until we realised that the story mode can actually be played by 4 players. Game on!

WWOS‘s events are pretty easy to pick up. They’re certainly not WarioWare easy, with multiple steps required, but the instructions are pretty clear, giving the basics and allowing players to master more advanced techniques pretty quickly. The two racing modes play very well indeed, with Furniture Racing really standing out on its own as an excellent Mario Kart clone.

Extreme Ironing is a rhythm game which has players manoeuvering their Wii Remotes in time with a beat, Ice Golf is a competent golf game with a clever hot/cold twist, and Cheese Rolling is a tricky curling/bowling type game. We also have Tuna Tossing, a hammer-throwing style game, the oddly-named pole vaulting game Fierljeppen, Mud Sliding, and Card Boxing.

Card Boxing is probably the game’s weakest point, as although it’s a lot of fun it takes an awfully long time and only allows two players to compete at once, breaking the pace of the game for the other two players. This mode involves rounds of boxing interspersed with rounds of a “snap” style card matching game, and is based on Chess Boxing. It’s a fun enough game in itself, but I imagine a lot of players will deliberately avoid adding it to their party mode playlists so as not to break the flow of an enthusiastic gaming session.

Wacky World Of Sports allows players to buy upgrades, whether it be special balls for the Ice Golf game, new vehicles for Furniture Racing and Lawnmower Racing, or new types of tuna for Tuna Tossing. We soon found that all of the game’s available options could be purchased very early on and without too much effort, but it is a nice touch nonetheless. The game doesn’t support the Wii’s player-created Mii characters fully, but it does offer a creepy mask based on the player’s Mii, which can also be purchased from the in-game shop.

WWOS has very quick loading times and the graphics are surprisingly good too. Navigating the menu system can get irritating, as every click of a button elicits a “yaaiisss” (like this) from the gane’s mincing host. It gets old pretty quickly, but it doesn’t ruin an otherwise excellent game.

I wasn’t looking forward to playing “yet another minigame collection”, but I was very pleasantly surprised by Wacky World Of Sports. I have no issues whatsoever recommending it to anyone who enjoys a good Wii-based get together once in a while, so I award it an enthusiastic 7.5/10.

Of course, that also means that Vince’s eyes are safe.

For now.

Other TTB Posts Like This One

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• Review: Let’s Tap (Wii)
• Review: Madworld (Wii)
• Review: Fragile Dreams (Wii)
• Review: Rune Factory – Frontier (Wii)