Archery – image: gamepeople.co.uk
In our run down of the sports in Wii-Sports Resort, Archery is one of the less dramatic activities on offer. But what starts of as a very simple, if nicely honed, shooting mechanic is soon stretched beyond belief into the most challenging of events in the pack.
Having dug into the real world mirroring of Wii-Sports Resort Golf and Wii-Sports Resort Table Tennis I was a little unsure how close to real life Archery would come. I’m no expert, but the simple feeling of control and power of drawing and releasing a bow is still one of my favorite sporting moments.
In Wii-Sports Resort the archery mechanic has you holding the Wii-mote as the bow in your left hand while drawing back the Nun-chuck in your right. As you do this you get a rough targeting scope and zoom into the target. In the drawn position, the game then uses the fine control of the MotionPlus block to enable you to fine tune your aim. Simple, direct and well thought through.
Step into a four player round at intermediate and you are faced with a sporting challenge as strong as any fully fledged game.
This simplicity at first makes the experience a little tame, particularly if you are looking for your archery instincts to be challenged. But as you work through the beginner stages you realize the game recreates not only the shooting style but also the flight of the arrow in real life. As you get further away from the target you need to account for the fall of the arrow in flight as well as the cross wind.
Because the targeting guide slowly diminishes and is only a rough depiction, you soon start relying on instincts as much as mathematics to hit the target. When playing with other players, this also means that each player has a fresh challenge to hit the target – they can’t simply copy what earlier players have done as the targeting changes depending on how soon you release the arrow.
Archery – image: banzaievents.com
Finally, the expert level increases the distance from the target even further and puts up barriers to reduce the window of opportunity to fire each arrow. It also introduces some targets up hill from the player, and sometimes with an assisting tailwind. By this point, what had been a simplistic shooting game has become a fine tuned and instinct based archery simulator as you may want.
But it doesn’t end here. In a move that shows their commitment to deliver a deep (as well as broadly accessible) experience you can opt for secret pro challenge on each of the levels. Check out our growing Wii-Sports Resort Tips for a full instructions on how to access this.
The first time you encounter this pro mode is jaw dropping. You are placed in front of your target with no guidance on direction or wind, or any targeting assistance when you draw the bow. Here, you are forced to fall back on your skill and instincts to even hit the board.
But rather than being something that puts you off playing, the challenge actually releases you into a whole new way of playing the game. Each level takes on new meaning. Some which were easy before are now difficult, while others stand out as being easier – the canyon levels for example where you benefit from the lack of wind down in the gust proof gully.
Although the sense of physical release and power that attracts thousands to real life archery is almost absent here, every other aspect of the sport is depicted in fine accurate detail. This is perhaps the one Wii-Sports Resort activity that is the easiest to pick up but will take the longest to truly perfect.
