Ok so I bought into the hype-machine that is everything-Nintendo and plopped down my $19.99 for a Wii MotionPlus when it came out and along with the only other highly rated Wii MotionPlus-enabled game that launched with it: Grand Slam Tennis.
Here’s my single sentence description of the experience for everyone that was curious “Was it worth it?”:
Playing a Wii MotionPlus-enabled game with the new controller addon yielded no noticeable improvement in game immersion, realism or fun — you still end up playing “wrist tennis”.
To go more in-depth into what I mean there — even with the Wii MotionPlus addon enabled and a game that supposedly makes great use of it, the Wiimote still cannot properly discern the differences between fast hand movements and you end up executing the wrong swing.
I’d also point out there is no 1:1 or even 1:3 motion-mapping taking place here, it is still basic movement recognition used to trigger pre-scripted swings and strokes, exactly like Wii Sports 2 years ago.
NOTE: I’ve been playing tennis for years, really actively for the last 3, and playing this game felt nothing like real tennis. It felt like Wii Sports for anyone interested if you “really get to swing at the ball” or “can I really put top-spin on it?!” — no, no you can’t.
An example of the problem with motion detection is when you see a forehand coming at you, and swing your arm back to get ready for it — the swinging back motion registers in the game as a backhand instead of you preparing your forehand so your character executes a backhand in the game, inevitably missing the ball and you screaming in frustration.
I’d also point out that slices, lobs, dropshots, etc. are not done with swings of the remote, but again, just using the A and B buttons as modifiers.
This was hugely disappointing to me. I really tried to give this thing a chance, logging in about 8 hrs of gameplay in the last few days just to make sure I was “doing it right” as well as reading all the tips online — many people said to treat the side of the remote as the “face of your racket”. I couldn’t see any difference at all in the accuracy of playing with the MotionPlus regardless of the “side” of it I pretended was my racket face.
Overall the MotionPlus will likely provide excellent 1:1 motion mapping for any game that doesn’t require fast movements, but if you are hoping to finally get some awesome simulation of your favorite sports game or lightning fast sword-fighting or may light-saber fighting in the future, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Honestly, I’d sell your Wii and wait for whatever is next if that is what you want (which I do).
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2. July 2009 at 5:26 pm
sounds crap to me
2. July 2009 at 7:01 pm
It is… it absolutely is. I can’t help but feel like everything Nintendo related is all about hype and not actual real-world results from normal people.
I might just be too critical, but with all the “real motion mapping” I sort of expected… well… real motion mapping or even something relatively close.
13. October 2009 at 10:00 am
But ? there are other ways. In some specific situations repetitions are not needed. What is needed is just a slight change of course and you will sail to your desired treasure island. These are the tennis tips.
26. October 2009 at 3:05 am
My god, you are so right. I just googled to see whether I was doing something wrong.
I can’t count how many times I’ve lined up a backhand only for the guy to hit a wild forehand. So disappointed.
28. October 2009 at 10:55 pm
Adam, exactly how I felt — I played for 3 days trying to figure out “what part of playing this game is the new WiiMotion Plus?” — I just never felt any more immersion or reality at all… it was the same flick-based-gameplay that we learned from the original Wii Sports using the original Wii Mote.
Either way, I sold my Wii and all the games shortly after that experience, realizing it would never be what I wanted it to be and haven’t missed it since — except for 1 time we had friends over for dinner and they asked to play tennis… in the months it’s been gone, that’s the only time I noticed it.
22. December 2009 at 4:44 pm
Damn, i was really hoping for a realistic tennis simulator!
thanks for helping me decide on whether or not this game was worth the money.
its just too damn cold to play real tennis at the moment where i live
25. January 2010 at 3:23 pm
You can’t expect the execution of the swings to be like proper tennis because the wii motion plus is very sensitive to movement. You’re obviously not playing the game right, you might be swinging the “racket” too far back and too quickly. Your review is not good and very misleading to those thinking of purchasing the game.
26. January 2010 at 12:33 pm
Rob, I appreciate the feedback but I have to assure you, my review is not misleading. The whole purpose of the Wii MotionPlus, as marketed by Nintendo is “sensing gameplay movements with greater accuracy than ever before. … See the swing of a golf club or the slash of a sword revealed in vivid 1:1 movement“. I tried every which way to play this game with and without the Wii MotionPlus — I tried wrist-gestures, arm-gestures, facing the TV, standing sideways to the TV, playing on the couch, playing standing up, swinging slow and methodical, swinging hard and fast — nothing helped.
And the review isn’t so much a damnation of the game itself, it’s a clarification that I actually couldn’t tell *the difference* playing the game with the MotionPlus and playing it with the regular controller. I could tell it was working because if I did very slow, rotations with my hand with the Wii MotionPlus attached, the game would imitate it (but you never use that during gameplay).
Overall it was an indifferent experience. If you have different results and *do* get the 1:1 motion mapping, I’d love to see a YouTube video of it, because I never experienced that.
27. January 2010 at 4:20 pm
I agree with Riyad: Wii Motion+ sucks. It is very frustrating when you need a point and your character misses a simple forehand, thinking it was a backhand. It’s better to play without the Motion+, only with the Wiimote: it’s far simplier but you can control better the situations