Wii Sports Resort comes with two questions: Do I own a Wii? Should I buy Wii Sports Resort? If the answer to the first is 'yes' then the answer to the second should be the sound of you leaving to buy Wii Sports Resort. It's Nintendo's first Wii MotionPlus game and as expected is a beauty.

The game - and yes it is a game - starts not with a title screen but with a simplified version of one of the mini games within. A Mii from your machine leaps from a plane alongside other willing participants, free-falling towards a welcoming island. The Wii remote, complete with new weighty Wii MotionPlus, represents the Mii. How you twist and turn it makes the plummeting Mii react in the same way. This is just a first taster in what the Wii MotionPlus can do but, ironically, is the weakest game. Consisting of twelve sporting activities, two of which return from the first Wii Sports (golf and bowling), Wii Sports Resort tries to give you the impression that you really have entered a sporting resort on some long lost island. Almost like an open world environment where you don't physically travel to each location. It's a nice touch and works fairly well if you happen to notice it.

Read on to find out more...

The games themselves are; swordplay (fighting is too mean), wakeboarding, table tennis, Frisbee, archery, basketball, golf, bowling, power cruising, canoeing, cycling and air sports. By far, the best games are swordplay and archery. There are up to three versions of each game giving you a total of 24 activities to choose from. You start with one of each and unlock the rest as you go on. Unlocking these is a simple affair resulting from simply playing the first game and doing moderately well. It's difficult to describe how you indeed play these as it's similar to the real thing thanks to the Wi MotionPlus's extra level of sensitivity. Swordplay has you holding the Wii remote as if it were a shaft, archery makes you hold the Wii remote in your left hand (if you're right handed), out stretched in front of you as if holding a bow then drawing the nunchuck back from it like pulling the string back ready to shoot. It's these kinds of movements that are throughout Wii Sports Resort and it's these kinds of movements that make the game great.

Sticking with swordplay (as detailing all the events would take ages...) the first game you play is a simple gladiator-style duel where you and an opponent duke it out, avoiding being knocked off a floating disc to your watery doom. Do this two out of three times and you lose. As stated, sword handling is an easy affair; move the Wii remote and your Mii moves his sword like for like. Blocking is done by holding B and positioning your sword in the right place at the right time. Simple and addictive fun with each opponent getting better as you progress. That's the 'duel' mode. The two other swordplay modes are speed slice and showdown. Speed slice is just that, you have to be the fastest to cut an object in a specified direction. For example, the ref may throw an oversized loaf of bread at you and your opponent. This will have an arrow pointing in any direction and you must slice the bread in said direction. Fastest gets the point and first to ten points wins. Showdown is more like a 3D hack-n-slash where you travel through ten different stages battling 100 enemies. The mechanics work the same as duel only this time you face a collection of opponents with only one will attack at a time - something that I would have like to be able to change in the settings to make it more challenging. Still, it doesn't feel so easy that it's not worth playing and offers some great gaming. The level of gameplay and excitement is the same for all the events but you'll no doubt pick your favourites, perfecting your abilities in those chosen few.

There are as always some sports that let the game down slightly. Canoeing, although interesting, lags from controller to screen feeling odd and unresponsive. You move the Wii remote from side to side as if paddling water but the movements just aren't picked up quick enough which does less than satisfy. To be fair it is quite fun for a while but it'll probably be the game which is least played. The aforementioned air sports' skydiving game is also a bit uneventful. You free-fall for a certain distance, trying to connect to other fallers were a photo will be taken. The more Miis and more smiles you have, the bigger the score. Not bad but not great either. Thankfully a redeeming part of air sports are the island flyover and dogfight events. Island flyover is exactly that, you fly over the island in a plane controlled the same as free falling, collecting icons over areas of interest. This is where you really get to see the faux open world feel as you fly from swordplay arena to the beach where Frisbee is played, seeing the path you could take if you were allowed. It's not as boring as it sounds and it really quite relaxing as you potter through the air for an allotted amount of time. The more icons collected unlocks balloons to pop with your newly equipped blue sphere shooting plane. Dogfight plays off this having each player trail 20 balloons to shoot at. You can only play this against a real person though which is another slight knock to the whole experience. Just as how you're unable to pass around one Wii remote between friends to play the games and all participants must use their own Wii MotionPlus. A shrewd trick to sell separate Wii MotionPlus add ons.

Something worth mentioning is the physics in the game, which are deceptively brilliant. The simplicity of gameplay hides the impressive physics engine adding to the faux-realism. Table tennis shows this off well as you twist and turn your wrist while batting adding minute to massive spin on the ball. I had some long and enjoyable rallies with this one. The Frisbee reacts enough like a real Frisbee to either leave you smiling at your throw or wondering why the disc is laying just yards away. Both golf and bowling have received an overhauled physics system too adding even more fun to these popular Wii Sports veterans.

Overall Wii Sports Resort is a great game with a wealth of things to keep you entertained. It may drag a little if you're a lone gamer as it's definitely aimed at group play. The graphics are nothing special but are what's expected from a title like this but the physics, hours of potential enjoyment and 1:1 control throughout makes Wii Sports Resort an essential purchase for Wii owners.