You see, there's something so fresh and innately non-game-like about Wii Sports - from its crisp, unfussy presentation to its thoroughly streamlined gameplay, it makes the rest of Wii's launch line-up look positively antiquated. Of course, that's largely because Wii Sports was designed from the ground up to really show off the potential of Nintendo's new wavy controller and, compared to the myriad other GameCube ports available at launch, that distinction is obvious throughout the entire experience.
By now you'll probably know that the package contains versions of tennis, baseball, golf, bowling and boxing, all simplified and reduced to their essential component elements. This means that literally anyone can grab a controller and join in, without having to know the first thing about the sport they're playing. That's a significant advantage over traditional sports titles, aiming to simulate their sport of choice in minute, obsessive and largely intimidating detail.
Impressively, Nintendo has managed to strip away just the right amount of extraneous detail while leaving the core elements of each sport in tact. This means that, for the most part, there's plenty of scope for refining and developing your sporting technique - in other words, enough depth - to warrant returning to the game once the initial novelty of wand-swinging wears off.
Take tennis for example: although you might moan about the lack of options to control your on-screen Miis manually, there's plenty of opportunity to perfect your backhand, forehand, lobs, volleys and power serves, amongst other things. Considering the game uses precisely no buttons, you'll be amazed at what you can actually do with the remote after a bit of practice. Out of all five Wii Sports offerings too, it's the game that most naturally invokes the spirit of its real-life counterpart and it's a blast as a result. Thanks to the remote's combination of rumble and speaker, you really do feel like you're out on the court, with the sound of your racket rushing by your ears with every swing and every direct hit accompanied by a satisfying thud.
Not quite as successful, although undoubtedly entertaining in their own right, are golf and bowling. Part of the problem here is both games' reliance on extra buttons and commands to play, reducing the overall sense of immersion somewhat. In golf, the d-pad is used to adjust the angle of your shots and swap clubs, while bowling utilises the d-pad to again adjust your angle of approach and starting position at the end of the lane. Of the two though, bowling manages to be ultimately more satisfying thanks to its excellent throwing mechanics, ably recognising the strength of your throw as well as any spin you might want to add.
Golf however suffers, due to the fact your remote doesn't work quite as much like a club as you might expect. With most of the calculations apparently done via the accelerometer in the remote, it'll take you a while to realise that a simple tap can have the same results as a whopping swing if you move the controller fast enough. With a bit of practice though, you'll be smashing pins or tearing up the green in no time - and both games, despite their relative simplicity, nail enough of the excitment and essence of their real-world inspirations to maintain the illusion that you're doing more than just waving a controller around in front of the telly.
Unfortunately, the same can't really be said of baseball, which simplifies the game to such a degree that you're pretty much left either waving a bat around or - in two-player matches - performing a lazy approximation of a pitch from the pitcher's plate. It's not that there's anything wrong with the batting mechanics though; in fact, there are enough subtle nuances involved to ensure that learning to whack your ball out of the stadium is a ton of fun. The problem lies with both the monumentally aggressive fielding AI, which seems to catch virtually every shot that comes its way, and the limited interpretation of baseball itself - it's ultimately flat, uninvolving and generally lacking in the natural excitement of Wii Sports' other offerings.
Last but not least then, is boxing - the only game in the pack to require the nunchuck. With the remote in your dominant hand and the attachment in your other, you're tasked with thrusting forward to punch, tilting back - close to your body - to block and swaying left and right to duck and weave. Victory is simply a matter of slamming your opponent repeatedly until his health deteriorates, at which point he'll slump to the floor and - depending how much of a pummelling you gave him - get up again or stay out for the count. Although undoubtedly the biggest workout you'll get with Wii Sports, thanks to some serious simultaneous arm-waving, too much frantic jabbing can seemingly confuse the game, with some movements failing to register. As a result, boxing just never quite manages to be as satisfying Wii Sports' top-tier attractions.
Here's the thing though - even those sports which don't manage to work entirely successfully as stand-alone games suddenly inherit whole new lives in the rather splendid Wii Sports Training mode. Essentially, this is where you'll probably spend most of your single-player time, honing your skills via the three varied mini-games on offer for each of the title's five sports. Each challenge concentrates on a particular aspect of its sporting inspiration and presents it in an almost always compelling manner. In tennis, for example, you might be tasked with returning the most serves possible, or hitting a moving target, while bowling charges you with knocking down as many pins as possible over ten rounds - round one featuring the standard nine pins, rapidly escalating into a near one-hundred pin finale.
Whatever the task, each challenge admirably shows off its bigger brother's subtle mechanics and, as a result, games like baseball - largely dull and lifeless in the main mode - become hugely addictive as you attempt to smash as many pitches out of the grounds as possible, or hit a constantly shuffling target. What's more, training mode works equally well in multiplayer, with tasks brief yet compulsive enough to stoke fearsome levels of one-upmanship.
We're also big fans of the distinctly Brain Training-like Wii Fitness mode. Essentially, you'll play one of three randomly-selected mini-games from the Training section, and the Fitness mode rates your speed, stamina and strength once complete. At the end of the test, you're given a Fitness Age (your goal being to achieve the agility of a nubile twenty-year old) which is slapped on the Wii's message board for everyone in the household to view and better. It's yet another reason to keep playing Wii Sports longer than the relative simplicity of the title would suggest and we tip our hats to Nintendo for yet another genius masterstroke.