Before I say anything else, I should be clear; I do not mind the existence of ’Wii casual games.’ Done well, they can be fun. Done competently, they can be useful tech-demos of what sort of potential the Wii has. Done badly, they can be rip-offs that try to take advantage of the success of Wii Sports... and the problem with Deca Sports 2 is that it falls into the ’bad’ category. The Wii has been on the market for a few years now, and there is no excuse for having bad motion controls at this point. Forget going toe-to-toe with Wii Sports (the original, not Resort)... this game is actually inferior.
Retailing around thirty dollars, you get ten sports on one disc: Ice Hockey, Tennis, Kendo (A Japanese wooden swordfighting sport), Speed Skating, Synchronized Swimming, Petanque, Road Racing (motorcycle races), Mogul Skiing, Dodge Ball, and Darts. I’ll go over each one in brief detail...
Ice Hockey: Standard 5-on-5 hockey, using a Wiimote and Nunchuk. Analog stick moves your player, various combinations of button presses and Wiimote swings will do things like passing and shooting. It’s fairly basic, but it’s pretty good for what it is. This sport also theoretically supports online play, but I’ll get back to that.
Tennis: An odd choice given Wii Sports also has this, but Deca Sports 2 tries to add some depth to it. Your character still follows the ball automatically, but you can rush the net or retreat in order to play different strategies. This would actually be fine, except the motion controls don’t work right. It often reads slight Wiimote adjustments as actual swings, so getting your hand in place for a certain type of swing (lob, etc.) must be done way ahead of time, otherwise your hand adjustment will register as a swing and you’ll be unable to actually take a shot at the ball.
Kendo: A mix of the fencing mode from Track & Field on the NES, with some motion controls. You use the Wiimote’s d-pad to advance and retreat, buttons to block, and motion swings to attack with your wooden sword. The problem is that it often doesn’t read swings correctly; I have on several occasions done an overhead swing and my character in-game will do a horizontal slash instead. The reverse is also sometimes true (but not always), making for a ridiculous joke of a mini-game.
Speed Skating: Another Wiimote plus Nunchuk sport, you hold down B and Z and start swinging. At first you just swing as fast as you can, then you have to get into special timing and rhythm to skate properly. It works, but the game really just amounts to swinging your controllers around at the right time and that’s pretty boring.
Synchronized Swimming: Essentially a rhythm game, you wave your Wiimote in the indicated direction at the right time to follow a swimming routine. The controls actually work fairly well, but it’s just not that exciting.
Petanque: This game involves throwing a jack ball onto the field, then throwing larger balls near it; the team with the most balls near the jack wins. The d-pad lets you adjust various throwing stances, then you hold B and make an underhand pitching motion. This works fairly well, though the controls are a little hard to get used to; even the slightest of variation in your motion will produce wildly different throws.
Next: More game summaries, online play, and conclusion.
