Greg Wiegand

I’ve now had a couple of days to play around with the Wii Fit software and accompanying Wii balance board. So, now on to games. It’s going to be interesting to see what kinds of games develop that really utilize this new controller device. Skiing seems like the most obvious, but what other activities mostly involve your feet and/or balance?

We Ski
It’s pretty cool to be able to hit the ski slopes in Indiana in May. In fact, you don’t even have to leave your living room. My daughter and I have had a chance to shake out this game a bit and overall I would give it a thumbs up.
Just like most of the Wii games, you get an animated representation of skiing. If you’re looking for a realistic simulation of skiing, this is probably not it. However, it does do a pretty good job of simulating alpine skiing. You can use your own Mii to ski, but the options on gear are more limited.

The slopes
The layout of the game is pretty much what you would find at a traditional ski resort. You have trail maps and the trails are marked in similar fashion with green, blue, black to represent the difficulty of the runs. And, just like some resorts, you get some runs that don’t seem to match the coding. Some of the runs also have jumps, some are narrow runs, some have banking. I haven’t hit any with moguls, but we haven’t been through the whole game yet.

Jill tearing up the slopes!

How to Ski
The biggest thing to remember when playing this game is to ensure you calibrate the wii balance board for each user playing. If not, the skier does not react appropriately. Once it is set up for the user, it operates by leaning right to turn to the right and vice versa for the left. You can also use your wii remote and nunchuck controller to move your arms to use your ski poles. You can also do aerial stunts in midair jumps such as twists.

Sidebar rant: Speaking of the nunchuck controller, I just don’t get why this is wired to the wii remote. Everything about the Wii is wireless and makes for great fun, but that damn wire connecting the nunchuck controller is just cumbersome. I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten it caught on something while playing or even worse, have it fly up and slap me in the face. When pumping your arms to move yourself with the ski poles, that cord does some serious smacking. I really wish Nintendo would have figured out how to make all the controllers wireless.

Summary Overall, the game is well integrated with the Wii balance board and a good use of the device. Like most Wii games, you are an active player and after a while you feel like you’ve gotten a little exercise. I can’t wait to see what other games come out that take advantage of the balance board. Some obvious activities: surfing, skateboarding, skating, water skiing, motorcycle racing. I’m not sure how sensitive the board is or exactly how the interface works, but something like karate or kick boxing might also work. What other activities do you see coming to the Wii?