Parents' Guide to Wii Sports Resort

Game Nintendo Wii 2009
Wii Sports Resort Poster Image

Common Sense Media Review

Jinny Gudmundsen By Jinny Gudmundsen , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 8+

Best all-ages sports compilation yet -- great for groups.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 8+?

Any Positive Content?

Parent and Kid Reviews

age 6+

Based on 20 parent reviews

age 5+

Based on 82 kid reviews

Kids say this game offers a nostalgic and fun experience that appeals to players of all ages, with a wide variety of sports activities available for the whole family. Most reviews highlight its engaging gameplay, ease of use, and collaborative nature, while a few note minor concerns about the controls and the cartoonish violence present in some minigames.

  • nostalgic experience
  • family-friendly
  • wide variety
  • engaging gameplay
  • minor control issues
Summarized with AI

What's It About?

WII SPORTS RESORT is the long-waited sequel to the award-winning Wii Sports game. This time around, there are 12 categories of sports to explore, and fun variations within most of these sports. You can play archery, Frisbee, basketball, golf, table tennis, bowling; and explore the air sports of skydiving and flying a plane. You can also try wakeboarding (a form of water skiing), sword play, power cruising (driving a jet ski), cycling, and canoeing. All of these sports are played by doing intuitive arm motions that are associated with the sport. So to throw a Frisbee, you will flick your wrist, and to play table tennis you will swing an imaginary paddle. And with the new Wii MotionPlus, the controller is so sensitive, that you can now add spin and other sophisticated moves.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say ( 20 ):
Kids say ( 82 ):

Wii Sports Resort is a vacation destination that you won't want to miss. Each of the sports is fun to explore either alone and with others – although the game is most fun when played with a group. It is the best sports compilation that we have reviewed on the Wii, and would be a great addition to any family games library. We tested it with octogenarians all the way down to kids and it was a hit with all ages.

Nintendo has done an excellent job of simplifying each sport into something that would be fun on the Wii, while still maintaining some depth to the gameplay. The new Wii MotionPlus controller add-on provides a new level of sophistication for those that want it, but the play of each game can still be very simple and intuitive. You can turn on "Automatic Control" in several of the games so that the gameplay is simply about making the motions and not about timing the release of buttons. One of the better games is Frisbee golf where you use three different-sized discs to mimic the golf driver, iron, and putter. The game is played on a golf course where wind is a big factor.

Online interaction: If parents allow the importing of Mii Characters from the Check Mii Out Channel, a service where others create and then vote on the most popular Miis, kids might see some Miis that seem inappropriate.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about why playing active games is important to your health.

  • Did you notice a change in how easily the Wii was able to detect your motions? Will it be hard to go back to playing games that don't use the extra sensitivity of the Wii MotionPlus?

  • Which games were best for groups of people to play and why? Is it fun to play as teams or as individuals all competing against each other?

Game Details

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