If you get the itch to try out tennis as a sport, after buying a racket and putting on some nice white shorts, it doesn't take long to grasp the different possible shots. Top-spin, back-spin, lob, drop shot, overhead smash...they all make perfect sense. Understanding how to execute them is a different beast, though. You can try again and again, and maybe one out of twenty drop shot/back-spin attempts will land so perfectly that it immediately bounces right back into the net, making it impossible for your opponent to return it. Even though it's far from repeatable, that one moment makes you feel like an all-star. The Wii controls bring this level of realism to Mario Power Tennis. While at first this was extremely frustrating for me, I grew to love it.
The first two releases of Mario Tennis featured a pretty significant learning curve. Michael Cole compared it to a fighting game in his review of the GameCube version, and I think that comparison works extremely well. It is very easy to tell the rookies from the experts in the Nintendo 64 and GameCube releases, and this often leaves rookies frustrated and walking away. A skilled player can run his opponent all over the court with a mix of perfectly timed lobs and drop shots that alternate between left and right court. While these early games are great in multiplayer if the skill levels are similar, it isn't the greatest party game if there is a gap.
As the New Play Control moniker suggests, the controls of the Wii release of Power Tennis are significantly different. You control your character with the joystick on the Nunchuk. Yes, you can move yourself. That alone gives this game a significant leg up on Wii Sports Tennis. For those looking for a less complex experience, if you unplug the Nunchuk the character's movement goes on autopilot. While in this mode the D-pad can be used to move your character, which is most useful for bringing your player to the net. The autopilot is a bit too good though, as it can often result in seemingly infinite volleys.
Advanced techniques, such as power shots and lunges are still controlled with buttons, but these abilities can be automated based on the control mode selected. There are four options: easy, normal, technical, and manual. I found myself preferring normal, which makes my character automatically lunge and decide which type of power shot to use, but leaves the actual performing of a power shot up to me.
Obviously, the racquet controls took on the biggest overhaul. All standard swings are done with a swinging motion of the remote. The force of your swing determines the speed at which the ball is returned. The manner in which it is swung determines to the type of shot, and there are quite a few. They are as follows:
When Wii games try to differentiate among this many different gestures at the same time, the effect is rarely perfect. The first few times I tried to lob the ball over an opponent's head I instead performed a soft back-spin shot, giving him a nice piece of cake to slam back down my throat. I was ready to write the entire experience off as frustrating garbage. However, a few hours of gameplay later I began to notice something incredibly intriguing. I found my ability to hit consistent lob shots improving slightly. Was I actually getting better at my virtual tennis swing through practice? This is some amazing stuff.
Don't get me wrong. The imprecision of the controls will most likely keep all players from ever reaching the level of shot selection fluency possible in the original GameCube game. This isn't a bad thing, though. Being able to take on a strategy knowing that your opponent cannot always execute the perfect shot really adds the realism, and not always being able to hit the perfect shot makes the moments where you do all the more exciting.
Sadly, while I appreciate the realistic imprecision during a normal tennis match, it makes most of the mini-games worthless and frustrating. Given that these were originally designed with extremely precise traditional controls in mind, and those controls are not present in this re-release, they devolve into unpredictable and frustrating chores. For example, the wall-painting game tasks the player with hitting paint balls of varying colors into the proper regions to color the picture. After many attempts I came to the realization that all I was doing was randomly returning the shots and waiting until I got lucky enough to hit all of the proper spots. While this can be good for general practice, going for the fastest time is all but worthless. It might as well have been a dice rolling mini game.
Thankfully, this disparity in difficulty isn't as apparent in the computer-controlled A.I. during regular tennis matches. While the most difficult tournaments feature opponents that consistently pull off perfect shots, they don't require a similar level of perfection to be defeated. The difficulty also ramps up very evenly, allowing you to get better at the shots right along with your opponents.
There are a few other notable changes in the Wii version. Firstly, all menus are navigated using the pointer. While it would be a glaring omission if they failed to implement this, it's still nice to have it. The sound effects have also been modified to make use of the Wii Remote speaker: it's nice to hear Yoshi's patented grunt come through the remote as I hit the ball. The effect is really cool when playing four-player, as you can hear which of your friends is swinging their racket. The graphics don't feature any major changes, but the original was a great-looking game, and this version looks great on old and new televisions alike.
The original Mario Power Tennis was a great game on the 'Cube. This remake maintains the same charm and is definitely worth owning for someone who missed it the first time around. With its additional shot possibilities (and the ability to control your movement), Wii Sports Tennis looks downright primitive by comparison. If you still get a lot of play out of that game, you should consider moving up to Power Tennis. Similarly, if you are unhappy with the lack of depth in Wii Sports Tennis but like its premise, Power Tennis is right for you.
Pros:
Lastability: 9.0
Good multiplayer sports games always make good party games at home in most gamers' collections. The imprecise controls will prevent most players from ever mastering the game, but the challenge of learning them over time only increases the longevity of the game.
Final: 8.5
There is a lot to like about New Play Control: Mario Power Tennis. It takes an already great game and adds active and fun motion controls consistent with the Wii's philosophy. Any game that can take something as fun as Wii Sports Tennis and make it all but obsolete is worth owning. If only those mini-games weren't so frustrating...
8.5? That's the exact opposite of IGN, which gave it 5.8.
I myself feel that any game such as this which fails to include Toad and Birdo as playable characters deserves no better than a score of 5. You at least should have put that under the list of cons...
I haven't played much of this game yet, but I'm not so sure if I'm liking the controls. It seems no matter what motion I try it registers as a slice shot, unless I get too wild then it becomes a lob. You've given me some hope that things will improve with practice though, so I'll stick with it.
Wii games should come with instructional videos because showing the stills of the movements you need to make doesn't really help much. :-\
8.5? That's the exact opposite of IGN, which gave it 5.8.
I myself feel that any game such as this which fails to include Toad and Birdo as playable characters deserves no better than a score of 5. You at least should have put that under the list of cons...
I haven't played much of this game yet, but I'm not so sure if I'm liking the controls. It seems no matter what motion I try it registers as a slice shot, unless I get too wild then it becomes a lob. You've given me some hope that things will improve with practice though, so I'll stick with it.
Wii games should come with instructional videos because showing the stills of the movements you need to make doesn't really help much. :-\
Birdo isn't in Power Tennis? That's odd, 'it' was in the N64 Mario Tennis game. Kind of a step backwards.
Birdo isn't in Power Tennis? That's odd, 'it' was in the N64 Mario Tennis game. Kind of a step backwards.It? IT?! Of all the insults Birdo has received, calling him "it" is at the top of the list of the absolute most hurtful! :'(
Birdo isn't in Power Tennis? That's odd, 'it' was in the N64 Mario Tennis game. Kind of a step backwards.It? IT?! Of all the insults Birdo has received, calling him "it" is at the top of the list of the absolute most hurtful! :'(
I'm glad to see other people are (almost) as shocked as I am over Birdo's exclusion in Mario Power Tennis, especially since the original Mario Tennis was the game which brought him back from obscurity. All the more strange is that Shy Guy is still around, and in the cutscenes you can see Birdo as a generic race (notice how no pink Birdo is anywhere to be found though). It's the reason why I never bought MPT originally, and with its re-release I've been complaining about it quite a bit lately...
Axing Toad is just bizarre. Besides Mario Party, Toad has been playable in everything!
My guess is Camelot wanted to include some new characters but would have to make some sacrifices in order to release the game on time. I think they should have axed Mario, nobody usees Mario because he's in way too many* games!
*I lied
Sorry, I thought I recalled you saying it might be more appropriate to refer to Birdo as an it.I'd never say anything so horrible!
Sorry, I thought I recalled you saying it might be more appropriate to refer to Birdo as an it.I'd never say anything so horrible!
Given the apparent training that Mike had to go through given the subtlety of the swing mapping, it's a shame they couldn't have waited on MotionPlus support for this one.
Given the apparent training that Mike had to go through given the subtlety of the swing mapping, it's a shame they couldn't have waited on MotionPlus support for this one.
It makes you wonder if they will make another new game a year or so down the line with M+ support.
It also makes me wonder more so about the theory that a number of Nintendo's big titles are being held back due to the rumored M+ delay.
Then I remember wrong, apologies. At least I was bothered by Birdo not being included in MPT.Shklee. Or Shklim.
So do I refer to Birdo as a he (which is what he is) or as a she (which is what she wants to be)?
Given the apparent training that Mike had to go through given the subtlety of the swing mapping, it's a shame they couldn't have waited on MotionPlus support for this one.
It makes you wonder if they will make another new game a year or so down the line with M+ support.
It also makes me wonder more so about the theory that a number of Nintendo's big titles are being held back due to the rumored M+ delay.
Birdo isn't in Power Tennis? That's odd, 'it' was in the N64 Mario Tennis game. Kind of a step backwards.
Given the apparent training that Mike had to go through given the subtlety of the swing mapping, it's a shame they couldn't have waited on MotionPlus support for this one.There are five different types of shots you can use so there are only five different types of motions that the Wiimote needs to register. The problem is that the type of motions weren’t made distinct enough from one another to accurately register which gesture you’re performing. If the Wiimote truly can’t easily differentiate between five distinct motions then it is a pathetic piece of tech, though I don’t believe that. Other games, including Wii Sports Tennis, use motions more effectively than this game, so this is a failure on the part of the developers in that they made the different motions too similar to one another. You’d think they’d have noticed the inaccuracy of the controls especially if they tested them with the minigames, but I guess they just didn’t care.
m confused by your comment in general.
Given the apparent training that Mike had to go through given the subtlety of the swing mapping, it's a shame they couldn't have waited on MotionPlus support for this one.
How on earth do you think Wii Sports Tennis use motions more effectively? It only has two different swings... forehand and backhand.I haven't played Wii Sports Tennis in a while so I had to look it up. It has more than just forehand and backhand shots:
Proper detection of swing direction would have made it worth the wait if nothing else. Swinging later or earlier is (and always was) a dumb way of choosing directions.I think it worked fine in Wii Sports Tennis because the game was designed with that in mind. For a game designed with a traditional controller in mind, it isn't going to work very well.
Because he said that you have to train yourself to the controls and we're saying that's not a good thing.
I think it's unrealistic to expect developers to somehow magically remove human error from the formula.Of course it is. But I'm wondering how much of this human error isn't human error at all, but retraining yourself to something that doesn't function quite as expected (given the fact that it took several hours to even like the game).
Well it took several hours to get me to stop expecting the same level of precision I had in the n64 game.
Maybe I didn't articulate this well enough in the review, but the reason I was so taken by the game is that I did not feel the game wasn't functioning as it should. I instead felt that I wasn't doing the motion's perfect every time.
There have been plenty of Wii games where I honestly think that the motion control is garbage and impossible. Banana Blitz comes to mind.
I think the difference is that in Power Tennis, when my character does the wrong thing, I can actually contemplate some ideas for how I could perform the swing better next time. In games where the controls suck, I would be at a loss.
As an example, there are moments in the game where I do not give the ball any top spin when I try. I realized that part of the reason for this is that instead of consantly bringing the swing up, i often do a horizontal swing with an up loop at the end...
It's the fact that I had thought processes like this that amazed me about the game.
Well it took several hours to get me to stop expecting the same level of precision I had in the n64 game.
Maybe I didn't articulate this well enough in the review, but the reason I was so taken by the game is that I did not feel the game wasn't functioning as it should. I instead felt that I wasn't doing the motion's perfect every time.
There have been plenty of Wii games where I honestly think that the motion control is garbage and impossible. Banana Blitz comes to mind.
I think the difference is that in Power Tennis, when my character does the wrong thing, I can actually contemplate some ideas for how I could perform the swing better next time. In games where the controls suck, I would be at a loss.
As an example, there are moments in the game where I do not give the ball any top spin when I try. I realized that part of the reason for this is that instead of consantly bringing the swing up, i often do a horizontal swing with an up loop at the end...
It's the fact that I had thought processes like this that amazed me about the game.
Yeah, this is basically the exact same thought process I went through with We Cheer.
Pap64, I think that's why IGN gave Mario Power Tennis a low score. The reviewer had played the original game and was probably expecting it to still play like the original but with motion control, and since it doesn't he ragged on it. I suppose having to relearn how to play the game in a different way doesn't sound so exciting to him like it does for the rest of us.
That said, people seem unanimous in stating that the minigames are practically unplayable. As such, it does seem like a valid complaint that the controls present some problems, though I don't think it's enough to dock the score down to 5.8. However, I have yet to play the minigames, and I'm wondering if even they can be adjusted to after extensive practice. I really need to put some more playtime into this game...
This game obviously isn't targeting the people who played the original, and that's why I think Pale's review is the most accurate and informative one so far.
Pap64, I think that's why IGN gave Mario Power Tennis a low score. The reviewer had played the original game and was probably expecting it to still play like the original but with motion control, and since it doesn't he ragged on it. I suppose having to relearn how to play the game in a different way doesn't sound so exciting to him like it does for the rest of us.
That said, people seem unanimous in stating that the minigames are practically unplayable. As such, it does seem like a valid complaint that the controls present some problems, though I don't think it's enough to dock the score down to 5.8. However, I have yet to play the minigames, and I'm wondering if even they can be adjusted to after extensive practice. I really need to put some more playtime into this game...
This game obviously isn't targeting the people who played the original, and that's why I think Pale's review is the most accurate and informative one so far.
Way back when the Wii was first shown at E3 2006 Red Steel, Twilight Princess and even Wii Sports impressions were all over the map. Fans either loved other or completely hated them. The opinion on controls varied greatly, with some saying that it worked great, others said that they were bad.
From that moment on, I realized that Wii reviews would always be mixed because people would have different opinions on controls. Even if the game has a slight learning curve some reviewers would be annoyed and say it controls badly, when the real problem is that the reviewer has yet to truly understand and master the game.
The reason why is because reviewers have a very limited time to review a game. They have a deadline to meet and its likely they have 2 to 3 hours worth of game time. This might be enough for some games, but for others they do require more time. It gets worse when the reviewers actually try to publish a review before the game ships.
Once more, I think this is why Mario Power Tennis reviews are everywhere right now. It seems that Pale was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with the game, as well as play with other people and was able to create a concise opinion of the game, while everyone else just seems to rush to it.
Not saying the game doesn't have issues, but it seems that the low scores are the results of rushed game time and not enough information.
A year.
But all kidding aside, a week should be enough for a reviewer to play through most of the game. I think it can be accomplished in less time. In my case, I was able to understand "Samba de Amigo" in an evening of play, and what I learned was re-inforced through multiple plays.
A year.
But all kidding aside, a week should be enough for a reviewer to play through most of the game. I think it can be accomplished in less time. In my case, I was able to understand "Samba de Amigo" in an evening of play, and what I learned was re-inforced through multiple plays.
So it is probably more of a fault on most game journalism sites where they feel the need to speed out reviews sooner than the competition and even get the reviews out before game launch (at the expense of poor spelling and grammar, they are in such a hurry that I swear some sites don't even click the spellchecker button before they submit it to the site for publishing). It's a pity games like Power Tennis suffer from it though.
A year.
But all kidding aside, a week should be enough for a reviewer to play through most of the game. I think it can be accomplished in less time. In my case, I was able to understand "Samba de Amigo" in an evening of play, and what I learned was re-inforced through multiple plays.
So it is probably more of a fault on most game journalism sites where they feel the need to speed out reviews sooner than the competition and even get the reviews out before game launch (at the expense of poor spelling and grammar, they are in such a hurry that I swear some sites don't even click the spellchecker button before they submit it to the site for publishing). It's a pity games like Power Tennis suffer from it though.
Don't forget that certain companies WANT a game to be reviewed as soon as possible, because if the review is positive it might push game sales up.
Games are not like movies in which you just watch them for a couple of hours, then jolt down opinions and write a review based on that. There are some games that simply can't be enjoyed in just a few hours of gameplay.
Way back when the Wii was first shown at E3 2006 Red Steel, Twilight Princess and even Wii Sports impressions were all over the map. Fans either loved other or completely hated them. The opinion on controls varied greatly, with some saying that it worked great, others said that they were bad.There was a different reason for this, though. At E3 2006, Nintendo hadn't finalized the Remote sensitivity yet, making it hard to play some games well (which is really bad for these time-limited impressions).
Way back when the Wii was first shown at E3 2006 Red Steel, Twilight Princess and even Wii Sports impressions were all over the map. Fans either loved other or completely hated them. The opinion on controls varied greatly, with some saying that it worked great, others said that they were bad.There was a different reason for this, though. At E3 2006, Nintendo hadn't finalized the Remote sensitivity yet, making it hard to play some games well (which is really bad for these time-limited impressions).
Well, it was Nintendo's fault for pushing "playing = believing" so hard.
