Hudson recently sent NWR a demo disc for their upcoming fall release Deca Sports 2. The demo contains four sports: Ice Hockey, Petanque, Darts, and Dodge Ball.

The first sport I tried was 5-on-5 Ice Hockey, which is played with the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk. Since this was the first time I played a hockey game on Wii, I had to unlearn my habits from the old Sega Genesis NHL games I grew up on. Using the analog stick to move around, you use the A and B button to pick pass or shoot and then shake the Wii Remote to execute the command. You can also hold the B button to charge your shot before shaking the Remote. You can perform one-timers pretty easily with this control setup. The controls work well, but the gameplay suffers because the goalies appear to be Swiss cheese - almost every halfway-decent shot on goal sails in without a problem.

Next up was Petanque, a game that I had never heard of before. Similar to bocce ball, Petanque begins when one player throws a jack onto a rectangular court in a specified area. After that, players throw six balls each and try to get as close as they can to the jack. The round is over after each player throws all of their balls. Then, the player who got the closest to the jack gets a point for each ball he has that is closer than the opponent's closest ball.

The controls for this game are intuitive. You choose your character’s posture - either standing up or crouching - and then hold down a button and throw the ball onto the court. There is a meter on the side of the screen that shows how far the ball will go. This game appears to be a bit slower-paced, though, as there is considerable downtime in between throws due to setup and load times.

The third sport was Darts. In the demo I was able to play a round of the standard ruleset for the sport, which has you scoring an exact amount of points over a few rounds to win. This game features a somewhat unorthodox control scheme. Holding the Wii Remote on its side in one hand, you pinch the A and the B button down in order to ready your shot. Then, you line up your shot using the on-screen cursor and flick your wrist and release the buttons to release the dart. Aside from being a lot more difficult than the darts game in WarioWare: Smooth Moves, it also feels more like the real game because of how you hold the Wii Remote. Still, the Wii Remote makes for a lousy dart, as it is a lot wider than any dart I've ever used.

The final sport on the demo disc is Dodge Ball. The rule set for this game seems to have more in common with the rules of Super Dodge Ball for NES. You have teams of five that face off against each other on a divided rectangular court, with other players from each team surrounding the opposing team's side. The controls are relatively simple to use. You throw the ball by holding down the analog stick and a button and shaking the Wii Remote. When your opponent has the ball, you can catch it by pressing the Z and B buttons at the same time when the ball comes at you. You can also dodge by shaking the Wii Remote when a ball heads your way.

Since this mode is so reminiscent of Super Dodge Ball for NES, I enjoyed it the most. However, I hope there is more depth to the Dodge Ball game in the final product. Actually, that's my biggest complaint with everything that I played; I really hope that this is merely a sampling of what each sport has to offer, as opposed to all of what they have to offer. If you can give me a darts game with a variety of rule sets alongside a dodge ball game with multiple dodge ball rule sets, I'll be a happy man.