AMN's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Perhaps you've heard of Wii Sports. Consider this Electronic Art's own unique answer to the successful Nintendo launch title. In EA Playground, you compete in a number of playground-style activities. There are seven types of games: slot car racing, tether ball, paper racers, dart shootout, wall ball, dodgeball and kicks. The game also supports three main modes, including single-player, quick play and multiplayer. Single-player is the main mode and features a hub world in which you explore a sprawling school playground, challenging kids to different activities.

What's Hot
Like Wii Sports, EA Playground is a pick-up-and-play Wii title. Just about anyone can play this game, and thus it has a fairly wide appeal level. What's more, we'd argue that many of the game types in EA's title are at least on par with many of those found in Wii Sports. Some of our favorite modes, specifically, include tether ball, paper racers (paper airplane races) and dart shoot out (rail-based dart shooter). These are all surprisingly well-done and as a result fun. These three game types seem to be most true to their real-life counterparts, and thus the resulted translation of real world to video game just feels better.

Despite that EA Playground is definitely catered towards the same Grandma and Grandpa audience as other party games like it, EA hasn't cheapened out. There's actually a full single-player game to experience, which has you exploring a large, vibrant playground. As you challenge and defeat other kids on the playground, you'll unlock more areas to explore. We're pleasantly surprised with the mode.

There's also up-to-four-player multiplayer support, which is in fact the real draw to EA Playground for many of the same reasons Wii Sports' multiplayer was a hit.

What's Not
While many of the game types are fun and likable, there are some that are less entertaining. These, specifically, aren't bad. However, they just don't translate into video game form nearly as well as the others we've named. Dodgeball and wall ball, for example, are simply too shallow here. The game does everything for you, outside of you having to gesture a throw. Kicks is the same, except your on-screen characters are using their feet instead of their hands. Again, these aren't bad, but they aren't as good as the other activates.

The bigger problem facing EA Playground is not the quality of the games within it, but the number of them. All together, there are just seven game types. Unfortunately, they all begin to wear thin rather fast, leaving you few incentives to revisit the game. A year ago, Nintendo might have been able to get away with a small number of sports in Wii Sports, but a year later, the novelty of the Wii-mote can't be a substitute for gameplay.


Thankfully, the main single-player here is deeper than Wii Sport's. But unfortunately, moving around with the D-pad just doesn't work well. It's not only a problem in the hub world, though. Games, such as dodgeball, require using the D-pad and are degraded by it, too. Why can't we just plug in a nunchuck and use the analog stick? Forcing your players to adopt a Wii-mote only control scheme when your gameplay design clearly calls for the nunchuck isn't smart, EA.

And, finally, there's multiplayer. Admittedly, it's fun, but there's no online play – not surprising, but still lame. This would have been a fun game to play on WiFi Connection.

Final Word
Truthfully, we were pleasantly surprised with EA Playground when we got our hands-on the final version. Nearly each game type is decently fun – although sometimes shallow and lacking in lasting appeal. However, the number of activities in the game is subpar, leaving little to do and see once you've experienced each only a couple of times. For this reason, it's hard to justify purchasing EA Playground. That noted, it might make a good rental for those who are looking for another Wii Sports-like Wii game.