It's no surprise to see games like Hudson's Deca Sports on Wii. A year-and-a-half ago, when Nintendo bundled Wii with Wii Sports, the company demonstrated that low-budget non-gamer-friendly titles like this sell, and they sell well. Hudson recently sent us a demo build of its Wii Sports wannabe, and within minutes of playing, any remaining doubt that Deca Sports is essentially Hudson's take on Wii Sports was entirely eradicated.

The demo we were sent only features about half of the game types that will be in the full game. To be precise, I played four game types: Badminton, Beach Volleyball, Supercross and Figure Skating.



For those unfamiliar, Badminton plays similarly to tennis. Just like in Wii Sports, you control just your character's swings by – you guessed it – swinging the Wii-mote. You can't directly control your character with the D-pad or nunchuck. The game is played entirely by swinging the Wii-mote. Likewise, Beach Volleyball works the same way. Although the sports themselves are different enough when playing in real life, on Wii, badminton and volleyball play just like tennis in Wii Sports. The best way to describe both of these modes, in fact, is that they're Wii Sports' tennis clones dressed in different clothing.

The other two modes are more of a departure from what we saw in Wii Sports. Supercross has you controlling a dirt biker around a dirt raceway. The gametype employs controls ripped right out of Excite Truck. Holding the Wii-mote horizontally, you tilt left and right to steer your biker in the direction you want to go. Last but not least is probably my favorite of the gametypes in the demo: Figure Skating. Sure, laugh it up, but Hudson has made the sport – or art? – of figure skating surprisingly entertaining (at least in comparison to the other modes here). With the nunchuck, you steer your character on the ice, shaking your Wii-mote when traveling over highlighted parts of the ice to perform jumps, spins and so on.


Deca Sports isn't a complete copy and paste job of Wii Sports, if our hands-on time with the demo is any indication of what we can expect from the full title. The game features more options than Nintendo's game, such as a team system. Each team in the game has its own look and particular strength. For instance, there's a male-only team that is more power oriented and a female team that excels in speed (just what are you trying to say, Hudson?). Additionally, all the game types feature difficulty settings, which is something Wii Sports lacked.

If it sounds like I'm comparing Deca Sports to Wii Sports, I can't apologize. Truth is, the games are incredibly similar – it's nearly impossible not to compare the two. However, there's at least one thing Hudson's title has over Nintendo's: quantity. In addition to what I've described here, Deca Sports will ship with these additional game types: Snowboard Cross, Basketball, Curling, Archery, Soccer and Kart Racing. Whether or not Deca Sports will be a case of quantity over quality remains to be seen, but we'll be checking out the full version of the game when it ships on May 13.

In the meantime, check out 30 new screenshots of the game in our media gallery below.