by David Rasmussen

Created on: April 24, 2009   Last Updated: April 25, 2009

Some Wii titles come with gimmicks. Gimmicks to compel you to buy them. Some games don't need gimmicks yet, for some strange reason, come with them all the same. For instance Animal Crossing : City Folk, now that is in and of itself a great franchise on it's own merits yet it came out with the still I'm pretty sure it's a one trick pony Wii peripheral "Wii Speak"... yeah, what is with Nintendo and it's endless fascinations with making a 1001 peripherals for everything... damn, Nintendo, go seek therapy for your peripheral addiction already! Other gimmicks are of a more "useful" nature. For instance when Pirates of the Caribbean : At World's End and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out you could get a certificate good for one ticket to see said movie (which means you should buy said game on release if they're still doing same gimmick as of this year since usually these things have an ultra limited shelf life in terms of usage).

Wii Play is no different, though when this game hit it offered up the biggest extra of all for the game releases time in the form of a free Wiimote because, you know, back then it was really hard to get a hold of Wii stuff so any chance to get an extra Wiimote was most welcome. These days, however, not so much need for extra Wiimotes so this gimmick wouldn't work out so well as it did then. Maybe if they put in a free memory card for the Wii it'd get the same response as the Wiimote did then.

Anyway not so much a free Wiimote as you'll be spending (on release) $40 for a Wiimote and get a $10 game that goes with it (except by now I don't know if you can find this anymore). This was, BTW, more along the lines of what you were getting because, well, you shouldn't be fooled into buying this game without the Wiimote extra you're basically paying for a Wiimote and a cheap game not worth owning separately and alone (let alone for $50).

Yes, yes, Wii Play does offer up nine new mini games to supposedly "add" to your already mini game laden experience you had with Wii Sports and it's latter sequel, and it adds more abilities to use your to date seldom used Miis... oddly enough it's been a long while and I'm still feeling we're not getting the full usage out of our Miis that we should be with this system. Maybe it's just me and all but there's gotta be more use to the Miis than we're cranking out right now.

You should be able to blast through all 9 mini-games in one sitting (an actual requirement since the game insists you "unlock" all

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