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Preview of Lawn Games for the Nintendo Wii

 

July 9, 2008

The University Club-San Francisco, California

 

Lawn Games is a collection of casual outdoor sports mini-games for the Nintendo Wii, and will be available this holiday season. Being a collection of sports mini-games for the Wii, it immediately draws comparisons to Wii Sports, however this game is not another Wii Sports.

 

First, the developers are working to make individualized characters with customizable attributes. In Wii Sports, every player has the same generic attributes. In Lawn Games players will not be able play as their Mii's in the game. The developers had a lot of discussion about that, but they determined that it did not look right for a character with no legs to play volleyball. It also hindered players' ability to customize the characters they wanted. For example on volleyball, which was the game that was primarily talked about at this event a player can customize whether they have more accuracy or power. Players will be able to change the customization options on their characters at any time between games. Since, this is the Wii that includes the option to make the character more adorable.

 

In another huge departure from Wii Sports, Lawn Games will have online play. It will allow up to 4 players in each match and 32 person tournaments. There will also be special items to be unlocked throughout the game. Many of those special items can only be unlocked through online play.

 

The developers are working on making the controls for this game very responsive and more real world. The developers do not want there to be a lag between a player swinging the wiimote and the character on screen moving their arm. Also, how hard a player swings the wiimote will be reflective of how hard an object is struck. That will add a great deal of skill to games. Badminton is included in Lawn Games and the ability to execute a solid drop shot could make a player very formidable.

  

Finally, the favorite feature of the media at this event was in the volleyball game. In what appears to have been an unintentional nod to NBA Jam, if a player makes 3 successful shots in a row, their luck increases. When the player is on fire, they will rarely miss until their side is scored upon.