go play City Sports
Ages: Everyone

Let me recuse myself - I actually played all these games - except for soccer, which wasn't a street game, when I was a kid and I was getting nostalgic about playing on the street again - when curbs were for kids not cars. The activities play harder than you would expect. There's lots of play in the game and each activity could have been almost a game in itself.

The game opens on a wide city street - a little decrepit, but cleaner than I remember. Kids are hanging out, and if you speak to them you can join or not join in one of the games. The artificial speech is closer to real than any I have heard. The kids are a mix, some just walk around humming to themselves, and effort was spent to make the specific locations for each of the activity not only appropriate but a little clever too.

I have liked all the Go Play games I've reviewed so far. They are games essentially made for kids without specifying +10, in the rating, indicating older kids. The pace of this game is too fast for the complexity of the activities. Each activity starts after a dialog exchange to select to play or not. The screen gives a tip and indicates the Wii control buttons and moves that will be used, and you are off into the game. Since some of the games will require four or five different actions - it would have been advisable to have the commands displayed on screen while the activity is in progress. Some games - stickball, require controls for the batter, the man on base, the outfielder and the pitcher. Kickball was easier - fewer players. Jump rope suggests that you listen for the rope slap to time your responses. Good idea since you will be looking at which one of five buttons should be pressed. It's harder than Guitar Hero. In Street Hockey I was better at checking then shooting - sometimes I got confused as to which goal was mine. Soccer had you running slalom-like, avoiding hydrants spraying water and skateboards before you could kick the ball past the goalie. There is no difficulty level option and each try gets harder. To serve in Handball you had to swing the nunchuk up and then swing the Wii remote to hit the ball. Swing the nunchuk? Following the directions on the screen, I kept on pressing the Z and C button to no avail and it was only when I looked at the instruction book that I found out what it was. So read the instruction book.

Translating sports that are "in your body" into button presses and wrist motion is mostly a thankless task. They have done well enough but I had to stop - my wrist hurt.

Fun Factor: If the pace were slower - it would have been more fun
Female Factor: You can play as either a boy or girl. Next time maybe the girl can be in the foreground.
Player Friendly: Game needs to provide more help for the player.

Reviewed by: Editor - 10/09