One of the many prejudices about gaming is that its practitioners spend all day on their indolent derriere behind a screen. That kite certainly does not apply to the Nintendo Switch Sports game.
With this bundle of seven sports – one of which is made up (chanbara) and one is due to be released this fall as an update (golf) – the gamer can work up a sweat with some good will.
The game can be operated via gestures, thanks to the motion sensors in the remote controls. The joy-con controllers imitate a racket in tennis and badminton, your forearms and hands in volleyball, bowling (and soon golf), a wooden melee weapon in chanbara and your foot in soccer – provided you use one of the joy-cons with a manage to tie an elastic band around your leg.
The imitation is not very precise. It doesn’t matter how hard you swing a virtual racket or arm in Nintendo Switch Sports. A bowling ball or tennis ball will not roll or fly faster. Also, the direction you think to give to a shuttle or a football does not always work out well. It’s more about timing – choosing the right moment in the eyes of the game to smash, jump or dive – rather than technique.
But if you perform your moves theatrically and turn the difficulty of your virtual opponent up a notch (there are three modes: normal, strong or super strong) you will really start to feel your muscles after a while.
Party game par excellence
Nintendo Switch Sports is in everything the successor of Wii Sports, the game that was bundled with the Wii (from 2006) and therefore distributed in a staggering edition (116 million units). The original featured boxing and baseball. They have been exchanged for badminton, volleyball and football. That last part is very similar to the popular game Rocket League, in which we chase a gigantic ball across a field with cars.
Nintendo Switch Sports is more slapstick than serious sports. That can be seen in the setting in chanbara, Nintendo’s take on sword fighting, where you have to whack the opponent from a platform into the water of a swimming pool. And it is also visible in the alternative version of bowling, in which the lane turns into an obstacle course, with moving obstacles and narrow passages.
Nintendo Switch Sports works best as a party game, with up to three players at home (badminton doubles, for example) or online, up to 16 players (bowling). The first requires more than the two standard remotes supplied with every Switch, the second requires a Switch Online subscription. Playing virtual volleyball with the four of you in front of the TV in the living room must offer a special sight to passers-by.
Simplicity
The controls of football are the most complicated, as you have to remember two buttons for walking and running after the ball. In other sports, just swinging the joy-cons at the right time and in the semi-correct direction is enough. Nintendo Switch Sports is easy to learn whether you’re 5 or 85.
In any case, make sure you provide the remotes with their safety belts, because the sports you practice may be virtual, the TV screen against which fists, feet and joy-cons fly can certainly break.
Nintendo Switch Sports has been released for the Switch. From 5 years and older (PEGI). (Note: Nintendo Switch Sports cannot be played on a Switch Lite, as it has no joy-cons.)