The Wii has a reputation of being a fun console to bring together everyone in simple, enjoyable fashion. It has a secondary rep as well, one for dumping shoddy ports and miserable third party games onto the hardware to make a quick buck. Reputations like the latter start somewhere. Welcome to Balls of Fury.
Based off a below-average Hollywood comedy about "illegal underground ping pong," Balls takes gaming back three decades. That's no an exaggeration. Before the advent of CDs, games used grainy still pictures taken from the movie with text boxes to tell the story. That's what happens here.
The main story mode takes you through the story of the movie, facing off against character models that seem to have the face of the actor plastered on a generic body (and it's not done well either). Sound clips are taken directly out of the movie, regardless of whether or not there were random noises in the background when the voice was saved.
The Wii Remote and ping-pong paddles seem like a match. In Balls, it's one step short of spending an eternity in hell. You control a floating, disembodied paddle with no control over its position. This is played with only the Remote.
Since you can't move, a swing moves across the length of the table. It's a jarring animation sequence that makes timing worthless. Collision is entirely random.
Swing early, swing late, or don't swing it all. It's all randomized whether the ball hops back over the net. You can only stare in disbelief by the programming "talent" on display when you swing at exactly the same time twice, but one swing slams the ball past the opponent, and the other warps the ball right through your paddle.
Special moves are earned as you play, and many are purely visual or meant to throw off timing. Since you have the same chance of hitting the ball by flailing the Wii Remote in random directions as you do when actually trying, the specials are meaningless. Techniques such as spin (done in conjunction with the B button) are your best chance at winning, assuming you play long enough to score points.
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