Those familiar with Mario Strikers Charged will get the hang of Deca’s Soccer. You guide players with the analog stick and swing the remote for not only shots on offense and slide tackles on defense, but for passes as well. This is a questionable design choice because we had to make sure our player was facing a teammate or we’d take an unwanted shot on the goal. This may prove troublesome to players who are used to carefully setting up shots with multiple passes. We hope the passing can be tweaked before release to alleviate what we think might be an epidemic in Wii remotes being snapped in half.
The last sport we sampled was Figure Skating and… wait, where are you going? Get back here, it’s actually pretty cool. To start, you’ll select from three difficulty-level songs - Madame Butterfly, Carmen, and a Violin Concerto. When the song begins, you’ll direct your skater with the analog stick through yellow dots that appear on the rink. Once you get to a large colored circle, shake the remote to pull off a trick expanding your combo and netting you points. If you shake the remote at the wrong time, you’ll eat ice or fall on your keister, setting you back a few seconds in the song.
Deca has four single-player modes: open play (exhibition), tournament, Deca Challenge (time trials, high score) and Deca League (tournaments in all sports). On the character selection screen, you’ll have access to a number of teams made up of five players each. Each player has a descriptor corresponding to their play style; Smalls are fast and weaker, Mediums are average and Larges are powerful and slow. Knowing which players to choose is absolutely essential for success in each sport.
Even though we haven’t yet played the other five sports games in Deca, we came away confident the variety alone places it well ahead of its predecessors. We’ll have more on Deca Sports in the coming weeks.
Feb 29, 2008
