Finally tired of Wii Sports Resort? Have you ever just wanted to wonder round WuHu Island, rather than hopping from game to game without taking in the scenery? Or maybe you just have a holiday-themed mini-game collection shaped hole in your life? Whatever your reason, Go Vacation is shaping up to be much, much more than just another one of those quick cash-in mini-game collections that fill store shelves.
Go Vacation offers a series of vaguely holiday related mini-games, assuming you go on these crazy 'action-packed adventure' type holidays rather than 'the wonder round the beach with an ice-cream' type holidays, all of which support up to four players. The mini-games are spread over four differently themed island resorts, each containing location-specific mini-games - for example, you could play Volleyball at the beach-side Marine resort, take a ride round the skate park in the City, snowball-fight it out in the Snow resort area, or go kayaking down a mountain river in the Mountain Resort. You also have your own holiday villa that you can decorate with the furniture you collect as you play the game.
The main difference between Wii Sports Resort and Go Vacation is that you're able to freely wonder round the islands at your leisure, taking in the various sights, snapping a few photos and searching for the treasure chests, cunningly hidden around the place. One nice feature was that you can have a pet dog following you around the island, as well as being able to ride vehicles around - from riding a horse, to driving a car.
While wondering around the island, you'll come across people with a yellow sign above their heads - talking to them will launch one of the mini-games. Each mini-game has a few different modes, such as the Score Attack and Team Battle variations in the Water Gun battle mini-game we saw, where you were running around and shooting the other characters with your water pistol to get as many points as possible, either on your own in Score Attack or in a team in the Team Battle mode. We also saw the 'Motor Fest' mini-game, which is basically a car racing mini-game, controlled in the same Wii Remote tilting as on Mario Kart, and spread out over ten different tracks. For every mini-game you collect, you'll receive a stamp and more mini-games will then be unlocked for you to play.
Some of the mini-games have extra Motion+ features, like the Tennis, which just lets you be more accurate than without Motion+, but games like the Sword Fighting and Wind Surfing do require it - something you might want to bear in mind if you haven't jumped on the Motion+ bandwagon yet.
Go Vacation will be released on the Wii on the 4th November this year, and comes packed with over fifty different mini-games, ranging from hang gliding, to miniature golf to carnival games and many, many more - so there's plenty to keep you going in the deepest, coldest depths of winter as you explore Kawawii island. Until then, we have a funky trailer to whet your appetites:
