Review: Yoo! Sports - Your Personal Sports Resort

Overview

Much of what gave Nintendo's Wii Sports its great success was that it included an in-depth avatar system, along with several simple but fun games. Triniti Interactive's Yoo! Sports tries to do just that, with its collection of 5 sports games and extensive character creation mode.

Features

The sports resort contains 5 games right now for $2.99, as well as an app for creating avatars. Here is our review for each section of Yoo! Sports, followed by a 0-5 star rating. Yoo! Me - This is by far the most impressive section of the sports resort. You can create as many characters as you want and customize their style and features. From shirts and gloves to earrings and watches, you can choose from a wide range of selections. You can also edit almost any property of their face to look like anything you want it to. There are supposedly over a trillion possible combinations of avatar designs, letting you personalize the game. The characters also react when you poke them and enjoy spinning around in glitter when you tap on them. - 4/5 stars Tennis - The Yoo! Tennis interface beats that of the other sports in the sports resort. There are career and tournament modes that are available in 2 on 2 modes where you control your players against those of the AI. Best of 3 and best of 5 matches are available, and there is replay for every play. In tournament mode, you play against 10 opponents in an attempt to win the trophy. To serve, you swipe up and then down, and to return the ball, you swipe in a certain direction. If you get lucky, one of your serves will turn orange and will likely result in an ace. The computer isn't very skilled and misses returnable balls quite often. The game is fun to play, but ends up being too easy. - 3/5 stars Boxing - The game includes tournament and celebrity modes, where the only noticeable difference is that opponents in celebrity mode are stronger at the start. You perform moves by swiping in certain directions and holding both thumbs on the screen. Both you and your opponent have a circle with several slices that represent health, which is reduced every time you are hit. While real boxing requires skill, this version is merely frantic swiping of the screen in an attempt to perform moves as fast as possible. Some fighters don't even punch you back, even in celebrity mode, and just stand there shaking from your uppercuts to the face. When they do fight back, it's difficult to tell that they've hit you because your character is semi-transparent and blocks them out with its actions. - 1/5 stars Bowling - Yoo! Bowling is available in standard and obstacle modes. Standard mode is just a normal game of bowling, and obstacle mode has rectangular blocks on the lane that stop the bowling ball when hit. Every time you play, you drag the ball to a desired location and then swipe up to throw it. From then on, you can tilt your device left or right to guide the ball as it approaches the pins. This is not realistic by any means and takes the point out of the initial throw. It's also really easy to do well, as you just tilt your device so that the ball strikes the center pin. Obstacle mode is simply atrocious and completely impractical, as the blocks just block your way every time and suck the fun out of bowling. - 1.5/5 stars Archery - Another tilt-based game where you try to hit either the center of a bullseye or balloons on a board in single player or against the AI. To shoot an arrow, you hold a button on the left and pull back with the one on the right. After that, a circle appears in the center of the screen that marks where the arrow will strike. The wind factor adds a challenge that gives the game a skill requirement. The balloon mode is really boring, but the tournament mode provides some entertainment. - 2.5/5 stars Hoops - Yoo! Hoops has a 3 point mode and a hotshot mode. The 3 point shootout is similar to that from the NBA All Star Game and lets you take 6 shots from each of 5 areas behind the line. You have 100 seconds to make as many as possible, and the last ball in each spot is worth more than the rest if the shot is made. Hotshot mode feels like arcade hoops, except for the fact that you can't just flick shots up with ease. Intead, you have to reach for a ball and pick it up before putting it up. 3 point mode is random and there is no definite way to make a shot go in. You just swipe up every time and hope that the ball lands in the metal ring. Most of the time, the ball just hits the rim and bounces back out. - 2/5 stars

The Good

Yoo! Sports has Game Center integration and a good menu interface for switching between sports and game modes. You also unlock certain outfits for characters after doing well in certain sports. The overall avatar creation system is phenomenal, as are the slow motion replays available in every sports title. The developer has also promised to include new sports games in future updates and has confirmed an upcoming horse racing game.

The Bad

The sports resort is essentially a feeble attempt to clone Nintendo's Wii Sports. From the 3 letter spelling of the title to the identical boxing health meters, the entire app feels like a copy of another developer's creation. Triniti didn't seem to do a very good job at duplicating the resort, as the avatars created in Yoo! Me don't carry over to the sports titles. After creating a detailed and perfect character, you tap on the tennis option and have to play as a old man in a white shirt. The graphics aren't that superb themselves and will glitch at times as well.

The Verdict

Yoo! Sports feels like another poorly-made collection by Triniti Interactive, without any unique experiences or outstanding features. The importance of the avatar creator, though very nicely made, is diminished because the creations don't transfer to the other titles in the app. For $2.99, this app is a waste of space and is highly not recommended.

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