Win a toy train...choo, choo!
Kids may be content with seeing a picture of toy train or a robot on the screen as a prize for their hard work, but it’s the winning of tickets that is the main reward for performing well. Unfortunately, tickets aren’t actually much of a prize and can only be used for purchasing costumes or for playing one of the special arcade games which can be found in each section of the funfair.These 5 special arcade games are pointless and not games as such; you might as well just throw your tickets down the drain. You’ve got the likes of the Love-o-Metre, with which you’ll pay 15 tickets, be told to hold the Wii-mote to your heart, before waiting for the flashing light to stop on the word that best describes you (I was told I was boring…cheers!) or the Great Swami fortune teller who after paying 15 tickets will give you a ‘yes or no’ answer to the question you ask (Incidentally, he told me that England wouldn’t win the Rugby World Cup).
There’s also the claw, the kind of a machine that you’ll find on any pier, where you need to move the Wii-mote and then press the A button to drop the hook in order to catch a prize. I’m sure young children will take great delight in playing these side games, but anyone over the age 10 will probably play them once and then give them a wide berth.
The actual mini-games are also bit hit and miss with some being more fun and intuitive to play than others and some appearing to be slightly broken. It would have been nice to see the Nunchuck being used in these mini-games, but the Wii-mote is used, in the most part, to good effect.
The Wii-mote is used in a variety of motions during game play, including the overhand throw, which is used in games such as Hoops and Spilled Milk (knocking down the pyramid of bottles), the underhand toss is used in ball throwing and coin tossing games, such as Day at the Races and there are a number of other variations such as holding it like it were a dart, a gun, a golf club or replicating a disc throwing motion.
