A look at the Wii version of The Bigs

After wondering for the last few weeks when (or even if) some news on the Wii version of The Bigs would make its way out, Joystiq has posted a hands-on look from the recent Nintendo Media Summit.

The motion controls worked pretty well, too. It’s clear that Blue Castle Games put a lot of thought and testing into the controls, as batting, pitching, and fielding are all fairly intuitive.

Yet they go on to detail some of the problems/frustrations that were experienced. It doesn’t sound like 2K just threw it together to milk the recent Wii craze, but things still don’t work exactly right. It’s basically experimentation that is being done on the Wii right now.

Indeed, the on-hand developer said the only difference between the PlayStation 2 and the Wii versions were that the PlayStation 2 had online play and the Wii version had motion controls.

Not really a surprise to hear that. Probably why there has been nothing released about the PS2 version either, but now seeing it on the Wii you can get a feel for what to expect. Personally I’d take online play if given the choice without even thinking about it.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with The BIGS. For Wii owners looking for a bit of baseball fun above and beyond Wii Sports, I’d recommend checking it out when it’s released on June 25th. But if you have any of the other next-gen consoles, it’s not hard to recommend the PS3/360 one instead.

I’m beginning to wonder if motion controls will ever be more than just a gimmick for sports games. Either they don’t make sense to use, or won’t work as well as traditional controls. I was looking at The Bigs as potentially being the type of sports title that might be well suited for the Wii, but it sounds like that probably isn’t going to be the case.