Nintendo Switch Sports

Nintendo Switch Sports is the direct successor to the phenomenon that was Wii Sports, which once convinced millions of people that video games could be played by waving your arms around. The principle stays the same: you hold a Joy-Con, make a movement, and the game translates it into a sporting action. At launch it offered six disciplines — tennis, bowling, badminton, volleyball, sword fighting, and soccer — with golf added that autumn in a free update. Thanks to more precise Joy-Con sensors, the controls are noticeably more reliable than on the original Wii, so the game genuinely tells the difference between a light tap and a full-force swing.

The individual disciplines vary in depth. Bowling is calm and precise, with a variant that adds obstacles to the lane; tennis is played in pairs and is the fastest of the bunch; volleyball demands a rhythm of set and spike; and sword fighting works with the angle of your weapon and blocks. Soccer is the most parodic: players chase a giant ball around an arena, and during a penalty shootout you can strap a Joy-Con to your leg with a band and actually kick. Everything can be played locally or online, where you climb league tiers and unlock cosmetic items for your avatars.

Visually the game has dropped the plain Mii characters in favor of softly stylized figures with their own outfits, the environments are clean and bright, and the whole package feels pleasantly modern. Reception was cooler than for its legendary predecessor — critics praised the quality of the controls and how easy it is for anyone to jump in, but pointed to a smaller number of disciplines and less single-player content. As a social game, though, it does exactly what it's meant to: you sit four people down in front of the TV, explain the rules in thirty seconds, and the next hour goes by without anyone thinking about the fact that they're playing a video game. The difference from 2006 is mainly that this kind of game is no longer a novelty everyone wants to see; but anyone looking for a title the whole family, grandparents included, can take turns playing gets exactly what they need.