PixlBit

Do you like to throw big sticks? Do you like to hurl discs and watch them soar through the air? Do you like to swing hammers around and let them loose, seeing how far they fly? Do you want all of this without the hassle of other Olympic events? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, Triple Throwing Sports may be the game for you.

This little collection of events contains Javelin, Hammer Throw, and Discus. Despite its name, there are actually four throwing sports on offer, with the fourth, Shot Put, unlocking after earning gold medals on the other three events. For each event, there are three difficulty settings, though all this does is determine what scores the CPU opponents will post. Also on offer is a multiplayer competition, which will pit player against player instead of having randomly generated scores. The game is limited to two players even although it is alternating, but that also means there’s no real difference between playing the multiplayer and simply taking turns in single player.

Unfortunately, the controls do nothing to separate this game from most other sports titles on the Wii: Controlling the events doesn’t go beyond simple shakes and a button press. In the Hammer Throw, the hammer is first spun by swinging the Nunchuk in a circular motion to build up the power meter. In practice, full-on swings actually do little to raise the gauge; quickly shaking the Nunchuk produces far better results. After a press of the B button once the meter reaches the green line, the angle gauge is activated. Once the arrow reaches the desired angle, the A button is held, and a quick flick of the Wii Remote launches the hammer. The Discus event has the exact same control, making it virtually the same.

The Javelin event is slightly more engaging, though still too simple. First, building speed is done by shaking both the Wii Remote and Nunchuk; again, there is no deliberation to the shakes, making it mindless. During the running, the angle gauge will increase. A quick tap of the B button will decrease the increase, as the game so elegantly phrases it. Once the athlete nears the end of the straight, it’s time to hurl the javelin by holding in the A button and giving the Wii Remote a quick flick.

The events would be far more engaging if they were even a little closer to the movements required in the real sports, but the simple shakes and button presses have a real disconnect between the player and the onscreen action. As it stands, skill comes down to twitchy hands and stopping meters on the marks, and the similarities between the events causes them to wear thin fast. Due to the simplicity, gold medals can be easily achieved after only a few attempts, though world records will take some time. However, hitting all meters perfectly seems to yield varying results, so surpassing a world record appears up to luck and is therefore not an enjoyable challenge.

After selecting an event, two or three pages of control explanations will appear onscreen, followed by a quick loading screen. Why they didn’t think to have the game load during the control explanations is beyond me, but then again, I thought loading screens were reserved for disc-based games. This makes the startup time for each event take a few seconds too long; things would flow better if the diagrams showed up only on the first time playing each event, and then could be accessed from the pause screen any time thereafter.

A lot of people throw around the phrase “It looks like a Nintendo 64 game” as an exaggerated derogatory term, but it is a startlingly accurate description for this game. Take Nintendo 64 traits like blocky environments and character models, stretched-out textures, and cardboard cutouts lining the stadium seats, roll it all up in a higher resolution and a solid 30 frames per second, and the result is Triple Throwing Sports. The mouths of every athlete are always open, as if they are in shock and awe. At first, it seems comical, but it soon grows a little odd and finally gets creepy. The sound is particularly lacking as well, with no music during events, and a simple, monaural brass fanfare on the menu and podium screens. Crowd cheers and chatter makes up most of the noise heard, with one “thud” sound for each throwing object hitting the ground, and the grunts of the athlete when he makes his toss, that sounds more akin to being sucker punched.

It is disappointing that this game didn’t make an attempt to mimic the actions of real-world events, or it might have provided an engaging little sampling of sports. If anyone out there has ever wanted to play throwing sports but never wanted to own a full Olympics game, Triple Throwing Sports may be worthwhile. It isn’t pretty, the controls are simplistic, and it’s easy to master, but as long as you know that going into it, it may satisfy that crave to throw.