Wii Tennis, Wii Bowling, Wii bloody Golf…how about some variety, Nintendo? Below are a bunch of obscure sports that, to my knowledge, have not yet been made into mainstream video games. But chances are we have all heard of these sports at least and given that the Wii is looking to cater for the family/non-gamer demographic, these activities deserve a chance too. Mr Miyamoto, if you want to mail me a royalty cheque just send me a PM. Credit to Andrew Carmichael who gave me the idea for this blog.

Hardcore Euro limbs-flailing-about Action

European Handball

No, not the handball you used to play in primary school by ’slogging’ a tennis ball. This is one of the great obscure sports that is fantastic to watch and possibly great fun to play, but sadly drops out of public consciousness when it’s not Olympics time. A bit of a cross between soccer/football and dodgeball, I just love seeing hardcore Dutchmen flinging themselves into the air and fully pelting a tiny ball at the goal as a bunch of Ukrainians protect their genitalia in defense. Plus, this must be the only sport in the world where a goalkeeper can let in 48 goals and still be on the winning side. I can already picture myself straining an elbow with awkwardly violent Wii-mote body movements.

Forget about those alpine skiing or snowboarding games, those of you who truly enjoy watching the Winter Olympics (or have seen Blades of Glory) will know what an ‘interesting’ sport figure skating is. Dancing on ice whilst balancing a partner on one hand, cruciate-ligament destroying spins, dodgy music and latex fluffy costumes – there is SO much potential here. Strap a Wii-mote onto each of your ankles to perform a quadruple-axel jump and chuck in a GTA-style minigame where you have to take out your rival by smashing their knees (with Manhunt-esque motion controls) and this will be a winner.

Ok, this one is very obscure. Zorbing involves strapping yourself inside a big ball and rolling down a hill. Do I need to say any more? To recreate the effect of bone breaks, skull fractures and family-wide concussions, I suggest strapping Wii-motes all over your body, clearing enough space in your room for a trampoline, and well and truly destroying yourself.

Cheese Rolling

Most often seen on Funniest Home Videos and featuring once a year on your local news report as the ‘comic’ segment right at the end, this sport takes place in Gloucestershire England and sees players chasing a huge piece of cheese down Cooper’s Hill. The winner gets to eat it. The video game version of this sport is admittedly tricky to emulate, but I’m sure it is nothing a children’s playground slide in the living room laced with grease and mouse traps cannot solve.

That weird Log Rolling sport

I don’t know what it’s real name is, but this sport is mainly played by big bulky (Scottish?) guys in singlets with moustaches who run down hills and try to dodge logs that are constantly rolled down from above (presumably by Donkey Kong). What is NOT Nintendo about that? The winner is the guy who doesn’t get killed. Plenty of G-rated fun for all!

Javelin

Did you see how that long-jumper who got speared by a wayward javelin throw at the Golden Gala of Athletics in Rome (mid-jump too by the way)? Now that’s what I call ‘cross-genre’: with Wii Javelin Nintendo could release an 8 foot javelin accessory to plug your Wii-mote in and battle it out with your 8 year old cousins to see who can throw the furthest within the comfort of your own home. Or see who can impale mum…either way the potential is enormous and it is definitely more fun than drunken darts. Actually…

Darts

In several parts of the world darts is a competitive and televised sport, with professional players balancing their throwing arms and beer guts to get a perfect score/drunk. You are also allowed to down pints of lager as you play…how many sports offer that? What an untapped market this is Miyamoto San. Just ask 13 times World Champion Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor what he thinks:

“Aye man, the sport is *&%$#’n brilliant-like, and Nintendo will pay me how much?” *passes out*

Throwing Wii-motes at your TV screen (okay, motioning a throw) is a highly viable option too, and the possibility of Mario endorsing beer will bring in millions for the company: ‘Mario and Sonic at the Pub’ – I can see it happening already.

Jai Alai

Jai Alai is a pretty unknown sport with Basque origins and involves flinging rock-solid balls from one end of the court to another at your opponents’ heads. The aim is to apparently catch with your weird-looking hand-canoe things and try to beat the world speed record for hardest pelted solid object. Yes, this is a poor write-up because I don’t quite know anything else about it, but smashed cheekbones, ill-fitting trousers AND funny jumps in the one game? Worthy of inclusion I say.

Outdoor Hockey

Outdoor hockey is far less well known than ice hockey, with slightly different rules, e.g. penalty shots are the key to winning, headbands are seemingly compulsory, and Aussie women do well at it at the Olympics but will lose to the Netherlands eventually. But that’s not at all what’s gonna make the Wii version of hockey fun: the illegal ankle taps and stick-to-neck fights every 2 minutes will be. Strap two Wii-motes onto your ankles, and try to avoid light-sabre-ish attacks at severing your Achilles tendon.

Dodgeball

A staple PE class game made famous by the Ben Stiller movie, dodgeball is, at it’s core, brilliant fun. The Wii version would involve mum and dad using their Wii-motes to motion striking moves and/or In The Line of Fire-like protective dives towards their children in the ultimate battle of favouritism. And even though it was a lot of fun, it would be a much bigger challenge than the dodgeball minigame featured in Bully with the moulding of young influential minds (and who knows, future custody battles) at stake.

Wife Carrying

Originating in Finland (the Europeans have the best sports) this activity involves husbands carrying their wives in a variety of positions ranging from the general piggyback to the more suggestive “Estonian-style” where, get this, “the wife hangs upside-down with her legs around the husband’s shoulders, holding onto his waist” and racing against other couples on the verge of divorce. The game version of this will hence require Wii-motes to be attached to all four limbs of each partner, and the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection will ensure loads of international wife swapping action to occur. It will totally bring a new meaning to the expression “trophy wife”. Awesome.

Wood Chopping

Taking place regularly in the big alpha male country regions of North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, woodchopping is fairly straightforward: compete against a host of other mullet-donning 7-foot Macguyvers to see who can chop a piece of wood the fastest (or whoever pops a hernia, whichever comes first). However the axe swinging motion could be quite controversial particularly as games like Manhunt 2 and even the Wii version of Trauma Centre have been banned in some places…after all trees have feelings too. The censored version may have mattresses in place of logs; I’m currently ironing out the details with Godfather Miyamoto who instead wants the game to be about Mario hacking away at Sonic.