When Nintendo launched the Wii console in 2006 it made a crucial decision: in most regions of the world, the company bundled its eccentric and innovative hardware with a game: Wii Sports. Fun, accessible versions of bowling, tennis and golf allowed consumers to immediately understand the unique proposition of the machine. Wii Sports was what everyone experienced, talked about and shared – and in doing so, they encouraged friends to buy a Wii too. It was the perfect loss leader.
The “party game”, 1-2 Switch, should really be fulfilling that role. As a collection of 28 mini-games, it has been designed to show off the capabilities of the Joy-Con controllers, with their motion sensors, HD rumble abilities and IR camera. All the games are quick and intuitive; the package is beautifully presented with fun videos showing how each task works. The emphasis is on interpersonal competition; all the games are for at least two players and most require you to look at each other rather than the screen. Here, the console becomes the facilitator rather than the focus of fun.
And what fun there is. In the ludicrous and highly suggestive milking game, players have to gentle massage the controllers up and down to milk a cow as quickly as possible. There’s a speed eating game where two players have to hold their Joy-Con IR cameras close to their mouths, and then make chomping motions with their mouths in order to scoff more sandwiches than their rival. There are variations on sword fights, including samurai sword swinging and wizard spell casting; there’s a quite astonishing rumble game where the Joy-Con becomes a box that you have to move around in order to guess how many ball bearings there are cascading about inside.
One of the most complex tasks is a baby care game, which requires you to gently cradle the Switch console in your arms to pacify an on-screen infant. When it’s asleep, you carefully place the device on a flat surface and then creep away without waking your baby up. It’s like Metal Gear Solid meets Miriam Stoppard, and should perhaps become a staple feature at NCT meetings.
But there’s a big problem. Unlike with Wii Sports, none of these games can really be finessed; it’s hard to get much better at them. In some of the games, you can set personal best times, but you reach a point – very early on – where further progress is impossible. You also can’t play alone, so whereas Wii Sports fulfilled a number of roles, both social and challenge-based, 1-2 Switch is purely a party game.
It can also be fiddly. Some of the games work with the wrist strap attached, while others (specifically those that rely on the rumble feature) require you to remove them, and so you often end up continually having to mess about with the Joy-Con set-up. In a party situation, especially with young children, you’ll lose their attention very quickly. You’ll probably also lose the wrist bands too. Also, several of the games, especially Samurai Training and Copy Dance (where players have to repeat dance moves), require a lot of space and overhead clearance – not a problem if you have a big room and nice high ceilings, but in a smaller space, with a rabble of family members, you need to keep a close eye on flailing limbs.
Of course, none of this would be a problem if 1-2 Switch were fulfilling the role it was seemingly destined to be: a bundled demo game. Then, no one would care if the mini-games were fundamentally shallow, if there was a lack in challenge, scope and longevity – this would be the perfect introduction to the machine. But Nintendo has decided to sell the game separately. The explanation is that this was to keep down the costs of the hardware, allowing consumers to make their own decision on what to buy. But that could well turn out to be a mistake. At £280, many people will expect something to do with their new purchase and 1-2 Switch would have been perfect. Even a cut-down demo version would have sufficed.
As it stands, 1-2 Switch is a really fun couple of hours that may well end up being the star attraction at one or two friends or family get-togethers. However, it will then find itself at the dusty end of your games collection. Nintendo says it wants to offer value to Switch purchasers, yet we can’t help but feel it’s not just the cow getting milked in this scenario.
Nintendo; Switch; £35; Pegi rating: 7+
