The Nerf Sports Pack comes with four items: A tube holder for the Wiimote, a golf club attachment, a bat attachment, and a racket attachment.  Each of the attachments click to the Wiimote holder in order to form a whole club/bat/racket item.

Over the long holiday weekend, my younger sister (who is 14) spent the weekend, and we spent some time giving each of these items a trial in some good natured Wii Sporting events.  The first thing I noticed was that we got way too excited about playing with the attachments, because we couldn’t start the game while the Wiimote was in the base.  The base blocks the senser at the top of the Wiimote, so you can’t select items by moving the Wiimote.  You have to have the Wiimote free to get the game started from the Wii menu.   Of course, once you’re into the game, you can start choosing things with the arrow pad on the Wiimote.

PDP Nerf Sports Pack

We started with a few rounds of golf.  I’ll say now that this was probably my favorite use of the whole package, because I really like the feel of having something club-like when I’m trying to shoot.  Unfortunately, even with the added club “feel”, my sister still beat me on almost every round.  One of the other nice things is that with the golf game in Wii Sports, with two people, you can share one Wiimote, which meant we both got to play with the Nerf club.

Next, we tried some  baseball.  Baseball is not one of those games where people can trade the Wiimote back and forth, which meant if we both wanted to try out the bat, we had to switch out Wiimotes in the bottom part of the bat set-up.   This isn’t the fault of the Nerf set-up, but it does mean that you’d need two (or more packs) if everyone playing wants the attachment.  Overall, the bat had a nice feel too it, although if you’re used to playing with just the Wiimote, it might take you a few rounds of batting to get used to it.  Not surprisingly, she beat me here too.

Last we played a bunch of Wii Sports tennis to try out the racket.  Again, like with the baseball bat, if multiple people want to play with the racket attachment, you’d need to buy multiples.   This one might be the one I noticed the least, as I played.  We switched back and forth with this one in between ‘best 3 out of 5′ sets.  I didn’t notice a big difference in the feel between a Wiimote and the racket, at least not on a forward swing.  When I was trying a backhand swing, I definitely noticed the racket – but that might just be a mental perception since I can see the racket in my hand with a backhand, I feel more like I’m using a racket.  And yes, she whooped me here too.  Apparently, she’s been spending more time at home with her Wii than I have with mine.

Overall, I really liked playing with the attachments. We all know how insubstantial the Wiimote is, that’s why they made those covers that almost no one uses, right?  My one big complaint with the pack itself is how hard it is to undo the attachments from the base with the Wiimote.  There’s a little clicky button that you press in and the attachments are suppose to just slide apart.  Except it can take quite a bit of pressing and pulling to get them apart – definitely not something a younger kid is going to be able to do easily if they’re playing on their own.

My other complaint has nothing to do with the attachments themself, but that the pack has only one of each item, and to really be useful in tennis and baseball, you’d need at least two of each.  Buying another sports pack would solve that problem, although then you’d have another golf club that you don’t really need, but can use.  At $19.99 for the whole pack, it’s not a bad price if you’re playing on your own.  If you’re buying for a family, I’d love to see something at $35 for a pack with one club and two rackets, two bats, and two bases for the Wiimotes.  Although, if you purchase separately, there are different color options, so each family member could have a color to call their own.  Either way, it’s a pretty nice investment if you and your family spend a lot of time playing sports games on the Wii.

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