Wii Tennis, from Noob to Pro in One Hour

What a dope. I was struggling mightily in Wii Tennis the 15 or so sets I had played with the game. I was winning as much as I was losing, and making little progress towards my 1,000 points needed to become a Pro. In short, I sucked.

Tonight, I saw the light. Or lights, as the case may be.

The first light went off at the game setup screen. When Wii Tennis loads, the game shows two of your Miis, one near the net and one in the back court. Somewhat naturally, I assumed that the gamer has to select where he wants his or her Mii to play. Thinking this way, I’d click on one of my Miis to remove it from the game, leaving only one Mii of me in the game. The console would then control both my opponents, as well as my partner. When you do this, though, Wii Sports gives you the lamest partner it can find: most of my partners have had less than 50 skill points. They suck worse than I do.

Tonight I realized you can leave both of your Miis in the game! Aha! Now you’ve got a partner with at least a few hundred skill points, which is much better than the dopey players the game gives you if you remove your other self from the game.

The second light went off when I realized that if I leave both of my Miis in the game, I can control both of them with my one controller! D’oh! This makes it so much easier to play, as the AI would rarely have my partner do anything useful, like hit the ball.

The third light went off when I finally realized how to hit the ball with force and accuracy. One of the big keys is to make much smaller, faster movements. For the first few hours I had played, I’d been flailing around like Conan the Barbarian. By the end of my session tonight, I was just making quick flicking movements that were driving the ball with authority. Very cool.

The result: I rocketed from 300 points to 1100 points in less than one hour. Pro Level at Tennis! Woot!