There’s many reasons not to choose the Sports Deluxe Game Console over the Nintedo Wii, which it is similar to and there’s one main reason to choose it in ADDITION to the Wii. It makes a good traveling companion that you can trash or lose without worrying about having to replace the expensive gaming console that you leave at home.

Let’s face it. The Sports Deluxe is a Wii Knock-off. There’s no denying it. But that’s not a bad thing. The SDGC has a wireless interface and, similar to Wii Sports, you play such games as baseball, boxing, bowling, golf, and even tennis on it. And you can work up quite a sweat while doing it. And the specific sports aren’t half bad, with the exception of baseball which is fairly limited to pitch and hit. I found the most fun was had bowling and playing tennis. Boxing is boxing and some just aren’t thrilled with that. Although it does let users employ the “katana” extra that plugs in via USB to record the activity or your other hand. The best sport, though, hands down is tennis, followed by Golf. But the funny thing about the Golf game is that there’s a lot of spelling errors in the notes that the game sends you. For instance, you end up hitting the ball in the water, you’re hitting a water haZRad. Pretty funny.

But while this console has Wii functions and comes with a Wii like sport package, that’s where the similarity ends. As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Don’t go looking for stunning, realistic graphics on this bably. The simple matter is that for around $70, what you get is late 80s, early 90s CGA/EGA graphics and audios that will you of the days of dropping a quarter into the nearest Donkey Kong machine. It’s almost as if the makers of the SDGC reached into the past and grabbed a popular sports game and adapted it with Wii capability.

The other difference is that it’s battery powered. And that’s the only way you can power the console. Powered by 4AA batteries – you’re going to want to use rechargeables – plus two Aas for each wireless controller unit.

That’s not a bad thing either. This makes the SDGC extremely portable. Kids can use it in the car, or in a hotel while on vacation. And should the SDGC become trashed or lost, the cost of the unit is a heck of a lot cheaper than bringing your Wii with you.

Is SDGC up to par with the Wii? No. Not in the least. Think of it like a disposable camera. You don’t want to use your best DSLR while you’re white water rafting, so you drop about $15 on a water proof disposable just to you can get prints while in the water. And if it sinks, you’re only out the $15. Well, this portable Wii Clone is great since if you leave it in the hotel, you’re really not out that much money.

And even though today’s gamers are rather demanding and sophisticated about graphics and performance, kids just want to play games. And if this gives them something to do while you and the Mrs are trying to unwind after a day at Disney World, I say it’s well worth the $80 you’re paying for it.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: