Go Vacation

A boy, a girl, and a dog stand on the shore of a paradise island resort. In the background, two riders on horseback, a monorail, a hang glider, and a lodging facility are shown in front of a blue mountain. The words "Go Vacation" appear in the middle of the picture with the outline of a small plane flying past them.
Developer(s) Namco Bandai Games
Publisher(s)
Composer(s) Taku Inoue
Platform(s) Wii
Release date(s)
  • NA October 11, 2011
  • JP October 20, 2011
  • EU November 4, 2011
  • AUS November 17, 2011[1]
Genre(s) Resort tour game
Sports
Mode(s) 1–4 players

Go Vacation (ゴーバケーション Gō Bakēshon) is a variety video game developed and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Wii, as a pseudo-sequel to We Ski and We Ski & Snowboard. In the game, players explore an island containing four paradise resorts and play over 50 mini-games.

Gameplay

Image is split into four screens, each containing a third-person view of a player firing a hand-held water gun at other players.
A splitscreen view of four players having a water gun fight

In Go Vacation players explore four paradise resorts hosted on Kawawii Island: Marine, City, Mountain, and Snow.[2] Over 50 activities are available on the island including bungee jumping, ice fishing, scuba diving, miniature golf, tennis, off-road racing, and snowman building. The island can be explored at leisure and navigated by walking, rollerblading, or riding on an ATV depending on the resort.[2] The game also holds hidden bonus items, treasure chests, which players may search for while on the island.[2] The game can be played in splitscreen view, with each player having their own view of the game on a single screen.[2] The game is compatible with many of the Wii's accessories including the Wii Balance Board, Wii Zapper, and Wii MotionPlus.[3]

Resorts

The Marine Resort focuses on water-based sports and hosts games such as beach volleyball, surfing, swimming, water gun battles, ATV races, marine bike tricks (an event in which players compete on marine bikes to land different tricks) and scuba diving. The available transport is boat and tour airplane. The available gear is marine bikes and ATV.[4]

The City Resort focuses on extreme and leisure sports and hosts games such as table hockey, a pie throwing game, and a skating game in which players use a skateboard or inline skates to perform stunts or grind on various rails and buildings around the city. The available transport is trolley car. The available gear is inline skates and skateboard.[5]

The Mountain Resort focuses on outdoor activities and includes places to go rafting, kayaking, exploring, off-road car racing and horseback riding. The available transport is the train and boat. The available gear is horses, off-road car and kayak.[6]

The Snow Resort focuses on winter sports and hosts games such as ski jumping, snow tubing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, and snowball fighting. The available transport is chairlifts and helicopters. The available gear is skis, snowboard, snowmobile and snowtube.[7]

Development

Go Vacation was first shown at Namco Bandai's booth at E3 2011, a video game trade show held in downtown Los Angeles.[2] After viewing a trailer for the game, GameSetWatch noted that the game appeared to be a "quality title" and favorably compared it to Wii Sports Resort, a similar variety game. The game has noticeable Pac-Man references.[8]

Music

The Go Vacation soundtrack consists of a wide range of instrumental and vocal tracks from composers, musicians, and vocal artists including Taku Inoue, Norihiko Hibino, Nobuyuki Ohnogi, Aubrey Ashburn, and Jody Whitesides.[9][10] On December 21, 2012, Japanese record label Sweep Records released the officially licensed album of songs containing live instrumentation and vocals, Namco Music Saloon. This album and aspect of the game's soundtrack consists of original arrangements of classic tunes from Namco titles including Ridge Racer, Dig Dug, Pac-Man, New Rally-X, and Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan.[11] On March 23, 2013 Namco Bandai released the remaining, original background music, GO VACATION BGM Album, directly through its Namco Sounds label on iTunes.[12]

Reception

The game has received mixed reviews. IGN gave the game a 7.0/10, saying that while it "...evolves the mini-game collection genre in many ways, but it lacks the polish of Nintendo's first party efforts".[13] GameSpot described the game as "...a shallow, kid-friendly minigame collection with nice open spaces and overly simplistic games.", while giving it a 65/100 score. The game has received a score of 64/100 on Metacritic, indicating mixed or average reviews. [14]

Sales

Go Vacation sold 47,209 copies in its first week on sale in Japan, being the third most popular game that week behind other new releases Macross F: The Wings of Goodbye Hybrid Pack and Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact.[15]

References

  1. ↑ Daniel Vuckovic (20 October 2011). "Nintendo Australia outlines Wii and DS line-up for the rest of 2011". Vooks.net. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Calvert, Justin (2011-06-07). "E3 2011: Go Vacation Hands-On Preview". IGN. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
  3. ↑ Usher, William (2011-09-23). "Go Vacation Official Release Date Set For Wii". CinemaBlend.com. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  4. ↑ "Go Vacation Marine Area". Namco Bandai. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
  5. ↑ "Go Vacation City Area". Namco Bandai. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
  6. ↑ "Go Vacation Mountain Area". Namco Bandai. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
  7. ↑ "Go Vacation Snow Area". Namco Bandai. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
  8. ↑ Caoili, Eric (2011-07-19). "To Everyone's Amazement, Go Vacation Looks Kind Of Awesome". GameSetWatch.com (UBM TechWeb). Retrieved 2011-09-15.
  9. ↑ "Namco Music Saloon ~ from GO VACATION". vgmdb.net. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  10. ↑ "Interview with Taku Inoue (October 2012)". squareenixmusic.com. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  11. ↑ "Namco Music Saloon -From Go Vacation-". Video Game Music Online. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  12. ↑ "GO VACATION BGM Album". iTunes Preview. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  13. ↑ http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/10/14/go-vacation-review
  14. ↑ http://www.metacritic.com/game/wii/go-vacation
  15. ↑ Ishaan (2011-10-26). "This Week In Sales: It Was A Namco Bandai Week". Siliconera. Retrieved 2011-10-28.

External links

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