PDC World Championship Darts 2009 Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 10th June 2009

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We step up to the oche with this Wii review.

PDC World Championship Darts 2009 Details:

Goto PDC World Championship Darts 2009 Game Page

	Sports
	Nintendo Wii/Nintendo DS
	Rebellion
	Oxygen

Out Now

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After failing to impress both gamers and critics last year with PDC World Championship Darts 2008 Oxygen decided to go back to the drawing board. So have they managed to transform the series into a World beater?

The game boasts all the modes you would expect to find in any decent sports title, Exhibition, Competition and Career modes are all present as is the ability to create custom players. The game also features a Party Games mode that includes many darts games you may have played down the pub with your friends, such as doubles and trebles, round the clock and killer.

As already mentioned the game has had something of a rework over last year’s game and this is evident no more so as in the game play mechanics. The game is still played in the same way. You hold the Wii remote like a dart, aim then throw as you would if you were playing with actual darts. However, the throwing system has been somewhat refined and feels a lot more fluid then in last year’s game. It’s also a hell of a lot more accurate and not quite as fidgety to line your shots up. This makes the game easier to play but also speeds up the process of taking shots. This in turn increases the pace of the game which was one of my major bug points with last year’s version. Despite these refinements however, the game does very little to propel the franchise forward offering very much the same playing experience as last year!

As a single player experience PDC World Championship Darts 2009 will probably only appeal to hardcore fans of the sport as for anyone else there’s very little on offer in the title and it’s fair to say there’s more strength in the videogame when playing with others.

The games visuals have been improved upon but there’s not really that much to look at. The screen is split with the dart board on one side with the player on the other. Player models don’t have the same plastic look as in last year’s game, but do still fail to express any emotion of what is going on during a match which makes it strange to give them such a prominent position. There are a few views to cycle through to give you a better view of the dart board that expel the split view and hide the player models from sight, as a bonus it also makes it easier to play the game.

Like in its predecessor sound is once again largely absent. But what there is serves the need of the titles and the sounds of the darts hitting the board are authentic enough.

Well no, despite being much improved over last year’s game, PDC World Championship Darts 2009 still lacks any real appeal, mainly due to the fact that it’s probably cheaper to go out and buy a real darts board then to actually buy the game. None the less the game is here and it’s nice to see some of the fundamental flaws of the original game have been addressed!