I wanted to leave giving my opinions on the Wii until I’d spent a bit of time with it. Although I managed to get one on the 8th of December (due to some well-time refreshing of the Amazon site) I only got to play with it a little that weekend. Having had most of last week off work I was able to try out some of the launch titles, amass the complete collection of remotes, nunchuks, classic controllers and gamecube controllers and get down to some serious gaming.
I’ve written five key points in each of five random sections below to keep this down to a respectable length. Buy me a pint and I’ll talk to you about the Wii for as long as you want. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then perhaps start here.
5 things I particularly like about the Wii
1) The interface. It’s very simple, it looks great (even in composite), it’s well designed and the bumps of feedback on the remote as you pass over buttons are a work of genius.
2) The Virtual Console. I’m excited by the titles released so far (particularly Bomberman ‘93 and Columns) and I have no doubt that we’ll see some gems over the coming months. I know I could download ROMs of all these and play them on my PC, but there’s definitely something more fun about playing them on a console and acquiring them legally.
3) The ability to play Gamecube games. I never owned a Gamecube (in fact the most recent non-handheld console I owned was a Megadrive) to it’s been brilliant for me to have this enormous back-catalogue of quality games (generally now at bargain prices too) to dip in to. Starfox! SSX! Resident Evil! Awesome.
4) The controllers. They really work. The fact that Ubisoft can get it right first time (with Raving Rabbids) and make the controllers feel really responsive and really natural to use lets me breathe a sigh of relief that hopefully we won’t have to endure dozens of games where the controls feel laggy or unsuitable. The possibilities really are pretty tremendous.
5) Its size. It’s actually pretty portable (as shown by the fact that I’ve taken it over to friends’ a couple of times and Dave is currently enjoying playing it with his family over Christmas) which is quite handy.
Quick reviews of the 5 Wii Sports
1) Tennis. Great fun multiplayer. Still not sure if there’s much skill involved (if there is then I haven’t mastered it yet). Why can you only play doubles matches?
2) Boxing. Highly amusing to watch, pretty knackering to play! The controls can feel a bit laggy on this one if you’re tempted to try quick combos.
3) Golf. Feels pretty good and the graphics are the best of the bunch. Definitely the most depth in gameplay (and utilises the most buttons) but, as it’s turn-based, it’s not quite as exciting in a multiplayer scenario as others.
4) Baseball. I’m actually getting better with practise at this, which feels pretty amazing. Batting can be quite frustrating and there seems to be very little to pitching. Definitely the most likely to result in a broken TV. It’s very cool that your teams are filled with the miis that you create.
5) Bowling. My balls always drift off to the left! Playing through the training modes is definitely helping me adjust, though. I get about the same score that I’d get in real bowling (i.e. not very good) so in that respect it’s a good simulation, I guess.
Very brief reviews of 5 launch titles
1) Wii Play. Nine mini-games which work best with two players. Tanks, Cow Racing and Shooting are great fun. Mii spotting and pool are also pretty good. Table tennis is quite basic, as is laser hockey. Fishing is only good for the chance to shout “KING OF THE POND” in the face of your opponent. Changing-the-pose-of-your-mii-then-rotating-it-to-match-the-angle-of-the-shadow-mii-in-the-bubble-to-pop-the-bubble (as I call it) is actually ok, though my flatmate completely refuses to play it and it seems to drag on for about a day.
2) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I’ve only managed about five hours with this game but I love it. There is an enormous amount of depth, a massive (apparently) storyline, beautiful sound and graphics and the controls feel spot on. I’m treating every hour I get to spend this as luxury time.
3) Need For Speed Carbon. Nice-looking racing game which is actually very hard when using the default controls (rotate remote to steer) but is vastly improved when just steering with the analogue stick on the nunchuk and using the remote to set the speed. When I found all the customisation options I just kept saying “this game is for people who *really* like cars”.
4) Red Steel. The game I’ve spent the least time with so far. The controls for the shooting seem ok, however my first attempt at swordfighting was pretty disastrous. The main problem I have with the game so far is that the graphics look so bad that it makes me think I’m playing Time Crisis on the Playstation.
5) Rayman Raving Rabbids. Mental, awesome, mental game. Loads of really fun challenges (brilliant to undertake, even better to watch) which work well in single player and fantastically in a party situation. The controls for about 30 different games are implemented almost flawlessly, such that you might think that the hardware was designed hand in hand with the game, and the presentation is an absolute joy.
5 Wii niggles
1) It doesn’t send the TV widescreen switching signals so you have to change it manually. This is mostly ok for playing Wii stuff (since that’s all in widescreen anyway) but is annoying when having to constantly switch it manually to play Gamecube games.
2) When you use Wii Connect 24 (so that the Wii will automatically download and notify you of updates overnight), it doesn’t clear the pin on the SCART to say that it has been switched off when, well, you switch it off. A bit disastrous if you’ve got it in a chain of devices.
3) I can’t get my Gamecube controllers to work with Virtual Console games (they work fine with Gamecube games on the Wii). I’m holding down R, as instructed, as I start it up but nothing happens. In fairness, they’re clone controllers rather than genuine ones (but given that they work with Gamecube games I don’t see how this would be a problem). Will report back when I have a chance to test it with a genuine Gamecube controller.
4) The power brick is approximately the size of, well, a house brick.
5) The breadth of Wii titles needs to increase fairly rapidly to hold people’s attention. Hopefully the encouraging console sales will act as a catalyst for this.
5 wishes for the future
1) A channel for playing back mp3/wav/aac/etc. files from SD cards (without having to use it as the background music in a photo slideshow) would be good.
2) Ability to use a bluetooth keyboard would be handy for better using the internet channel (and sending messages, for that matter). I completely expect this to turn up at some point.
3) Pizza ordering channel. No more to say.
4) Some online games. Hopefully with less hassle involved in getting set up than with the DS and friend codes, etc.
5) Expanded range of facial features for miis and further integration into games. Cos they’re great.
The bottom line is that I think this console is great. Everyone who has played it or watched people play on it has had positive things to say and Nintendo’s plan to get non-gamers interested certainly seems to be working within my group of friends, at least.
Anyone got any Wii/Gamecube game recommmendations for me?
