Wii?? Whee!!!!!!

[Archangelus]

Friends,

All I can say is that the Wii is just too damn cool. Wifey and I hooked ours up today after I finally received it and we just started with the bundled game, Wii Sports. Too freaking fun. We started with the Bowling which suprisingly was just like the real thing. It was great with the ability to change speed and spin on the ball. So much fun. We then headed into Baseball and Tennis, before heading into Boxing. Sure, she took advantage of my helpfulness in showing her how to play and ended up winning. Oh well, I got her back in Golf.

By the end of just playing a little of each game, we were both sweating and needing to take a break for some water. I then moved on to Rayman Raving Rabbids, which is just hilarious. I'm hoping to crack open Zelda:Twilight Princess tomorrow, which I've heard is fantastic with all of the integration points put in to take advantage of the Wii's functionality.

Too all of you that have laughed at the Wii in the past (which, yes, I did laugh at the name too....), if you haven't had the opportunity to actually try the console, you're selling it short. If you did and it wasn't your cup of tea, fine. But like I said, from my perspective......too damn cool.

-Arch

[XoR]

Awesome! I always love the sports games. With the Wii controller, it sounds better than ever.

I still have yet to play one.

[DenKirson]

I've heard a few complaints about Bowling's stiffness. Something to how a natural bowler flicks his wrist.
What I was able to mess with at a demo booth, the Wii Sports were each okay as a demonstration for the remote, with Boxing being a shining light.

Twilight Princess is a must-have, though don't expect anything different gameplay-wise from any previous Zelda games. Imagine a highly sensitive mouse when you're aiming the clawshots or missile weapons, even with extensive tweaking of the remote's sensors; you'll be skipping the cursor across the screen several pixels at a time, and will probably want to get used to sidestepping to line up your shot or Z-targetting whenever you shoot.

Don't get Red Steel or Excitetruck. Truck, maybe with a price drop, but avoid Steel entirely. I'd suggest COD3 over Red Steel for shooting and beating the crap out of guys, and I read about an F-Zero Wii, which may prove interesting.

As it is, I dislike the Wii's advertisements showcasing wide arcs and exaggerated movements (more than they do games), when the remote's design requires no more than mere inches of movement for most games. Baseball Wii Sports, for instance: I simply jab the remote sideways and I unleash devastating home runs.

Despite this kind of gesture and motion sensing technology having lots of practice before the Wii became an idea, game developers of all parties are as infants to it and may take anyone as long as the third generation of games to really make use of the remote's potential and remove conflicts. A good investment, but the great stuff will take time and the remote will depend on the games.

[PinkRabi]

And that concludes the Den Report.

[Undead_Mercenary]

As it is, I dislike the Wii's advertisements showcasing wide arcs and exaggerated movements (more than they do games), when the remote's design requires no more than mere inches of movement for most games. Baseball Wii Sports, for instance: I simply jab the remote sideways and I unleash devastating home runs.

It's funny, because I find a lot of Wii videos on Youtube where people swing the remote as hard as they possibly can. In fact, I saw one guy playing the tennis game where he actually snapped the wristband and whipped the remote into the wall just below the TV (mounted TV).

I joke about the Wii, but I also haven't tried it yet. The damn EBs and Futureshops still have PS2 and Gamecube booths (living in the past, man!). However, I'm still determined to one day get the PS3. There's some really cool PS3 games coming out soon, I like how it's online play is free (although I heard it isn't working to well atm), and I never owned a PS2, so there's a bunch of those games I could play as well.

Then again, maybe I'll get a chance to try the Wii and it may change my opinion, who knows.

[DenKirson]

That's exactly it. The videos of actual gameplay, you'll see guys flailing the remote around like retards and wasting their energy, when the remote doesn't 'have' any more than a small field of movement. It doesn't make a difference if you swing wildly or wave the remote to the side a bit to swing a sword.

[Archangelus]

Well, you can put me in the group of guys flailing around.

I look at it as having two different philosophies. You can either try to find the most efficient method to complete the movement or action or you can try and be as realistic with the movements to increase immersion. In competition online, I would wholeheartedly agree that the former is the way to go. When I'm playing w/o "competition", I prefer to do the full movements. For example, when Mel and I were playing baseball last night, I don't think we would have had nearly as much fun if I was playing the way you had mentioned, Den. Instead we were laughing so hard and having fun, which for me is the main reason I play games in the first place.

So far, here's what I've played:

Wii Sports - Fun...lots of fun, though you are limited in your actual game options (ex. I don't think you can play singles tennis. It's always doubles).

Rayman Raving Rabbids - Funny as hell. Lots of mini-games, but I thought there was more to the game. I may need to get farther before I get there, but right now, you just have these little mini-games to complete before you can move on.

Super Monkey Ball - Fun, but the controls don't seem to be as well done as in the previous two. Of course, we think that might have something to do with the sunlight hitting the sensor bar, so jury is still out there.

Still haven't had the opportunity to play Zelda yet. I hear the first hour or so is a little slow, but after that it's amazing. I'm hoping to get into it tonight. Also, I was going to give CoD3 a shot until I found out that there is no multiplayer. None. Not even offline. Suckage.....

Like I said before, I recommend at least trying it. I haven't even touched on the Virtual Console (downloading older Nintendo & Sega games), or the other "channels" that add functionality. I think Nintendo was on to something when they code-named this console "Revolution" earlier. While arcades have had this functionality for a while, it's been extremely limited in-home until now. It's changed the way I looked at console games.

-Arch

[Undead_Mercenary]

My main gripe with Nintendo nowadays is that their systems tend to have shittier games. I personally find that the 64 and the Gamecube had a handful of must-have games, and the rest were pretty crappy. Same thing with the Xbox, a few noteworthy games amid a ton of crap. I always believed Sony had the better titles. For your sake Arch, I hope it won't be the same situation with the Wii.

Actually, I think if there was one game for the Wii that would make me excited, it would have to be a Star Wars game. If they could perfectly duplicate lightsabre, vehicle and spaceship control, I think that would make an awesome game.

[Archangelus]

Actually, I think if there was one game for the Wii that would make me excited, it would have to be a Star Wars game. If they could perfectly duplicate lightsabre, vehicle and spaceship control, I think that would make an awesome game.

You've read my mind....

[Thowarr]

Well, we picked up a Wii on launch day and we've had a ton of fun with it. Aylah and the boy have played it a lot more than I have, but it's just a ton of fun. Like Den said, you don't have move a whole lot to get the action done, but sometimes the moment just takes over (as in the case with the boxing) and you kinda lose yourself. With the sports games I see people acting out a bit more, whereas with games with a longer play time, you'd probably just do the minimum movement involved.

As far as games go, we made the mistake of purchasing Red Steel. If only Dens wisdom had been available sooner =/ We also have Monkey Ball and Zelda. I'll let Aylah talk more about those (she's hogging the system ). While there's only like one MUST have game, Zelda, a lot more are coming soon which is good. That's another reason we didn't pick up the PS3. We just didn't see any must have games, either available at launch or in the near future. Combine that with the price, shitty Blu-Ray image, shitty HDMI/ digital audio support... well, we have better ways of spending almost a $1k.

My parents were here this Thanksgiving and oddly enough, they played the Wii and had fun with it. I don't see them going out and buying one for themselves, but when they visit I do forsee them asking to break out a sports game and have us all play, which I think is Nintendos overall idea with this platform.

[Dr.Death]

Combine that with the price, shitty Blu-Ray image, shitty HDMI/ digital audio support... well, we have better ways of spending almost a $1k.

What don't you like about Blue-Ray and can you explain the part about the HDMI? I actually thought this would be a steal with a Blue_ray and tha ability to play games on it. While I haven't done much research on the Blue-Ray, we did just get the Pioneer Elite Blue-Ray demo at work and I thought it looked pretty dam good. As far as the HDMI goes, I am real curious bout this, cause it is suppose to be the first unit of anykind with HDMI3 on it with the a new locking system so the dam cable don't pull out. God thats a pain in the ass. Again, just curious on your input!

As far as Xbox goes, I got mine for free. Pulled it out of the dumpster at work along with 4 19" monitors. All are working just fine too. I love it when a PC gaming buisness go belly up!

[Thowarr]

Combine that with the price, shitty Blu-Ray image, shitty HDMI/ digital audio support... well, we have better ways of spending almost a $1k.

What don't you like about Blue-Ray and can you explain the part about the HDMI? I actually thought this would be a steal with a Blue_ray and tha ability to play games on it. While I haven't done much research on the Blue-Ray, we did just get the Pioneer Elite Blue-Ray demo at work and I thought it looked pretty dam good. As far as the HDMI goes, I am real curious bout this, cause it is suppose to be the first unit of anykind with HDMI3 on it with the a new locking system so the dam cable don't pull out. God thats a pain in the ass. Again, just curious on your input!

If you look here Home Theater and Sound and read the first four paragraphs it talks about Blu-Rays short comings when compared against HD-DvD. Also in the site they have Blu-Ray reviews which are less than stellar. Maybe Pioneer has figured out a way to "spice up" the MPEG2 codec but personally I'm holding off on both formats for at least another year. I want to see how things shake out first.

For the HDMI issue, and other technical issues such as the problem with their backwards compatability (as in a few thousand of their games won't play) read here IGN Tech Report. Combine that with the fact that analysts are saying that instead of 400,000 units being available for sale on launch day, there were only around 150- 200k, of which most were not the 20g models that were promised, it just makes me look at Sony with a very unfavorable eye. It seems like really shady business practices to me. Yes, they're in it to make money, but they're helping to fuel the eBay craze when they do shit like this.

Overall it comes to Sony has just had a shit ton of problems with the PS3, and Blu-Ray, and they really need to address those problems. Personally I don't seem them doing that until a long while from now, so we'll wait while we happily play our Wii and 360.


Edit-

As far as Xbox goes, I got mine for free. Pulled it out of the dumpster at work along with 4 19" monitors. All are working just fine too. I love it when a PC gaming buisness go belly up!

Damn you!!!! hehe

[Ayyyla]

Zelda - is your standard Zelda game. Obviously, as it has been made for both consoles, this is really a Gamecube game with some motion sensitive crap thrown in for the Wii. That said, it's still a lot of fun, duh it's Zelda! And THAT said, I think I could have stood there cutting grass with remote swings all day. Yes, it was kinda thrown on there - but it's still darned fun. Fishing is pretty funny too, given you have to use the nunchuck to reel it in.

Arch - it is a tad slow starting out, but not horribly slow.

I think the most fun I've had so far was this ... ahhhh I don't wanna spoil it but it was a bit of a surprise and I rather enjoyed it.

Monkey Ball – Many of the mini games are frustrating as hell, the controller seems to go all over the place and you can’t get it to do what you want, but single player with the remote is fun. They’ve gone back to the original monkey ball rather than their deviations.

Red Steel – I wanted this to be awesome. I really did. And it had potential. It was original, it was made for the motion sensors, it was a combination of old traditional weapons and more contemporary guns. There are things about the game that make it pretty damned cool – however the hugely significant flaws in the controls/gameplay make it just about unplayable.

You would think pointing and shooting would be fun and easy with the controllers – but you also move by pointing. So when you try to swing around to fire at a person you swing on by it. My arm is like some drunk snake swerving and curving all over the screen and I can’t get a pin on anything. Granted – I’m terrible at FPS in console games, which is part of why I had such high hopes for them on the Wii. Even given that, the controls are wretched. Read any review and they will tell you the same, it’s just frustrating as hell.

I haven’t heard much in favor of the COD3 on the Wii either though. I think we’re really going to have to give them some time to really figure out how to take advantage of the sensor controls before we see any FPS worth getting. Personally, I’m going to rent COD3 and stay away from the shooters until they get a handle on it.

In general, the Wii is fun. Weird, frustrating, slow at responsiveness sometimes – but really fun. And fun for people of a variety of ages and gaming backgrounds.

Re: Motions – well I think that really depends on the game, and your energy level. When you can flail, it’s lots of fun. Gets your blood pumping, gets you really immersed into the game and sends relatives scurrying. But the smaller motion will do just as well.

Did you read that there are already reports of “wii elbow” akin to “Nintendo thumb?”

[Ayyyla]

PS. Speaking of Wii injuries http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/

[Archangelus]

Yeah, I agree with Monkey Ball. Some of the mini-games and the game itself are very fun, but we had other mini-games where the motion-sensor piece just wasn't working. At first I thought it might be the console, but then after playing Zelda, Rayman Raving Rabbids, and Wii Sports just fine, I realized that it's that game. They look like they just rushed through some of it and it shows.

Zelda - I'm still in the tutorial. I'm just now fishing for the cat. Takes me awhile since this is my first Zelda game ever.

Also Ay, if you haven't tried Rayman Raving Rabbids, rent that too. I bought it and don't regret it at all, but I won't speak for everyone.

P.S. - Send me you Wii Friend Code. I already sent mine to Thowarr.