You know why Nintendo calls it the Wii? Because, it's not a Revolution.
Written: Mar 01 '07 (Updated Jan 25 '09)
Product Rating:
Pros: Practicing controller ninjitsu. S'pose the inventive motion-sensing and (eventual) vast VC library is cool also.
Cons: Bad graphics. (Mostly) bad games. Overpriced "cheapo" games. Overpriced VC games. Poor online arrangement.
The Bottom Line: Without the goods, Wii right now is not so good. I know you want your system cheap, but don't you also want your games refined while they're at it?
We live in a very interesting period for the video game boom. Reaching over a little more than a decade, it hasn’t been that long since two-dimensional video games have officially entered through the mirror world of 3D. That was a great big leap for some, one which took time to get accustomed to. But, we did it. Since that era, video games slowly found increased popularity, with the rise of Sony's powerhouse PlayStation brand to the idea of billionaire Microsoft playing the fiddle to hardware manufacturer. But, we did it; we went through all of that. And when it comes to leering upon the industry today as a whole, you see production costs rising caused by game makers breaking new ground. Hit games that sell as much or better than Hollywood blockbusters are real. You see lots of new faces playing games. Expectancies of gaming still being a young person's culture have been shattered, as now you have cousins, sisters, parents, and grandparents all coming out of the closet and pronouncing their faith. You see the mold of conventions being placed on a chopping block getting diced to pieces. Nintendo has come out of left field to bring gamers' together for the better. From the premature to the enfeebled, let's pull down their pants and inspect just what is Nintendo's Wii.
Once code named the Revolution, Nintendo's unreleased console was the laughing stock of the industry for the company's peculiar choice it had to make. Nintendo came up with the name Wii, pronounced 'we.' The two ‘i’s’ represent Wii controllers and two people. It's a video game system about people. That was Nintendo's philosophical plan, to show the best way they could how to bring not just younger kids together, but families; and their relatives; and their friends; and people all over the country. This just goes to show you how immature most gamers really are. Personally, when Nintendo made their stand at E3 bearing the new and only name the Wii would ever go by, I was one of the few who stood by it. Its reasoning was thoughtful, and I liked it. Designed from the get-go to be the first console fully operational by a motion-tracking remote and detachable analog stick, Nintendo's Wii was always under close scrutiny as a concept that some would say couldn't be done... some that would say it can be done... and then there were some that just didn't know what to think.
Picture this: you're holding a knife in your hand. Standing in front of a television monitor, you notice a bee buzzing around encased within the glass. Every time that you poke the knife at the TV, the bee reacts. It darts one way, you jab, and this forces it to fly in a different direction. In the same way as this bee example, rather than holding a deadly weapon, you have in your hand a plastic television remote-shaped game controller that can be anything you want it to be. Just by pointing the Wii remote at the screen and/or pressing its buttons, its job is to read your actions at that very instance. So within a first-person shooter, the idea behind this kind of game on a Wii is to point the remote where you will and blast what you want without the conventional sense of doing everything by analog and button functionality. Fishing leads to extending the remote forward and tugging backwards. Racing lets the remote be the driving wheel; twisting right, for instance, directs the automobile rightward. Even the smallest details can become larger in a sense, with the remote acting kind of like an outward body that takes the game out to you and puts you more directly into the game. You'll rap, rattle and reposition the controller every which way that you can in the brand-new territory game designers are taking their craft ahead.
"The Devil is in the details," an old proverb explains. It's right, you know. To see the gaming world get turned upside down is a sad state of affairs thanks to Nintendo's Wii. The Wii is attractive for many reasons because it's an offer that speaks to just about anyone. But then you have to take into consideration just what's happening here. Perceptively, Nintendo spreads itself out too much with extremely little to begin with. Hiking up their traditional price by fifty dollars while staying one of the most affordable consoles on the market (because they can), over two years after launch still positioned at $249.99, Nintendo sneakily has spun the unique motion-sensing technology motif as the customer’s charm. This is not games that‘s attracting buyers, it’s ideas. An idea is something to be played with, not played. The idea of games that can be manned with an abstract method of the freedom in hand-controlled movement is interesting in theory. In practice, however, it turns out so far that developers can't do much of anything to meet the expectations of someone who wants the meat of the gameplay, not just the skeleton. Nintendo tells its customers that anyone can play games on Wii. You know why? Because, the majority of Wii games are stripped of their complexity. Another word for a non-gamer is a nincompoop. These games are that much easier to handle only because you're too stupid to play anything that takes more than one brain cell to play. Sure you'll be able to swing a tennis racket all with a single flick of the wrist. Sure, you can participate in more second-long mini-games in many games than you can shake a Wii remote at. But where the heck is the games that gamers, not non-gamers, want to play? You know, the ones that if you're a gamer are worth fifty bucks. The majority of Wii games belong on the DS - which is exactly where you'll find some of the same titles for less money.
For the most part, developers look at Wii and say that's a great system to take advantage of. Cause of acceptance? Ease of programming cookie-cutter shovelware. In other words, developers have very few proposals when thinking of what the Wii is capable of. They say, "Wow, you can make a point-and-click shooter!" Or, "Wow, you can make your race car move with your hand!" And, "You know what would be fun to do with that controller? Another puzzle game!" They only see the potential for franchises that work at ground level, as the Wii remote indeterminably can't handle gameplay under ordinary conditions. You’ll practice sensitivity in the one hand and in the other execute character movement. With vertical button alignment and lack of a second analog stick for 3D camera control, the standard method to play games is something that developers apparently can't or don't want to bother trying to work out on the Wii. At launch time there was one exception to this rule, the only reason that you should have even bothered with this craptacular console. Technically not a Wii game, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is Nintendo's GameCube port Wii-ified, reworked to demonstrate how the Wii's control schematics can be handled in a larger adventure-sized game. All item and combat management is fed through the remote, either by swiping it (acknowledging blade parries) or by pointing the remote and clicking its action button (A) when needed. In this way, relinquishing arrows upon distant foes or firing the grappling hook becomes relatively uncomplicated inside of a game of extensive proportions. You might also say the classic controller (a Super NES-like controller manufactured for classic gameplay) that’s sold separately is the answer to developer’s prayers who want to make regular games adaptable. Well, if it’s such a good answer, why even propose the hypothesis that motion-sensing is the way to go? Developers like Wii for this ingenuity, and at the same time oppose it. Why do something on Wii and not take full advantage of the system’s capabilities? Even if they’re to make most if not all major titles compatible via the classic controller, you’re still going to have to pay $24.99 to buy one.
As many gamers, and those of you with a Wii that just now have been labeled into gamer status, already know that the Wii is not your typical console. Well, at least gaming veterans know it. Nintendo chose to go another route this round, constructing a controller that's able to listen to every direction your hand speaks. And not just a controller either, but a remote. If you've ever held onto a TV remote, think of a similar architecture with less buttons. Vertically it stands with a puny power button in the top left corner. Flowing down the middle is a standard directional pad, an enlarged A button, miniature plus, minus, and home signs underneath that, and positioned over one another sits the 1 and 2 buttons all the way at the bottom. Gripping this contoured white piece of plastic gives way to a B trigger at the curved belly. It's on the remote's very top that carries an infared tracking lens, and on the very bottom rests a strap for wrapping around your hand (which, in a lot of cases has been reported to easily break) and a port hole for plugging in corded attachments, such as the nunchuck analog stick ($19.99). Sold separately from the remote, if you're buying extra controllers for the system, this requisitionary piece of hardware is a floating analog stick with C and Z buttons at the front end that you'll hold onto in the opposite hand of your remote. While the Wii remote is ideal for sensory functions, where it can be held upwards or sideways given the game's specifications (Excite Truck, a truck racing game with vehicles steered horizontally, is one case of difference), it's still a pain in the a**. For starters, the nunchuck attachment isn't mandatory at all times. When an attachment isn't appropriate, a message on the screen will indicate, no, force you to remove the accessory, and vice versa. It's an on-and-off cycle that gives you extra work, and for some posing the question, "What happened to the nunchuck?" It's also with the odd button placement that turns gameplay into a one-handed straining exercise. In the new Zelda, for instance, mainly all action relies on the upper portion of the remote and nunchuck. Although, in order to open up the map, you'll need to slide or bend your hand down just to reach the 1 and 2 buttons. Why did Nintendo think that uncomfortable hand stretching was a good idea?
More affliction stems from the remote‘s realism, or lack thereof. Where is it? Wasn't The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess supposed to be the defining leap that would let you feel as if you were Link? Weren't you supposed to be able to yank backward on the remote at ear-length as to fire arrows like you were doing so with a bow? Well, it's not there. Or what's the point of an integrated speaker in the remote if the canned audio quality can only produce outdated technology that compared to the majority of today’s TV owner has a surround sound arrangement much more advanced? And why should you need to rearrange your living space just to play with a wireless technology? Sony's and Microsoft's newest behemoths prove that you don't need to plop a motion sensor bar on top of or in front of a TV to wirelessly detect a controller. With Wii you do, and it's one more hassle on the list. Sometimes you just might have to straighten the wired bar when the chance of knocking it off the television is around. Having to play games in the confined space that this bar technology emits, the best way to Wii is also by making some room to stand somewhere in front of your television set. Those chairs, couches, and potato sacks you used to rest on in the past won't work anymore, at least not all of the time. In playing a party game such as WarioWare: Smooth Moves, you'll need to stand tall if you're to thrust your arms around every which way. In Wii Sports, you think curling up comfortably works as well when you've got to sway your arms in the air at all times? There’s no way around it: Wii is going to give you a workout, and injured wrists.
So much to complain about and no mention of the system itself yet. Well, here we go. It's rectangle thin; glossy white. On its side or perching on top of the included slanting stand, the Wii is possibly the least impressive of Nintendo's console designs to date. The GameCube, which looked like a purple lunchbox, was fun and imaginative. Wii may be more high-tech, but on the surface it's plainer. Offering GameCube backwards compatibility, it is neat to see controller ports for the first time somewhere besides the front of the system. Specifically, these are located topside underneath an opening lid. As for the main display in front, the usual power, reset, and eject buttons go alongside the SD card slot for taking saved games on the go. A front-loading slot equipped with a bluish glowing effect at times has a suction effect on both Wii and GameCube disks. The system is embedded with 512 MB of Flash memory drive so that you won't need to buy any SD cards right away. However, if you're planning on downloading a cornucopia of retro games in the future, this amount of storage space probably won't suffice. For some, the dashboard will be a tad bland with the Wii’s use of channels. Channels are nine individual, minimized, and interactive tiles grouped together per screen within the larger TV window. On each single panel is a channel. An example of this is the disc channel empowering GameCube or Wii playability. Another channel has Mii creation, which are human doppelgangers that you'll make and add to games such as Wii Sports. These are people that look like replicas of you or people that you know, or anybody else that you wish to emulate through a lackluster set of customization tools. Coupled with some not-so-necessary channels, like one for news and another for weather, the Wii's Virtual Console is here too supplying classic gaming content. There is only a handful of channels on the Wii to start out with, and between a sliding set of unused channel screens, the channel system is paltry enough to scoff at if your intentions aren't to fill it up with additional channels (such as with the Wii's $5 Web browser). But, you've got to ask yourself: do you really give a damn about these nonessential channels? Is Web browsing on a console worth the price that you're required to pay for it? Assuming that 99.9% of you who are reading this review own a computer that already comes with its own functional Web capabilities, most assuredly it is not.
To describe the Virtual Console in more detail, it’s a virtual store in which you can choose from a lineup of virtually dozens of vintage games. Think of it in the same way that you would the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network: online markets that furnish a catalogue of downloadable content from the past and present to your system. In the Wii's case, its games are ripped from former Nintendo consoles. Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, and now TurboGrafx-CD and Neo Geo games are in stock. In theory this is a wonderful idea. In practice, the Virtual Console blows. Formerly, the vision was that you would be able to search for just about any classic console game from Nintendo’s library. So far the bet that Nintendo would be unable to swing strong third-party support for this ambitious feature has come true. Wii owners looking for the most comprehensive retro library of the Nintendo era, it looks like a long road ahead of nothing except more self-serving Nintendo-made games. How self-serving? How would you like to pay five dollars for one NES title, eight dollars for Super NES, and ten bucks for N64 games? You can find the same titles for less in bargain bins, on eBay, at garage sales, or the like. These games are not only overpriced, many of them you've probably picked up on more than one occasion. Remember when Nintendo sold Super Mario 64 for $40 at the DS's launch? How about when Nintendo resold all of those NES classics on the Game Boy Advance cards, later restocking them fully as GBA ports? Let's not forget the method you’ll actually pay into the Virtual Console. Got your sights set on a single game? Here, it’s possible to pay more for nothing. Wii Points are Nintendo's transferable currency in the means of purchasing Virtual Console software. Either get a $20 Wii Points card from your local retailer or buy them by the Wii store for $10, $20, $30, or a $50 value. 500 points measures five dollars. 800 points measures eight dollars. 1,000 points measures ten. See how this works? For every $20 Wii Points card acquired, you can buy four NES games, two Super NES or N64 games, two NES and one Super NES game, and so on. Your leftover points will remain in the system. But, why can't I just buy the game that I'm after, save some money, and be done with it?
Nintendo's Wii does more shaking up in the industry besides its boundary-breaking gameplay. The Wii is officially the first video game console committed to perceiving gamer analysis. Do gamers really care as much about another leap in graphics as they do gameplay? Naturally, the answer is apparent. Customers everywhere snatching up Wii systems will tell you that. But then, hasn't that response always been clear? It's true that gamers do like their games to bleed beautiful, but is it not also true that more times gamers will vote unanimously for memorable gameplay? Compensating for its overturn in gameplay with nicer graphics, one good example is 2002's Star Fox Adventures, which boasted a leap in visuals for GameCube owners. Despite its advances in giving Fox McCloud's fur a life of its own, fans of the once flight-only shooter bemoaned the game's forgettable ground-based missions. Daring to be different, Nintendo will tell you it's not competing in the same race as Sony and Microsoft, whose current-gen systems push their computerized hardware past the limit and giving you those "oh my God" moments on many a front. Yet, it is. Wii embodies visuals that are supposed to be a bit better than Xbox games, but in reality hardly compare to the last-generation. As a company you can't just fling your next console on shelves in correlation with other competitors and say you're in no way affecting the sales in that market space.
Whether or not Nintendo tells you it‘s invisible to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sales, the Wii is running in this current-gen race. It's a new console entry for Nintendo. It's a next-gen console. So then, where's the next-gen? For the best example of Wii's graphical power, we again turn to the non-Wii game that's playable on Wii, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. For if this were truly a Wii game, made with all the trimmings that Wii-powered graphics could bring out, one can only wonder what the game might look like built on the Wii engine. Instead it's of GameCube matter, and therefore captures GameCube quality. Even then sporting a more realistic semblance akin to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time rather than the artistic appeal of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess has failed to push the envelope far for what ranks as the best of initial Wii fare. Most of Wii's remaining crop sports visuals that while on a technical level duplicate the last-gen attitude, literally there are hundreds of actual last-gen games that would put these titles to shame. I'd rather absorb the hauntingly realistic awe that Resident Evil 4 can produce rather than the lameoid bulb-handed, plastically-molded Mii characters in Wii Sports. I'd rather endure salivating lifelike liquid effects of Super Mario Sunshine than I would sit and stare at crappy nursery school drawings in WarioWare: Smooth Moves. Without its ability to aesthetically compete on the same level as the other hardware contenders, you can expect for Nintendo to run into bad luck where it matters most for third-parties who want their games to sparkle brightest.
There's no time like the present. Wii wouldn't be so bad if there were literally an abundance of great games available on the system. Unfortunately, this appears to be a reality that's never going to happen. For starters, the once shimmering hope of the system, Super Mario Galaxy, ended up disappointing in the end. While a good game, it was not a terribly innovative platformer in the least. Handing players an array of new outfits to wear across miniscule motion-controlled levels, with the ability to explore a full 360 degree circumference? Blah. A better game than that even, Super Paper Mario, shines brighter with an inventive way to use the Wii remote by pointing it at the screen to uncover hidden doors, as well as the ability to temporarily subtract players from a 2D frame and then add them into a fully 3D one. These games along with Zelda make up the majority of good titles you'll find on the Wii, as its future is looking bleaker by the second filled with casual crap on the minds of every developer. Wii Fit lets you pay $89.99 to do jogging and yoga exercises, and bunt soccer balls off your head. Boring! Endless Ocean lets you spend $29.99 to pet and observe sea life without the harm of even being eaten by a shark. I'd rather jump in the briny depths for free and be attacked by stingrays, manatees, and other various sea creatures than pay out of the pocket for this non-game bullsh*t. Sadness is what I feel for the Wii, considering this being one of its few games that was a survival-horror game which had the potential to be interesting with Wii-mote puzzle solving. Most likely, this title isn't ever going to come out. One other game that has raised its "buy me" flag is an RPG known as Fragile, where you'll play as the single survivor of a village using the Wii remote as a flashlight to somehow combat or sneak past ghosts, enduring you throughout the game. It's not known, however, if this game will ever skip the Japanese pond and slide into American shores. Aside from this small bag of trinkets left in the Wii's corner, the once Nintendo-themed-exclusive fighting franchise has also arrived, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. This third iteration is the same game that you've always played, now with a handful of new combatants. A shallow battle system pitting together myriads of Nintendo icons, and the likes of Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog, does not attract me to the game as much as Nintendo thinks it would. Brawl fuses together online play for Wii gamers, but does so without voice chat, buddy list connectivity, and any other advanced semblance that makes online gameplay much more attractive and easier on other consoles than it does on Nintendo's. Other than Brawl, not many heralded titles have so far tapped into this functionality. Free Wi-Fi connectivity enables users with friend codes (yes, the same stupid setup on the DS) to manually track one another down, or otherwise scan automatically (if the game permits it). But with such a crappy lineup of games, do you really want to?
Wii came, Wii saw, Wii got our asses handed to us in a very bad way. Wii is kind of like the Nintendo 64, which interestingly enough premiered exactly ten years prior to the Wii. That was a cartridge-based console. Developers too busy putting together inexpensive CD-ROM disks cared little for those exorbitant blocks. While Wii games aren‘t troublesome in that regard, developers still need to get over the hump that separates migration of a normal gameplay structure in the software of one game and converting that over to the Wii's unusual sensory directives. In this way, Wii is also like the DS. You're not going to be able to play Meteos on a PSP, a puzzler that's dependent on the touchscreen. Albeit, between the DS and the Wii there is no divide. There's an unconventional sameness linking the platforms. Most DS titles are touched with its finger-guided stylus. Like so, most Wii titles are going to be driven by full-on hand coordination. All that the Wii is right now is an oversized DS. It's abundantly transparent that with DS software taking residency already on the Wii and more on the way, the Wii is DS’s extension. Higher priced games, and some games that are nevertheless exactly the same if not close enough make it so. Could the Wii eventually turn itself around in time and make believers in the nonbelievers of us who don't just want pricey casual gaming? It's possible. I don't know. I hope so. If developers can learn to make juicier offerings that would share the same spotlight of seemingly the holiest grail of Wii gaming - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - then there's a chance. Leave the lesser morsels to the DS. For a console-sized experience, think bigger, MUCH bigger guys. Come on already Nintendo and prove me wrong about your Wii-d in the grass, your Wii-kness, your console that makes me Wii-p for the next earthshaking endeavor. PROVE. Mii. WRONG.
The following is a list of system specs for the ones who need it:
Processors: CPU: PowerPC based "Broadway" processor, made with a 90 nm SOI CMOS process, reportedly† clocked at 729 MHz[38] GPU: ATI "Hollywood" GPU made with a 90 nm CMOS process,[39] reportedly† clocked at 243 MHz[38] Memory: 88 MB main memory (24 MB "internal" 1T-SRAM integrated into graphics package, 64 MB "external" GDDR3 SDRAM)[40] 3 MB GPU texture memory Ports and peripheral capabilities: Up to four Wii Remote controllers (connected wirelessly via Bluetooth) Nintendo GameCube controller ports (4) (one can be used in conjunction with four Wii Remote units for five-player multiplayer capability) Nintendo GameCube Memory Card ports (2) SD memory card slot USB 2.0 ports (2) Sensor Bar port Accessory port on bottom of Wii Remote Mitsumi DWM-W004 WiFi 802.11b/g wireless module[41] Compatible with optional USB 2.0 to Ethernet Storage: 512 MB built-in NAND flash memory Expansion available via SD card memory Nintendo GameCube Memory Cards (for saving GameCube games only) Slot-loading disc drive compatible with 8 cm Nintendo GameCube Game Disc and 12 cm Wii Optical Disc Mask ROM by Macronix[42] Video: Up to 480p (PAL/NTSC) or 576i (PAL/SECAM), standard 4:3 and 16:9 anamorphic widescreen[43] Component (including Progressive scan), RGB SCART (PAL only), S-Video (NTSC only), composite output, or D-Terminal[44] Audio: Main: Stereo - Dolby Pro Logic II-capable[45] Controller: Built-in speaker LAN adaptor
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