Now that you have a Wii, your thoughts & games?

[AussieAtari]

I think what impresses me most about the system is how inviting it is, especially for non-gamers.

 

You're spot on, I think the Wii is the modern gaming equivalent of the Mac when it first came out and was compared to the PC of the time - so easy to use and enjoy the software and not have to worry about the hardware.

[jesusc]

I bought a Wii and Metal Slug. Being that I already bought Zelda for Gamecube, I'm feeling that I really didn't need a Wii yet. There's nothing decent for it. However, playing all of the Slugs is nice.

[Jess Ragan]

First impressions are killers, and my own initial experience with the Nintendo Wii was not a positive one. The online functionality is flakier than a box of Raisin Bran... everything took an extra, extra, extra long time to download, and disconnects were annoyingly frequent.

 

I'm not sure what people see in Wii Sports. It's amazing that a game with this much hand-holding can still be so counterintuitive. For instance, when you're playing Bowling, you don't really feel like you're throwing the ball so much as following a pattern of movement instructed by the computer. If you don't play the game exactly the way the computer expects you to, you're given a warning message and dropped back behind the red line to make another throw.

 

Wasn't this supposed to feel just like the real thing? Playing this game should just come naturally, yet I found myself struggling through the first ten frames because I kept getting admonished by the computer. The Bowling game included in Clubhouse Games for the Nintendo DS was no sweat at all to play... why then, is this such a hassle?

 

There are a few bright spots... some of the system's features are really clever, like the Weather Station which lets you check out the weather not only in your home town, but across the globe. The designers get bonus points for letting you grab an edge of the globe and give it a good hard spin!

 

I'm not going to pass final judgment on the Wii until I've spent more time with Wii Sports and started playing that Zelda game. I've got it in my collection now, but with Okami still unfinished (and very similar) it's going to be hard to switch games in midstream.

 

Past Zelda, I don't see much incentive to return to the Wii when the Xbox 360 is just four feet away. It's not just that the games look better on an HDTV, but they're also deeper and offer more replay value. You're not going to find a game on the Wii that surpasses Oblivion in variety and complexity... and frankly, I question that one will ever be released.

 

JR

[moycon]

I'm not sure what people see in Wii Sports. .

 

JR

 

The deal with Sports is anyone can pick it up, play right away, and have fun. When Nintendo says that grama and grandpa will want to play the Wii, they are right, but what they didn't say was all they probably will want to play is Wii sports....a game you can pick up and play in 2 minutes. Unfortunately, they don't seem too interested in anything else (Or at least the folks aren't) and honestly probably won't ever. Oh well. It's not that it's a great game...in fact it's really more like a demo, but every other game I put in they wanted to go back to Sports because the others were too complicated.

 

I actually haven't turned my Wii on for 2 days, Too busy trying to finish Enchanted Arms, Yeah I dig it more than Zelda right now, Just need that one last achievement.

[Jess Ragan]

It's funny you'd say that, because I've been playing video games for decades and none of the Wii Sports titles I've tried so far came easily to me. I was expecting them to play just like the actual sports but they never felt natural to me, especially golf which I found particularly frustrating. Look dudes, I can't look at the onscreen indicators and put my head down to make the swing all at the same time!

 

JR

[khisanth]

I think you must be seriously doing something wrong! All the games are instantly intuitive and everyone I know that has had a go gamers and non gamers alike have all had no problems.

 

You expect them to play just like the actual sports?? Hmmm think you are expecting too much. With no force feedback or resistance using a remote control how did you think you would experience the exact realism of the sport?

 

Take the golf for example. A friend who plays golf, instantly got the hang of it. He took practice swings to get a feel for the power etc then off he went. birdies, pars no problem. You dont have to put your head down either once you learn how to swing. Practice it !

 

Bowling is dead simple. You make the motion of bowling, turn your wrist near the end to give it spin and thats it. how hard can it be?

 

The Wii will have more quick play games than the 360 or PS3, have them for your more adult content and bigger games and have the Wii for fun games generally. I play PC games more than anything but its so refreshing to pop downstairs and fire up the Wii.

[Mendon]

As a follow up to my original thoughts on the Wii, I've been able to form a couple more "opinions" after playing 3 cross-platform games: Call of Duty 3, Need for Speed: Carbon, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Thanks to GameFly, I've been able to try all three on both the Wii and Xbox 360 and after doing so have found that the Wii versions leave something to be desired.

 

Its a given that all three games will look much better on the 360 so for me it came down to which method of control would prompt me to lay out money for the full game. I admit I'm still a little biased when it comes down to the Wii-mote/Nunchuk method of control vs. standard controller as I'm still not 100% comfortable with the Wii-mote. But I gave it my all in playing these 3 games and tried to "learn" the control scheme and get fully comfortable with it. But in the end, I found that the Wii-mote aiming and response isn't all that accurate and lead to some frustration for me. For example, many times I pushed the Wii-mote towards the screen to "zoom" in my weapon on CoD3 and about 20% of the time nothing happened on screen. And once the damn dog walked in front of the TV and stopped, which lead to the interruption of the connection between the Wii-mote and sensor bar and a cheap death (mine, not the dog.... ) And to be perfectly honest, I didn't feel the Wii-mote/Nunchuk control scheme added any more enjoyment to playing any of these 3 games than playing it with a standard controller. So for myself, these 3 games didn't control any better and didn't look anywhere near as good as their 360 versions and if I had to make a decision on which version to buy, the 360 version would be the one I'd get, even at $10 more in price.

 

Overall, it seems that games developed exclusively for the Wii (Zelda, Excite Truck, etc) appear to work really, really well; Elebits is a blast and I can't imagine playing it without the Wii-mote. But "ported" games seem to lack the accuracy needed (much like light-gun games did for many systems in years past) and the Wii-mote/Nunchuk control doesn't feel like an intregal part of the game. Its still very, very early in the life of the Wii and hopefully as developers become more familiar with the Wii that accuracy will be corrected and the Wii-mote/Nunchuk control will feel like an intregal part of the game instead of an add-on.

 

But maybe this is the fate of the Wii... exclusive games (Metroid, Mario, Elebits, etc) will make the Wii a great and enjoyable system while ported games will be much better on the 360 and PS3. If so, then this could be sad news for Nintendo and regulate the Wii to the same level of non-3rd party support as the Gamecube and N64 (later in its life) had.

 

I'm still reserving my final judgement on whether the Wii was a good purchase or not for myself until more games come out later this year. Please impress me, Nintendo!

 

Mendon

Edited January 13, 2007 by Mendon

[kisrael]

I see your point that direct ports aren't always improved by Wiimote-ism; especially ones that try to map zoom in to "push the wiimote towards the screen", that seems very haphazard for the controller to read properly.

 

I was going to say, I think for the most part, Wii will be better with pick up and play fun and party games as opposed to games that rely more on narrative immersion. By coincidence, that's kind of what classic gaming has been all about, so there might be an inadvertent retro-feel to it all.

 

But maybe not, maybe Wii can do just fine with story-driven games, and not just Nintendo first party ism...

I'd really be interested in someone doing an utterly unbiased (if there can be such a thing...) comparison of Twilight Princess on Wii and Twilight Princess on GC, to see if they think the Wii controller has a better feel or not.

 

As an "aging" (early 30s) gamer, I find myself reluctant to undergo most long-play-time demanding games. So the Wii is a win there in some ways. But I wouldn't be surprised if the Wii360 idea will be the most satisfying for the well rounded gamer.

[AussieAtari]

Follow up on 1st post:

 

Having played the unit for some weeks now I am beginning to agree with the thought that the Wii might be heading to where the N64 and GC were in regards to 3rd party software, the controllers really lend themselves to specialty titles as the cross platform titles do not seem to play as well as on the Xbox due to the controller.

 

But that said, we have been having a blast playing GC games on our Wii, we never bought a GC and the games are all on clearance around here so we have been getting into some exclusive titles and really enjoying them. As with the N64, 4 player games are great on the Wii/GC.

[NE146]

I'd really be interested in someone doing an utterly unbiased (if there can be such a thing...) comparison of Twilight Princess on Wii and Twilight Princess on GC, to see if they think the Wii controller has a better feel or not.

 

I can do that.. I got both games. I've beaten Wii Zelda (so am obviously familiar w/ the control scheme). That being said, the big problem is getting me to play the friggin game all over again. 60+ hours aint nothing to sneeze at! I need a break

[moycon]

It's really what I've been saying all along.

 

There are some great games available at this very moment...but they are only great when NOT played on the Wii.

The Wii seem suitable for certain types of games, and that's cool. That gives folks the opportunity to experience a new funky way to control their Gamecube games...unfortunately I suspect folks will get burned out after the 200th mini games game (There's already like 5 or 6 on the market) and face it, other than Nintendo, the 3rd parties probably aren't going to go out of their way to do anything but port the game they've been working on and spend some half-assed time getting it to kinda work with the Wii controller. Time is money after all.

 

Unless the Wii just dominates the market this year. I'm afraid it's not going to be worth the 3rd party's time and $$$.

The Wii is a definate system to own if you're not a serious gamer and just want to screw around with some pals. (That can come to your house since you can't challenge them online)

 

The really meaty games on the Wii are probably going to be few and far between and be Wii exclusives (Mainly because they will be designed from the ground up with the controller in mind). Otherwise chances are the best version of a game isn't going to be the Wii version. The controller is only part of the issue...The Wii also takes gorgeous games and makes them look assy. Some folks say that graphics aren't important at all. I say they are dis-illusioned. The fact that the Wii doesn't look much better than the Gamecube will hurt it in the long run especially when people find out that a game can look great, and still play great (Not sure who started the rumor that this was impossible) I will say that using a remote control as a video game controller playing Gamecube games is great fun(In some instances) in the same way the Gamecube bongo's were great fun, but it doesn't compare in the least to games like Oblivion, Dead Rising and Gears of Wars IMO...and this is from someone who owns and has played both.

[Lord Helmet]

(Mainly because they will be designed from the ground up with the controller in mind).

 

Which is exactly how it should be!

 

Otherwise chances are the best version of a game isn't going to be the Wii version.

 

Why would you want a game that was designed to be played with a traditional controller for a console that is primarily designed to function in an entirely different fashion.

 

If you like Madden, or Call of Duty III, etc, wouldn't you rather play them on the 360 or PS3 anyway? The Wii isn't going to replace that experience very often. It was made with different types of games in mind.

 

I would probably be very dissapointed with only a Wii. I don't think that it is going to be great as a stand alone console (I could be wrong, it's still early in the Wii's lifetime). But as a counterpart to my 360, its absolutely perfect.

 

I would say in most cases, the games that are multiplatform are going to be a letdown, but exclusives will be fun enough to make the system worth owning...which has always been a Nintendo strength.

 

I will say this...I have played both the Wii and GCN versions of Zelda, and while they are mirror images of each other (literally!) the Wii version is wayyyyy better simply because the controler is so much fun to use with the game. I quit playing the GCN version because is just wasn't the same experience.

[moycon]

Why would you want a game that was designed to be played with a traditional controller for a console that is primarily designed to function in an entirely different fashion.

 

If you like Madden, or Call of Duty III, etc, wouldn't you rather play them on the 360 or PS3 anyway? The Wii isn't going to replace that experience very often. It was made with different types of games in mind.

 

I wouldn't, and yes.

 

I fully agree with you 100%.

[rockman_x_2002]

Well my argument is still the same as in another thread. While it won't help much on the graphics (which cannot be solved unless you take some real time and effort to try), for those ported-over games that just simply can't seem to make good use of the Wiimote+Nunchuck combo, they could simply forget the Wiimote and just use the Classic Controller instead. Thus, no major changes in the control scheme would be necessary, really.

 

Personally, I would prefer using Classic Controller if 3rd party companies didn't intend to put any real effort into making a game work seamlessly with the Wiimote. It wouldn't surprise me if, in the near future, we started seeing ported-over games using control schemes for both Wiimote+Nunchuck and the Classic Controller.

[NE146]

The Wii is a definate system to own if you're not a serious gamer

 

So does that mean it's not a system to own if you ARE a serious gamer?

Edited January 15, 2007 by NE146

[moycon]

So does that mean it's not a system to own if you ARE a serious gamer?

 

No way, if you are a serious gamer you will own all 3 eventually and know it right now.

[NE146]

So does that mean it's not a system to own if you ARE a serious gamer?

 

No way, if you are a serious gamer you will own all 3 eventually and know it right now.

 

Yeah. I'm seriously a sick addict. I've gotten my third 360 just yesterday. (gave my last one to my brother over christmas... even though I 'officially' gave him a Wii as well). Still balking on the PS3. But just being realistic.. if it really starts having some great games, come on.. of course I'm going to get one.

[moycon]

Yeah. I'm seriously a sick addict. I've gotten my third 360 just yesterday. (gave my last one to my brother over christmas...)

 

This is funny because I have came close to buying a 360 and shipping it to my younger brother so we could hook up and play online. (Usually it's after I've had a few beers in me) We both have Wii's and can message back and forth, but it's not quite the same. In fact I sent him a message over the weekend via the Wii asking when he was getting a 360.

 

I will say, without a doubt, the Wii is the perfect system to own to send your brother text messages (Provided he has a Wii) asking when he is going to get a 360.

 

I'll get a PS3 when they lower the price and/or have a handfull of must play games exclusive to the PS3.

Almost $700.00 to play one game is not a consideration for me. Especially since I have a 360 and a Wii.

[Mendon]

One thing I just noticed last night after a couple hours playing Sim City... Nintendo needs to make a LONGER cord for the Classic Controller! I was sitting in my chair, had the Wii-mote on the table next to my chair and was using the Classic Controller to play the game. Twice I pulled the Wii-mote off the table when I either turned to talk to a family member or reached for something on the floor.

 

I know.. this is a small complaint and easily solved if some company makes an extender cable. But then maybe the problem is only me and no one else notices. Oh well, I vented....

 

Mendon

[Jess Ragan]

I'd just be happy if they made a cable that let you connect the Classic Controller to a GameCube controller port. I mean, come on Nintendo, how hard could this possibly be?

 

JR

[moycon]

I just read that the new Metroid Prime 3 : Corruption will introduce Wii specific moves to the bounty hunters repertoire, such as unlocking doors with a twist of the Wii controller.

 

Now, While this was pretty cool in Elebits...you know pointing the controller at a door knob and then twisting it like you would a real door knob. Somehow I don't picture the doors in the Metroid world being opened via brass door knobs. LOL

[Malc74]

Okay, here are my initial thoughts after a couple of days play.

 

System: I like it lots. Surprisingly heavy for such a diminutive thing. Setup was relatively painless, although the sticky pads for the sensor bar were useless. Luckily I had a roll of velcro lying around, and after some quick snipping and sticking I had the bar sitting solidly on top of the TV.

Creating Mii's was nice and easy - I think it adds a lot of character to the games in Wii Sports when you're playing as, well, yourself basically.

Getting the Wii online with the WiFi USB connector was a breeze as well. I had a browse around the Weather Channel, (which I probably won't use very much) and the Wii Shop Channel. I do think some of the VC games are overpriced and I'm pretty sure I can resist spending too much money on there. A couple of the TG16 games (especially R-Type) are the only ones that really appeal to me at the moment. Hmm, I think I'll just stick to searching for the real thing in the wild, thanks.

 

As for the games, all I have at the moment are Wii Sports and Zelda, although I'm looking to pick up Excite Truck fairly soon. I've barely even started TP (still in the village at the beginning) but I'll be sitting down to a mammoth playing session this weekend I think. Wii Sports is a blast. At the moment I've been playing a lot of tennis and bowling, some baseball and boxing, but I've only had a few goes at golf. Tennis is my favourite (and the only one I've reached Pro at so far), and to be honest the only one I'm not really enjoying is golf, but only because putting seems to be fundamentally broken - well, I can't get it to work properly more than 25% of the time anyway. Apart from that I've had virtually no problems with the controller at all - it seemed to lock up on one occasion, but I just switched the system off and back on and it's been fine since.

 

A few months ago I said I'd hold off on buying a Wii because I was worried about the gimmicky nature of the controller and whether it would start to get old quickly or not. I'm still worried about the long-term future of the console (particularly from a third party standpoint) but I'm glad I cracked and bought one. If it takes off in the same way the DS did (but let's hope we don't have to wait quite as long for all the good games, eh?) then it'll be a cracking little machine. Mind you, I'm still saving up for a 360 so I can experience the more, er, "traditional" side of gaming as well.

[mnbren05]

So far I am pleased with my Wii

 

Graphics: On target with the original Xbox

 

Zelda: the best game in the library

 

Red Steel: Great overall effects but the contorls will drive you insane. I traded my copy in after playing 5 times.

 

Madden 07: Disapointing. Graphics are horrible looks like Madden 03 on PS2 and it has no comparison to the current PS2 Madden. Controls are fun though but a headache and repetative.

 

Elebits: Very fun not what I expected. (gives me a katamari feel)

 

Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Loved this one. Graphics were good and had good gameplay.

[ManShowBoy]

How much different is using the wiimote for Excite Truck than using the six axis for Motorstorm?

[jbanes]

How much different is using the wiimote for Excite Truck than using the six axis for Motorstorm?

In Motorstorm, you control the game with a thumbstick for direction and a button for acceleration, just as you always have. In Excite Truck, you use the buttons for acceleration, but you can turn the Wiimote like a steering wheel. (just like we used to do in Rad Racer; except that now it works! )

 

Gameplay-wise, Motorstorm attempts to be a semi-realistic simulation and can be a bit frustrating at times. Excite Truck is more of an arcade-action title that rejects realistic physics in exchange for arcade-style excitement. As a result, Excite Truck is just as much about doing the right moves or picking up items as it is about actually racing.

 

Sooo... pick your poison: Simulation vs. Arcade Game

 

My biggest complaint about Motorstorm is that the vehicles don't have the same rigid body dynamics (i.e. physics) as shown in the target renders at the E3. As a result, they tend to handle more or less like the vehicles in any other racing game. IMHO, this is a fairly major failing for a simulation game on such a powerful system.

 

My biggest complaint about Excite Truck is that the Wiimote control takes a bit of time to master. The Wiimote reads the orientation well enough, it's just that the lack of any sort of limiter (such as on a steering wheel or thumbstick) makes it far too easy to oversteer your truck. Newbies will usually be seen sliding back and forth before flipping over their trucks.

 

As a matter of disclosure, please be aware that my opinion is based on several playings of both games at game stores. I own neither game, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt.

 

Does that help?