Cerise Magazine

I am not what the gaming market considers a typical video game player. The last game console I owned was a Sega Genesis. While I play PC games occasionally, I don’t spend a lot of time scouring the Shire with a goblin horde playing Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 the way my boyfriend does. I haven’t succumbed to the lure of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft either: I don’t really have the time to invest in such tempting diversions. Like many people, I don’t like to invest a whole lot of effort up front in my entertainment in order to get a payoff. Nintendo was clever enough to realize that there are a whole lot of people just like me who weren’t being served by Sony or Microsoft, whose products appeal to more hardcore video gamers. For people who just want to pick up a controller and have fun, Nintendo invented the Wii.

The Wii was introduced in November, 2006, and now, seven months later, they are still only sporadically available.

I managed to snag a Wii from Amazon.com right after Christmas. The toughest thing about the Wii is getting one. They can be difficult to find due to their popularity. (The Wii was introduced in November, 2006, and now, seven months later, they are still only sporadically available via retail stores and on the web. The lowest price available on the Amazon.com resale market as of June 2007 was $374, a 50% premium over the full retail price.) After you find one, setting it up and starting to play is a breeze. The Wii has easy-to-follow instructions that direct you to connect the unit to your TV input, sync the remote to the unit, and connect the unit to the Internet, which is optional. You also need to set up the sensor bar in front of your TV so that the Wii can see your remote. It took my boyfriend and me about twenty minutes to set up, and a good deal of that time was removing all the cardboard and plastic wrap.

The Wii comes with Wii Sports, a combo pack of five sports games (bowling, tennis, baseball, golf, and boxing) that can be played solo or with multiple players. Wii Sports is a great way to get used to the “Wii-Mote”, the Wii’s wireless controller that lets you wave your hand and slam a serve over the net in the tennis module, or swing your arms and whack a home run over the bleachers. The motions are easy and natural, but do tire you out after a while. It’s a good idea to follow the on-screen instructions to take a break periodically. It’s also important to loop the attached strap around your wrist before swinging the Wii-mote around. You don’t want to break Grandma’s favorite Hummel figurine in the middle of a particular intense tennis match. The Wii-Mote features force feedback and sound to increase the realistic feel of the game. You can really hear the thwap of the tennis rack as you hit the ball coming from the Wii-Mote. The Wii-Mote has a plus-shaped control pad, an A, B, Home, and + and - buttons. That’s about it. The controls are simple enough that my boyfriend and I were playing like pros in about ten minutes. We quickly got to the point were we were pretty good, but not so good that we were bored.

Making Mii

mii

One of the ways the Wii keeps you interested is to encourage you to create a “Mii”. A Mii is an avatar of yourself, a family member or friend, or even a character from the vast landscape of TV, music, film, and popular culture (the cast of Heroes is a popular subject for Mii re-creation according to Wii forums). Miis are one of the best aspects of the Wii. There’s something immediately engaging about playing a game with a character that resembles you. You can also play Wii Sports with one of the Wii’s default Miis rather than creating one of your own, which gives you an option to quickly start playing, but isn’t quite as fun. Miis accumulate points in each game, so your Mii gets a higher ranking at the game each time you play (although your Mii can lose points if you play especially poorly, so watch out). You can play with the same Mii in each game or vary the Mii you play with, but if you do so you won’t accumulate points as quickly. The game throws tougher opponents at you as you increase in points in each sport, so you have to boost your skills to continue to advance. All of the games have training modes where you can learn the basic skills that let you progress in each game. When you get to “Pro” level in each sport you get unlockables as a reward, such as a shiny pink bowling ball covered with stars for your Mii.

The Mii creation tool Nintendo includes with the console lets you make a wide variety of facial types. There is little to no ability to customize what your Mii is wearing beyond the color of her top and bottom. You do have the ability to adjust her body shape and size. It would be great if Nintendo gave you more ability to accessorize your Mii. You are able to edit your Miis, sort them by various attributes, and watch them mill around in the Mii Plaza. Miis can also roam to other Wii consoles on the Internet if you are connected and have set your Wii to allow your Miis to roam. Other people’s Miis can roam to your console as well, and assemble on the Mii Plaza. You can use any Miis you create as your character in other Wii games such as Wii Play, and they appear in crowd scenes in the various Wii Sports games. It is pretty amusing to see Sylar from Heroes lurking behind you as you step up to bowl.

Wii Sports

I found Wii Bowling to be the most entertaining of the five sports games, as it did a good job of simulating the actual game while being both easy to learn and offering a reasonable challenge. The motion sensor capabilities of the Wii-Mote are showcased in this game as you can add spin to the ball and control its speed and trajectory depending on how you hold and swing the Wii-mote. You can also compensate for any tendency you may have to angle your throws a little to the right or left by moving your Mii before you throw.

tennis

Wii Tennis also wins points by doing a good job of replicating a real tennis experience with only a fraction of the actual work. While my arm and shoulder get sore after playing for about an hour, I still don’t want to stop lobbing balls back to my opponent or slamming serves past the pro guarding the front of the net. In Wii Tennis, as with the other games, you really only have to worry about hitting the ball. The system moves you automatically towards it. This effectively simulates the game of tennis while allowing you to focus on timing your backhand or forehand. It works well for casual players and party situations, but might be frustrating for hardcore gamers who want more control of the details.

The same is true for Wii Baseball. Your sole job as a baseball player is to hit when your team is at bat and pitch when your team is fielding. You have no role in running bases (the game runs for you automatically) or catching the ball. Depending on your attitude, you can either consider this a benefit as it speeds up gameplay, or a hindrance since it removes control from you. You bat for every player on your nine player team (unless you want to hand the controller to a friend) and pitch to every player on the opposite team. You have a decent variety of pitches to throw (fastball, slider, curveball, screwball) and can throw inside and outside pitches. But your control ends there. It’s also worth noting that playing against another player’s team results in a score of zero (this is true in Wii Tennis also). Evidently Nintendo thinks one player may throw the game to boost the other’s points. Still, hitting the ball out of the park is very satisfying, and with the Wii the learning curve is such that you can accomplish this in your first game.

Wii Golf is a stripped-down version of a real golf game. You play only nine holes, and your success and failure are largely determined by which club you choose, how well you take slope and wind speed into account, and how accurately you swing the controller. I found it difficult to judge the distance to the hole accurately and therefore overshot or undershot my hole on a regular basis. But that may be an accurate representation of my real golf game, so I can hardly blame Nintendo.

My boyfriend and I play Wii Boxing the least of all the Wii Sports games. I believe that is because the controls seem to be the least accurate of all the games. The idea of getting into the ring and punching someone is definitely a concept I can relate to, especially after a long day at work, so the sport itself does not turn me off. Instead, the problem seems to lie in how inaccurate your movements become once the action gets really heated. Here’s how the game works: the Wii-Mote controls your Mii’s right hand, while the nunchuk (an optional attachment) controls the left. Just like in real boxing, you hold your hands up to your face to guard yourself from punches, and strike out with your fists to punch your opponent. You tilt the controllers right and left to bob and weave. What I’ve found is that once you start punching, it is very difficult to control which punches you send, and very hard to hit your target. Winning matches seems to be a case of luck rather than skill. While Wii Boxing can be fun while in the heat of the moment, the lack of control leaves it ultimately disappointing.

wii bowling

Other Offerings

While Wii Sports is a fun and easy way to learn the Wii, the choice of games beyond this are rather disappointing. So far there haven’t been an abundance of strong titles released for the platform, aside from the flagship Zelda entry and a promising Medal of Honor release. Many players seem to be relying on the back library of Gamecube games, also playable on the Wii, until more quality titles are released. The Wii can also download older Nintendo games from the ‘net, but its lack of multiplayer capabilities is a weakness for the system as a whole. Another weakness is its graphics. Compared to other next gen consoles, its graphics are less than impressive. Its 512 MHz ATI graphics card brings it to the level of an Xbox, but on my high definition Sony TV it really doesn’t look very great. It gives you a choice of 480i (interlaced) or 480p (progressive), which is the quality level of a standard cable TV station. It renders well in 16:9 but the characters and objects in Wii Sports are basically dressed up little polygons. While other games such as The Godfather: Blackhand Edition, Red Steel, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess have better graphics, none reach the level of the better PS3 games, which can take advantage of that console’s 1080p resolution. This seems to be a deliberate design choice by Nintendo. They spent their money and time implementing an innovative motion sensor technology rather than competing with the PS3s of the world. It is clear that you can’t have everything in a game console.

The immersive experience that the Wii controller provides is not a novelty that wears off, leaving you bored and ready to move on to something more interesting after a few months. Instead it draws you into the game world more completely than a standard controller does, because it engages your whole body in the experience.

The Wii holds up quite well over time. We have had our console for about six months now. The immersive experience that the Wii controller provides is not a novelty that wears off, leaving you bored and ready to move on to something more interesting after a few months. Instead it draws you into the game world more completely than a standard controller does, because it engages your whole body in the experience. I’ve noticed that Wii games tend to be more social. People see others playing and want to join in the fun. Wii game sessions also tend to be shorter, as the more physical style of game playing tires you out much faster than just sitting back and mashing buttons does (or maybe I’m just out of shape). I can’t play for hours the way I do in front of the PC. That may be a good thing, as far as my social life is concerned.

So far the Wii ecosystem has produced enough high quality games to keep me busy, but I don’t play as much as a hardcore gamer might. The Wii’s mix of titles is heavily weighted towards party games and media tie-ins at the moment. To sustain the platform, developers need to produce a greater variety of titles as well as games that take better advantage of the Wii-mote’s unique capabilities. They also need to consider adding more storage options. I don’t tend to download games, but I’ve heard that filling up the existing 512mb of available memory is easy. You can also use SD cards, but it would be nice if Nintendo would add a hard drive, which they have said they have no plans to do. This seems like a mistake to me. There are plans to add a DVD player to the next version of the Wii, due out later this year. This is nice, but what would be nicer is an upgrade to high definition resolution (1080p). The Wii does fine on standard definition TV, but it will show its age as more people get high definition TVs in anticipation of the changeover in 2009. An upgrade to high definition is inevitable at some point in the near future. Then I really will have everything in a game console.

The Wii as it currently exists succeeds because of its novel and immersive gameplay and its appeal to a new and untapped market, rather than its graphics or strong titles.

The Wii as it currently exists succeeds because of its novel and immersive gameplay and its appeal to a new and untapped market, rather than its graphics or strong titles. According to NPD May 2007 Sales Report it has captured the top rank in sales over Xbox 360 and PS3 because Nintendo has created a video game system that takes just minutes to learn how to play and has marketed it to families, senior citizens, women, and other underserved markets. The $250 price didn’t hurt either. While the Wii isn’t by any means the perfect game console, it is a step in the right direction because it acknowledges that we all play games differently and for different reasons. There is no reason that there has to be only one winner in the video game console war. With more truly different consoles to choose from, it’s the customer who wins.

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Seven Months Strong: Nintendo Wii and Wii Sports

July 2007 Issue

Features

Interviews

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Gamer Stories

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Making Mii

Wii Sports

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