Nintendo Wii

I think a mii ("me") is an avatar of your choosing that is supposed to represent you as the Wii user. You can customize 'em to look like you (kinda, sorta), in a cartoony sort of way.

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OK so you can have a few characters then huh.

Yeah, so it seems.

Let me say that as a Web Designer/Computer tech' that this game graphically anyway does not have much to offer that has not been seen before. What it does offer is, from what I have seen thus far, a wonderfully simplistic interaction. Truly if you swing too softly or to hard your golfball will miss its target. Who needs to spend hours on end trying to level a character when one can just swing away for the hell of it?

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

My wife's cousins have a Wii and I've played it on a couple different occassions and must say that Nintendo is finally competition with Sony and Microsoft.

At first, learning the best techniques for using the Wiimote takes some time, but once you get the hang of it, and you know how to throw an awesome curve on your bowling ball, it becomes addictive.

I've mostly played the Wii Sports, and it has to be the best game for the console right now. With the capabilities for up to four players, games like Tennis, Bowling, Baseball, Golf, all became a family affair.

Yes holding the Wiimote and the Nunchuk is odd when playing a regular game, and you find yourself trying to move your arms in the direction you want your character to go, but no need in feeling embarassed when you look over and see everyone else doing it too.

I don't own a Wii, but I plan on getting one. The PS3 is nothing new, really. They've only done away with needing Memory Cards and added hard drives and BluRay technology.

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

I'm terrible at sports so I don't know why I'd need a Wii. If I tried it and I accidentally broke my TV, there'd be nothing left to do but read books. Well, I guess I could still use the internet and watch television there, but it's not the same!

I'm not a game person anyways. I have Gamecube. It doesn't get used very often. My favorite game is Muppets Party Cruise. What a riot. Miss Piggy makes fun of you if you play terrible. Super Monkey Ball 2 and Soul Caliber II weren't bad. But I totally wasted money on a difficult Star Wars game.

The trouble here would be that our living room is definitely *not* conducive to swinging arms around and moving. No big enough spaces in the room to move about for many of those Wii games. And certainly *not* if you get multiple players (as in tennis). Yikes. You'll put an eye out, kid.

These games are getting crazy. I watched a video recently that showed some people playing a game outdoors - they all wore these fireproof suits - if they did something wrong in the game, FIRE would blow out of something and onto them! Fire. If they weren't wearing those suits, they would essentially be burned to death.

I can see the thrill of doing such a risky thing, but JESUS! I would not risk my life for Mario & Luigi. Princess Toadstool will just have to get used to being Koopa's slave.

I got a Wii the other day, but don't have the necessary cable (or mini WiFi USB thingamajig) to get it online. I'll drop you a line tomorrow, though, if I can find one.

Yup, makes total sense.

Actually, somebody wondered with me that if your a better say 'baseball pitcher' in real life, will that give an advantage with this game? I said I doubt it cause I cant see how it's so in tune with your actions, it can pick up a professional baseball picture with a first timer in the game. Not in this time anyways.

Did you mean baseball pitcher in that last line, or picture? (My brain hurts.)

I dunno. Yoda, ask your brother about the bowling. (Yoda's brother is a fairly serious bowler and he was lovin' the Wii bowling. I'd be curious how his scores compare to his real-life scores....)

The scores won't relate to real life, in fact you're more likely to do better, because there are factors the Wii doesn't take into affect I'm sure.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

This is half-true. Obviously it's not a perfect simulator, but my brother was certainly able to use certain real-life bowling concepts (like hitting certain marks on the lane) to his advantage.

In some ways, obviously, it's a great deal simpler than real life. In others, it is surprisingly responsive to things like wrist-flicks and such (which can be used to put spin on the ball when bowling, for example). All in all, it's very intuitive.

Meanwhile, the industry news continues to pour in:

Fans say Playstation 3 lacks the 'wow' factor
"Fans criticised a lack of innovation. The controller was almost exactly the same as the one that came with the original PlayStation and PS2.

It also relies heavily on recycled hits. The games set to be released with the machine bear tell-tale “more of the same” titles such as Everybody’s Golf 5, Virtual Fighter 5 and Ridge Racer 7.

As a result, industry observers have tipped Nintendo as the likely victor in the console war."


From ARSTechnica PS3 Review
RE: Resistence - Fall of Man

"My friend and I gave this a shot for a long session on Saturday afternoon, and after the first few play-throughs it became painful. It felt like work, and while technically it is work for me, it shouldn't feel like it. If you were paid to review this game I feel bad for you; you're going to have a bad day at the office. If you bought this game at retail, I beg you to take it back and get something else. Anything else.

Remember when the PS2 launched with Orphen? Yeah, this is worse than that. I'm embarrassed that this was even released as a retail product, and no one punched me in the store when I asked for it.

Oh well, whenever something would happen, or we died, we all yelled "Gundamnit!" really loud. That was kind of fun. Hearing someone say, in all seriousness, "Use your machine-gun eyes!" just brings home how ridiculous this game is. "


Just a couple of tidbits I read recently...

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Some thoughts and impressions after about three days.

General Wii Stuff
Just about everyone who held the Wiimote and watched the cursor drift along with their hand on the screen let loose a goofy, infectuous smile. We had maybe half a dozen people over on Friday, and everyone gave it a try, and loved it.

There are lovely little touches everywhere. For example: when using the Wii's menus, the Wiimote controls a cursor in the shape of a hand. If you rotate your wrist, the hand rotates accordingly.

There's a small speaker inside the Wiimote itself that comes into play quite a bit in games like Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The speaker is obviously of sub-par quality compared to most others, but it still enhances the general atmosphere of whatever game you're playing.

Battery life leaves a little something to be desired, but this is partly because we've been playing it so flippin' much. Two AA batteries get you about 20 hours on a single remote. The purchase of recharagable batteries is obviously advisable, and should head off any problems.

Certain motions did cause a bit of soreness in my right arm when repeated ad nausem, but this happened mostly in bowling, wherein I have a pretty unconventional release, and which I played in rapid succession many times.

The movement wasn't strenuous, but standing up and hitting virtual tennis balls did result in -- gasp! -- a little bit of exercise, and it's not that hard to work up an actual sweat when bowling repeatedly, or boxing more than a single match. Whether or not this could ever have any kind of noteworthy effect on someone's health, I'm not sure, but it's certainly a positive, even if a slight one.


Wii Sports
The boxing game in Wii Sports is particularly advanced, in that you need to lift both the Wiimote and the nunchuk attachment up to about eye level in order to keep your character's gloves up to block punches. Tilting left and right causes your character to dodge accordingly. It's a bit spotty, however, when determining exactly what angle you're throwing your punches from, but not so much that it upsets the gameplay.

Golf is tough. Baseball is simplistic, but still fun in small doses (wagging the Wiimote back and forth over your shoulder while in your batting stance causes the bat on screen to wag identically). Bowling is probably the most realistic, and seems to have the most replay value (I've got a high score of 279 so far). It had a little trouble with some players' unconventional styles (near-sidearm, for example), but usually only required slight adjustments of the player, even in those rare instances.

Tennis was a popular choice, and was genuinely challenging at times, though held back by the fact that the computer controls your character's movements.


Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
I've put a bit over 7 hours of gameplay into this one so far, and I'm told that it takes about 40 in all to complete, which is quite long for a game like this. So far, however, it has yet to feel tedious. The game resembles the Nintendo 64's Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in a myriad of ways, but that game was universally hailed as among the best ever created, so the familiarity isn't always a bad thing.

The fighting system is very engaging, as it requires the use of both the Wiimote and the nunchuk attachment simultaneously for most moves. The game also features the somewhat revolutionary ability to swing your sword as you run, by tilting forward with the nunchuk while swinging the Wiimote (like a sword, of course) back and forth.

Riding your horse, Epona, is surprisingly realistic, and a heck of a lot of fun. I often found myself wanting to divert from the game's storyline so I could joyride around and jump over gates for the heck of it.

The controls take some getting used to, but can't be beat once you've started to acclimate to them. The last few installments of the series have made use of just about every button on the controller, and Twilight Princess is no exception. Because of this, the motion-based actions are all the more welcome, as they cut down (albeit slightly) on the number of buttons you need to remember. This sounds insigificant, but I found myself hitting the wrong button and using the wrong item out of my inventory on multiple occasions, so anything to alleviate the thought I have to devote to such things is welcome.


Conclusions

• The motion-sensing is highly intuitive and surprisingly perceptive. People of different heights, weights, body types, and genders were all able to swing tennis rackets and lob bowling balls in the ways that felt natural to them, and it was almost always able to translate it smoothly.

• Creating a "Mii" (a personal avatar which represents you online, throughout Wii Sports, and will presumably integrated into other future games) is a lot more fun than you'd expect.

• The movement-based actions make routine things more fun and engaging.

• The system itself is small, compact, and very aesthetically pleasing. It looks like something Apple might have created in terms of both size and style. Despite its small, sleek form, they managed to find room for enough ports to allow for four GameCube controllers, two GameCube memory cards, and an SD memory card.

It's too soon to say if the motion-sensing aspects of the Wii will eventually becoming annoying, or start to feel gimmicky, but so far they feel so natural and "right" that it's hard to understand why it took someone this long to implement them. Infared technology isn't exactly new, but perhaps the ways in which the Wii uses it took some time to develop. Regardless, it's hard to imagine going back.

Highly recommended. Incredibly fun and disturbingly cheap in comparison to its competitors.

Well, that's always taken into consideration with any bowling games. If you know where to aim in real life and apply it to the game, you'll bowl better of course.

And from what I've heard with people who own the Wii, it's a rent then buy console. More so then the others. Some of the lesser well know games and such were ruined because of the controls. Obviously, if the game company takes the time to make the controls decent, the Wii is going to have a nice long life.

Yeah, it's definitely going to take some time. Ports for the Wii can't be like other ports; the games that will work best are the games that are designed for the Wii from the ground up. If a port is going to be particularly good, the game developers will need to put a lot of thought into the control scheme. I hear Madden 07 did a fabulous job. Still, I think it's a safe bet that most of the best Wii games over the next 6 months or so will come from Nintendo.

A number of reviews I've seen have slightly lower ratings for the Wii versions of various cross-platform games. Most of them say that the controls are worse on the Wii, which makes sense, as I imagine none of them were designed for it. That's certainly a downside, though hopefully the next round of titles will put a bit more time and effort into making full use of the Wii's capabilities.

I've also put about 7 hours into Zelda even though I've had it since christmas. I've been addicted to the Virtual Console and every week (Fridays for us Brits and Mondays for you Americans) there's new releases so it keeps you interested. You can't argue against the fact Nintendo has the best back catalog of games of all it's competitors and with the inclusion of Sega Megadrive and Turbo Graphic titles, it's bright future looks set in stone.

Oh and Yoda, send us your code when you get online....

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instrumental rock band that I am in.

Yeah, very smart move on Nintendo's part. Whatever people think of the company today, almost every gamer has found memories of the classics, and Nintendo owns a disproportionate number of them.

Will do, kemopadre.

wago!

wish i had a wii... what do you all think of it?

Really?

hmm.