Am I supposed to buy into the Nintendo Wii thing like it’s from Disney or something? I don’t get it.
The controls give you as much ‘control’ as that 25 year old Laser-Disk-based video game called Dragon’s Lair. For example, when you swing a bat in the baseball game, the only thing you’re doing is controlling the timing. Ya. Hoo. I’m Dirk the Daring, 25 years later.
Oh, wait, let’s play tennis! You run around, take different ‘‘swings’’ at the ball – must be great, right? Okay, well, the Wii does all the running around, and guess what – all you do is control the timing of the swing. That’s it. Ya. Hoo.
Wanna pitch a baseball? Think you can control the speed or type of pitch via arm speed and motion? Of course not – all you are doing is making anything close to an arm movement and using buttons to select pitches!
BIG.
FRIGGING.
DEAL.
I am filing Nintendo Wii into the same folder I filed Disney. People BELIEVE they like everything from them, sans their own frigging better judgment. I so need to be in advertising.
Wii Sports is probably the least effective demo of how innovative and intuitive the Wii controller actually is. But hey, it’s a freebie, so how much can you really expect.
My suggestion? Get yourself a copy of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves or Rayman Raving Rabbids. All of these use the controller in much more interesting ways. You’ll probably change your mind pretty quick… all of these games will factor in angle, speed, direction and more in addition to just the timing of the movement.
Nah, not Zelda. Then he’ll just complain about how the sword-swings don’t match up to your motions, and all you’re doing is jiggling the controller. Never mind that it’s still the most immersive gameplay experience I’ve had on a console to date.
My brother got a Wii for Christmas and went and got the Resident Evil with the light gun and that game is seriously addictive fun. I haven’t played a light gun game on a console since Duck Hunt and this is so much better and so much fun that we fought like 6 year olds over who’s turn it was.
Wii Sports is more of a demo of the Wiimote than anything else. The only good part of the game is bowling. The angle at which you “throw” the Wiimote affects the spin of the ball. You should reserve comment until you’ve played some games that use the full capabilities of the Wiimote, like the aforementioned Wario Ware, Zelda, Mario Galaxy, and one of my favorites, Super Monkey Ball (the darts minigame is awesome).
I’ve had my Wii for 1 year and 3 days and I’ve played it at least several times a week since then. In my opinion it’s the most entertaining gaming system evar.
–FCOD
p.s. I love Disney too, avec my own frigging better judgement.
Wii Sports is basically a tech demo, albeit a fun one. Even some of the really good games mentioned here (Twilight Princess and Resident Evil) were designed for conventional controllers and only retrofitted for Wii control after the fact. When the next Zelda game, which will be designed from the ground up for the Wiimote controls, comes out, we’ll see whether Wii lives up to its potential.
I’d like to play more of the Wii and its games. I see some great potential for it, especially in sports games and possibly first person shooters. I have yet to play those, though. All I’ve played is the demo disc, and it’s fun and interesting, I find myself wondering if that’s all to it as well. Of course, I’ll know one way or another if I ever get my mitts on a decent game for it.
While I’ll agree with others that the Wii Sports games don’t give the full range of possibilities with the Wiimote, you have obviously barely scratched the surface of what is there. Several of your points are just plain wrong.
Wii Tennis- It is annoying you can’t control the positioning of the players (my main beef), but there’s quite a bit more to swinging your racket than just timing. You can lob (swing up on your follow through), topspin (roll the Wiimote forward as you swing), backspin (roll the Wiimote backward as you swing; alternately, I seem to get the same effect by “chopping” my swing downwards, like a chop shot), overhand (swing forward with the Wiimote upright rather than sideways), and overhand smash (hit an overhand with the ball at its apex). The speed of your shots is affected by the speed of your swing, but within a fairly limited range.
Baseball- Your pitch speed is affected by the speed of your throw, down to some minimum. To throw a blazing fastball, flick the Wiimote down fast at the wrist (or buff up so you can do it with a normal pitching motion; I hear steroids are good for that). For batting, you want speed and angle (a rising swing to go for distance, a lowering swing for grounders). I find it helps to use two hands to get the motion right.
For minigames, I think Tennis and Bowling are great, Baseball’s okay, and Golf and Boxing are lacking. No doubt all of them could stand improvement, though, and I look forward to more full-fledged games using the full capabilities of the Wiimote. Tiger Woods is a good version of Golf, but where oh where are the others?
I’ll trhrow this in there as well- What are some good “party” games for the wii? I would like to pick up something fun for a few gatherings I have coming up. I have heard of the previously mentioned Raving Rabidds and Wario Ware. Are these good choices?
I’m looking for something with broad appeal that doesn’t need much practice to get going.
As for my personal satisfaction, Mario Galaxy may be the best realized Mario game ever, which is saying something. The ability to move non-linearly is great here, as is the control, and the graphics are beautiful.
I have enjoyed the Zelda game as well, but I drifted away from it when I was in the castle town. I haven’t felt compelled to go back. Resident Evil 4 was also very well done.
Then again, I was playing my least favorite genre (fighting game) and I’m lazy like that. I wanted to pull off my super moves with the minimal amount of effort and it just wasn’t working out as well as I liked.
I know the Wii will be that much harder to resist once the new Smash Bros. comes out…