Archive for December, 2006

PLAY

Wii (WII) – Regardless of any, you know, games, the Wii itself is a fun toy. When first starting it up I did the boring stuff of entering settings, getting it online, learning how to use the pointer, downloading Super Mario 64 and Donkey Kong, etc. (Pointer was all over the place at first, but became more natural very quickly. Both familiarity and clearing the coffee table that’s between the Wiimote and sensor did their part.) Then it was into the Mii Channel. I handed my wife the Wiimote and she made her Mii, then I made mine. Over the course of the weekend my wife and I made a lot of celebrity Miis, some better than others. Jason Voorhees didn’t look right, but was great nonetheless. I did a pretty good Asajj Ventress, given the parts available and my Count Dooku is okay. Wasn’t very happy with my Earl Hickey. Wife’s Marilyn Monroe and Sadako were ace. Also tried out the photo channel with a couple of photos we’d emailed over to the Wii. They didn’t look too great and I wasn’t sure what the point was, really. (Doesn’t handle GIFs, either.) Exchanged a few messages with friends, which was nice, but won’t replace email. And all the time I marvelled at how nice the image looked, despite being on a rubbish composite connection. Not sure how they’ve done it, but it’s really very impressive and much, much better than I was expecting. Anyway – games!

Wii Play (WII) – This was the first game we tried. Two player all the way. Games are simple and some are better others, but we had great fun and it was a nice introduction to the ways of the Wiimote. Wife really didn’t enjoy the cow-steering game. The best ones were probably laser hockey and fishing for us. Not sure which of them would be good in single player mode, if any. Maybe tanks and billiards. Charging full price for this would be a joke, for a fiver it’s excellent as an introduction.

Wii Sports (WII) – I tried golf in single player first, while my wife tended to her Pony Island ponies online. Took me twenty-eight shots to do the three easy holes first time I tried, took twelve the second time. That’s some improvement. Then – yay! – back to two players for the rest of the game. Bowling first. It’s awesome, really awesome. A bit too easy, maybe, but great fun. And suddenly spotting a Mii representation of one of my friends standing watching was a great moment. Tennis was okay, but we didn’t play long. Baseball was great fun and, after bowling, probably my favourite. Finally, boxing. It’s hard and tiring and wife beat me in both bouts and enjoyed the experience far more than I thought she should have done. And that was it. We played Wii Sports that once and haven’t since. Not because it was bad, but because other games took over. We keep telling each other that we need to play it more, we’ve just not got round to it. (It would be helpful if it was built into the console, instead of being on a disc. Moon, stick, I know.)

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (WII) – This is superb. Absolutely superb. The levels are very well designed without any of the rubbish gimmicks of Super Monkey Ball 2, the jump mechanic fits in surprisingly well, it’s nicely presented, the bosses are quite fun, the credits are skippable and, most of all, the controls are perfect. Some people say they take a while to get to grips with, but I didn’t find that. Don’t know if it was my Wii Play and Wii Sports training or what, but I felt comfortable with them from the beginning. I’m not very good, but that’s my fault, not the control’s.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (WII) – The big game of the launch. The solid, sit-down epic. Didn’t dare start it up until 9pm on Saturday, but by the end of Sunday I’d put in eleven hours. It eats time. And it’s brilliant. I’m not the world’s biggest Zelda fan by any means, but this is just superb. I love the using hand motions for swordplay, fishing and aiming. The game, even through the Wii’s default composite connection, looks gorgeous. (I’d love to see it in 720p using upgraded textures, yes, and I really, really want my RGB SCART cable to arrive, but even as it is it looks wonderful.) It’s just captivating, with fun combat mechanics and puzzles that have stumped me just long enough, but not too long. (Though I had to leave the second dungeon with two chests unclaimed. No idea how to get to them.) I’ve just finished the second dungeon now with, as I said, eleven hours on the clock. I think this will be a big one.

And then there’s the virtual console games.

Super Mario 64 (WII) – Well, I can’t think of anything new to say about this. Though I will say that despite being pretty happy with d-pad controls on the original DS, having the analogue stick back is glorious.

Donkey Kong (WII) – Seems too easy to me. I had to leave my first game unfinished as it was taking so long and come back to lose my last life later. (At least the Wii saves the game when you quit out.)

Super Star Soldier (WII) – Not sure if it’s a great vertical shooter, but it’s a vertical shooter, which is enough.

Bonk’s Adventure (WII) – It’s a fun platform game. Not earth-shattering, but worth a look.

WANT

Rayman Raving Rabbids (WII) – Short, I’ve heard. I’ve also heard that not all the games are much fun. And it’s not in widescreen, incredibly. But I still want it. And since seeing the trailer, so does my wife.

Gunstar Heroes (WII) – Being added to the virtual console this Friday, according to a list I saw of upcoming releases. Don’t know how accurate it was, but I live in hope. Castlevania IV was shown as coming before the end of the month, too.

BIN

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (WII) – Yes, the main game is amazing, but the mini-games are appalling. Okay, not all of them. Monkey Wars is a nice tech demo and there’s a fairly fun flying game in there, with you flying a bird through glowing rings. The others I tried ranged from the boring to the broken. A lot of the one that relied on a pointer just didn’t seem to work at all and really should have been removed from the game. I’m sure they were there just so the back of the box could say “50 mini games!” because they’re just awful, terrible, broken things.

Wii (WII) – Some minor complaints. Using IR technology at all is annoying, meaning the remote has to have line-of-sight for pointing games. Not sure what else they could have done, but it’s annoying. Channels take longer to load than I’d like. Waiting for the Mii channel to load is painful, despite only being on a black screen for about five seconds. Very odd that it should be so annoying, but it feels wrong. And my Wiimote turned itself off when the channel was loading once, which was odd. The lack of better video cables at launch is very annoying, as are the supply issues generally. Apart from that, I can’t really think of anything to complain about.