Now we have the games of the Wii: including a look at what could’ve been.
Hopes for 2006
Initially the 2006 line-up for the Wii looked great. The last of the “original” E3, Nintendo made a bang with its game lineup.
There was Super Mario Galaxy, the first true sequel to Super Mario 64 (Super Mario Sunshine doesn’t count).
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl were announced. There was Red Steel, a third-party game that involved using the Wii controller as a gun or a sword. Wii Sports was simple yet innovative. Wii Music looked fun, and some new franchises from Nintendo, Disaster: Day of Crisis and Project H.A.M.M.E.R..
The best games were yet to come. And yet, they didn’t.
Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, and the new Metroid game, were all released around or soon after launch and garnered positive reviews, with more expected to come. Red Steel also was released but got mixed reviews.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released nearly a year after the Wii and got great reviews. But instead of being a start of a great year, it was a disappointment. Wii Music was delayed for the longest time and ended up being a very simple Guitar Hero-type knockoff. And Disaster: Day of Crisis and Project H.A.M.M.E.R. were unceremoniously forgotten. Remember the GameCube’s Raven Blade? It was never released. As 2008 and 2009 dragged on, no “great games” were released for the Wii. Meanwhile, Nintendo went after the “non-gamers”, including senior citizens and the moms who once rallied against Nintendo, but ignored their original demographic completely.
By late 2009, the battle was practically lost. Despite the Wii’s profitability and ease-of-use, the Wii market was crammed with non-games (Wii Fit knockoffs and other not-quite-games...see your local GameStop for what I mean.)
Meanwhile, what I predicted what would happen in 2006 couldn’t of been farther off the mark: the PlayStation 3 got its act together and put its screaming power to good use. It now has a bunch of games that Nintendo will probably never get its hands on. Plus, it has a Blu-Ray player. Very cool. The third parties did NOT join up with Nintendo (or, God forbid, ABANDON others for Nintendo). No “real” Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, or Katamari Damacy.
The Wii just couldn’t get a hold on good games. Why?
1) The nontraditional default control scheme (see previous entry)
2) The graphics are inferior to Xbox 360 and PS3. That never stopped the PS2, though...
3) Marketing and Nintendo’s behavior completely ignored “hardcore” games.
Right now, we are in early 2010 and it is painfully obvious that despite a promising start, the Wii is not the “hardcore gaming device” and certainly not the PlayStation-killer we all thought it was. But it’s just Nintendo. How did they get themselves in this situation? The answer starts in the early 1990s...but that’s another story (and another blog!)
Showing posts with label Dislike of Wii. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dislike of Wii. Show all posts
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
A Dislike of the Wii Part Two: The Control Scheme
The Wii remote was an innovation and quickly became the darling of the Wii's late 2006 release. Rather than "thumbing it" with the joystick, with the bundled Wii Sports, you could actually use the Wii remote to use semi-"real" motions: swinging golf clubs, playing tennis, bowling, boxing, or baseball. But what began as an awesome control setup quickly fell apart almost from Day One. Why?
1. What Can You Do With This Thing, Again?
The Wii remote was highly praised in the beginning, and hopes were that some truly awesome game (such as Star Wars lightsaber duels) would make the Wii remote so awesome compared to the traditional joysticks of the Xbox 360 and PS3. But it was quickly realized that it just didn't work that way. The Wii remote has a weak rumble and no force feedback. Try this: swing your forearm around as if you had a Wii remote in it. Now try to stick your other forearm out and block it while swinging. In the Wii world, there's no way to feel force-feedback. Physically, you can't tell if you hit a wall, a tree, or someone's internal organs.
Red Steel, a highly-anticipated launch title, was disappointing and in the worst cases, caused nausea.
2. Tied to a Cinderblock
The Wii has a special port on the bottom of it for attaching other peripherals, such as the Nunchuck. With the Nunchuck, you get a joystick and another button. But the whole system becomes woeful when you factor in everything else. The Classic Controller, for instance, can allow you to play traditionally, but rather than plugging into the USB port on the Wii (yes, it has one), you have to get a Wii remote and plug the not-quite-long-enough cord into the Wii. To play four player on the Virtual Console, you'll have to get four Wii remotes and four Classic Controllers, which would set you back well past $150. Guitar Hero and Rock Band share an even more irritating puzzle. Rather than plugging them into the USB port (or better yet, wireless), you have to plug the Wii remote into the actual systems. For Guitar Hero, this is particularly cumbersome, kind of destroying the "pick up and play" type atmosphere.
3. Main Menu
You can use the Wii remote to navigate around menus, but it is not fun to do. If you have a shaky hand or a ray of sunlight entering the room, the little "hand" will be extremely fidgety. Even less fun is using an onscreen keyboard for Internet browsing (and yes, you have to pay for the browser). In a more ideal world, you can bypass the awkward remote by plugging in your keyboard and mouse of choice into the USB port. But you can't!
4. One Controller Fits All But Not for Wii Users
In every single console ever released (there may be a few exceptions), all games minus some obscure special ones, were playable with a regular controller. In the original Atari 2600 games, such as Pitfall!, Space Invaders, and Kaboom!.
The NES saved the industry while the directional pad replaced the kludgy and hard-to-use joystick. Fun to use on games like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., and perhaps Mega Man 2.
You can go on and on.
But the Wii remote is NOT fun. With just the Wii remote, games become too easy or too hard. Games are not ported or changed significantly to fit into the Wii's system. The Classic Controller is needed make it resemble a good game.
5. Don't Rest on Your Laurels
Meanwhile, Xbox 360, which did hold to the "one controller" scheme is finally introducing something that will eat Wii's lunch. Unlike Microsoft's other competitors to other products, "Project Natal" looks like a defeater to the Wii. Unlike the EyeToy, Project Natal "enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller through a natural user interface using gestures, spoken commands, or presented objects and images." That way, you can keep your Xbox 360 controllers while you just use your hands, controller free. Will it work? We'll see...
Tune in next time for "Games and Functionality".
1. What Can You Do With This Thing, Again?
The Wii remote was highly praised in the beginning, and hopes were that some truly awesome game (such as Star Wars lightsaber duels) would make the Wii remote so awesome compared to the traditional joysticks of the Xbox 360 and PS3. But it was quickly realized that it just didn't work that way. The Wii remote has a weak rumble and no force feedback. Try this: swing your forearm around as if you had a Wii remote in it. Now try to stick your other forearm out and block it while swinging. In the Wii world, there's no way to feel force-feedback. Physically, you can't tell if you hit a wall, a tree, or someone's internal organs.
Red Steel, a highly-anticipated launch title, was disappointing and in the worst cases, caused nausea.
2. Tied to a Cinderblock
The Wii has a special port on the bottom of it for attaching other peripherals, such as the Nunchuck. With the Nunchuck, you get a joystick and another button. But the whole system becomes woeful when you factor in everything else. The Classic Controller, for instance, can allow you to play traditionally, but rather than plugging into the USB port on the Wii (yes, it has one), you have to get a Wii remote and plug the not-quite-long-enough cord into the Wii. To play four player on the Virtual Console, you'll have to get four Wii remotes and four Classic Controllers, which would set you back well past $150. Guitar Hero and Rock Band share an even more irritating puzzle. Rather than plugging them into the USB port (or better yet, wireless), you have to plug the Wii remote into the actual systems. For Guitar Hero, this is particularly cumbersome, kind of destroying the "pick up and play" type atmosphere.
3. Main Menu
You can use the Wii remote to navigate around menus, but it is not fun to do. If you have a shaky hand or a ray of sunlight entering the room, the little "hand" will be extremely fidgety. Even less fun is using an onscreen keyboard for Internet browsing (and yes, you have to pay for the browser). In a more ideal world, you can bypass the awkward remote by plugging in your keyboard and mouse of choice into the USB port. But you can't!
4. One Controller Fits All But Not for Wii Users
In every single console ever released (there may be a few exceptions), all games minus some obscure special ones, were playable with a regular controller. In the original Atari 2600 games, such as Pitfall!, Space Invaders, and Kaboom!.
The NES saved the industry while the directional pad replaced the kludgy and hard-to-use joystick. Fun to use on games like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., and perhaps Mega Man 2.
You can go on and on.
But the Wii remote is NOT fun. With just the Wii remote, games become too easy or too hard. Games are not ported or changed significantly to fit into the Wii's system. The Classic Controller is needed make it resemble a good game.
5. Don't Rest on Your Laurels
Meanwhile, Xbox 360, which did hold to the "one controller" scheme is finally introducing something that will eat Wii's lunch. Unlike Microsoft's other competitors to other products, "Project Natal" looks like a defeater to the Wii. Unlike the EyeToy, Project Natal "enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller through a natural user interface using gestures, spoken commands, or presented objects and images." That way, you can keep your Xbox 360 controllers while you just use your hands, controller free. Will it work? We'll see...
Tune in next time for "Games and Functionality".
Sunday, January 24, 2010
A Dislike of the Wii Part One: The Virtual Console
I do not hate the Wii because I am a fanboy of the “other consoles”, I am merely disappointed with the Wii when it comes to potential and Nintendo.
In this series I shall focus on things I dislike about the Wii. The first installment will focus on the Virtual Console. The Virtual Console was a highly touted feature of the Wii and promised to allow you to buy older video games in a DLC format. You would pay 500 Wii Points for an NES game, 800 for a SNES game, and 1000 for a Nintendo 64 game. Each Wii Point was worth about a penny (or a bit more than that, when you factor in taxes), so a NES game would be $5. For 2006 and at the release, $5 sounded quite reasonable. There was the promise of new titles, and possibly other consoles down the road. Especially lucrative was the thought that the Wii could kick the butt of the $600 PlayStation 3, which was potentially heading for a disaster...the PS3 was graphically superior and more powerful than any other game console on the market, but the $600 price would scare away consumers. In a Nintendo fan’s mind, defeating the PlayStation 3 would mean that PlayStation games would come over to Nintendo, finally ending the PlayStation rivalry that plagued the N64 and GameCube. But it didn’t happen that way. Why? We’ll discuss THAT later. Virtual Console was supposed to be the equivalent of the iTunes store, which was quite big at the time. The Virtual Console wasn’t really so easy, plagued by the fidgety control scheme (we’ll discuss that later too) and whole “feel” of it. When you downloaded a game, you don’t get a full manual, only a brief description of controls. And you can’t make a hard copy of a game (as you would, say, downloading music). Most irritating is the fact that unlike PC digital distribution site Steam, you can’t run Wii games ANYWHERE besides THAT WII. In an ideal world, you can “remove” Wii games through an SD card (SD cards are merely there for “overflow” uses) and play them on another Wii or heck...maybe a real computer. We won’t talk about the antiquated pricing system, that’s already been covered elsewhere on the Internet. Add to the fact that the money being spent really goes nowhere: some money is spent on ESRB ratings, but none really goes to the original creator. Unlike the original games, no game you buy pays the creator’s rent.
Alright, what do we have so far?
1) Poor documentation
2) Overpriced
3) No transfers.
But there is more. The fourth thing is Game Changes. If I really want to “recreate” the old gaming experience, I gotta have the original game. Many of these games have made changes, some understandable, but some leave you scratching your head.
I refuse to buy Wave Race 64 solely on the fact that the original game was called Wave Race 64 Kawasaki Jet Ski and featured in-game ads for Kawasaki. Rather than attempting to renew the license, all ads were removed. But instead of making a clever knock-off replacement (Mario Kart 64 in Japan had “Mariobro” signs on racetracks, a parody of “Marlboro”) the Kawasaki ads were replaced with obnoxious green Wii ads. Thus comes a constant reminder that it’s NOT 1997 anymore, and it is a clearly different game.
StarTropics has more than a few problems. It was innovative in the olden days for featuring a use of a yo-yo for fighting. But in the VC version, the “Island Yo-Yo” is replaced with “Island Star” because yo-yo is still trademarked in Canada. Also innovative was the “physical item” as an anti-piracy measure. In the case of StarTropics it was a physical piece of paper you had to dip in water to reveal a secret code. But in the Virtual Console, there’s apparently a virtual piece of paper that you dip in a picture of a bucket of water. Or something like that.
Kid Icarus still holds to a password-based system, but the password ICARUS FIGHTS MEDUSA ANGELS was removed, which started you on the last stage with invincibility.
Tecmo Bowl originally had NFL players on it, but because EA owns the license to NFL games, no player names are available.
Zelda II: Link’s Adventure had the red-and-black death sequence altered due to seizure reduction statutes.
Mario Kart 64 (and other 1997/1998-era N64 games) can’t use the Memory Pak to store ghost data, even though the Wii is perfectly capable of replicating it.
Meanwhile, hundreds of games are off-limits. A lot of good NES and SNES games were commercial licensed properties. Various examples include...
DuckTales for the NES. Despite being a good game in the days (when licensed games were actually pretty good), it isn’t expected to come onto the VC due to the fact that Disney did (and still does) own the property. DuckTales also covers a larger branch of games.
Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is missing. Although the title they have for the VC is admittedly a real NES game (Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream), Mike Tyson’s version will not be seen. I mean, Nintendo lost the license back in the 1980s when Tyson lost his championship, and that was BEFORE Tyson pulled all the stunts in the 1990s (like ear-biting, for instance).
EarthBound, because Nintendo likes spiting EB fans.
Earthworm Jim is another big problem because they ported the Genesis version, which has terrible play control compared to SNES.
Banjo-Kazooie because Microsoft owns Rare, and Banjo-Kazooie is on THEIR system.
The fifth complaint I have is the lack of titles. Nintendo only releases three titles every week (of dubious quality) but somehow Japan has managed to get nearly 200 more games than North America. The systems are lacking, too. There’s Commodore-64 games finally available but you actually can’t use a real USB keyboard when playing Commodore games, an on-screen keyboard comes up.
The sixth complaint is that there’s no other way to play old Nintendo NES games legally. Nintendo never ported to the computers nor released a compatibility system to play them. Emulators with ROMs are technically illegal, but they provide a superb way of playing them to Virtual Console. You can play any game you want without waiting for the mystery games that are released every week. I mean, the App Store on the iPhone was newer than the Wii yet there are now tens of thousands of applications there. And I bet that when the Wii is dead and gone, many console games will be left in the cold.
The seventh complaint is that Nintendo only listens to themselves. Who cares if the fans demand Game X and Nintendo decides to release Game Y? Nintendo will get money either way. I can write about why I hate the Virtual Console and get a million hits but Nintendo won’t ever care. I would normally suggest writing Nintendo a heartfelt letter about their policies and why they should change it, but that’s been done.
It has never worked. The only way to bypass the system (legally) is to keep using that N64/SNES/NES and snap up games at the local pawn shop or flea market. The way to (illegally) bypass the system is just to download ROMs, use your favorite USB joystick, and have fun.
Thanks for reading!
In this series I shall focus on things I dislike about the Wii. The first installment will focus on the Virtual Console. The Virtual Console was a highly touted feature of the Wii and promised to allow you to buy older video games in a DLC format. You would pay 500 Wii Points for an NES game, 800 for a SNES game, and 1000 for a Nintendo 64 game. Each Wii Point was worth about a penny (or a bit more than that, when you factor in taxes), so a NES game would be $5. For 2006 and at the release, $5 sounded quite reasonable. There was the promise of new titles, and possibly other consoles down the road. Especially lucrative was the thought that the Wii could kick the butt of the $600 PlayStation 3, which was potentially heading for a disaster...the PS3 was graphically superior and more powerful than any other game console on the market, but the $600 price would scare away consumers. In a Nintendo fan’s mind, defeating the PlayStation 3 would mean that PlayStation games would come over to Nintendo, finally ending the PlayStation rivalry that plagued the N64 and GameCube. But it didn’t happen that way. Why? We’ll discuss THAT later. Virtual Console was supposed to be the equivalent of the iTunes store, which was quite big at the time. The Virtual Console wasn’t really so easy, plagued by the fidgety control scheme (we’ll discuss that later too) and whole “feel” of it. When you downloaded a game, you don’t get a full manual, only a brief description of controls. And you can’t make a hard copy of a game (as you would, say, downloading music). Most irritating is the fact that unlike PC digital distribution site Steam, you can’t run Wii games ANYWHERE besides THAT WII. In an ideal world, you can “remove” Wii games through an SD card (SD cards are merely there for “overflow” uses) and play them on another Wii or heck...maybe a real computer. We won’t talk about the antiquated pricing system, that’s already been covered elsewhere on the Internet. Add to the fact that the money being spent really goes nowhere: some money is spent on ESRB ratings, but none really goes to the original creator. Unlike the original games, no game you buy pays the creator’s rent.
Alright, what do we have so far?
1) Poor documentation
2) Overpriced
3) No transfers.
But there is more. The fourth thing is Game Changes. If I really want to “recreate” the old gaming experience, I gotta have the original game. Many of these games have made changes, some understandable, but some leave you scratching your head.
I refuse to buy Wave Race 64 solely on the fact that the original game was called Wave Race 64 Kawasaki Jet Ski and featured in-game ads for Kawasaki. Rather than attempting to renew the license, all ads were removed. But instead of making a clever knock-off replacement (Mario Kart 64 in Japan had “Mariobro” signs on racetracks, a parody of “Marlboro”) the Kawasaki ads were replaced with obnoxious green Wii ads. Thus comes a constant reminder that it’s NOT 1997 anymore, and it is a clearly different game.
StarTropics has more than a few problems. It was innovative in the olden days for featuring a use of a yo-yo for fighting. But in the VC version, the “Island Yo-Yo” is replaced with “Island Star” because yo-yo is still trademarked in Canada. Also innovative was the “physical item” as an anti-piracy measure. In the case of StarTropics it was a physical piece of paper you had to dip in water to reveal a secret code. But in the Virtual Console, there’s apparently a virtual piece of paper that you dip in a picture of a bucket of water. Or something like that.
Kid Icarus still holds to a password-based system, but the password ICARUS FIGHTS MEDUSA ANGELS was removed, which started you on the last stage with invincibility.
Tecmo Bowl originally had NFL players on it, but because EA owns the license to NFL games, no player names are available.
Zelda II: Link’s Adventure had the red-and-black death sequence altered due to seizure reduction statutes.
Mario Kart 64 (and other 1997/1998-era N64 games) can’t use the Memory Pak to store ghost data, even though the Wii is perfectly capable of replicating it.
Meanwhile, hundreds of games are off-limits. A lot of good NES and SNES games were commercial licensed properties. Various examples include...
DuckTales for the NES. Despite being a good game in the days (when licensed games were actually pretty good), it isn’t expected to come onto the VC due to the fact that Disney did (and still does) own the property. DuckTales also covers a larger branch of games.
Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is missing. Although the title they have for the VC is admittedly a real NES game (Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream), Mike Tyson’s version will not be seen. I mean, Nintendo lost the license back in the 1980s when Tyson lost his championship, and that was BEFORE Tyson pulled all the stunts in the 1990s (like ear-biting, for instance).
EarthBound, because Nintendo likes spiting EB fans.
Earthworm Jim is another big problem because they ported the Genesis version, which has terrible play control compared to SNES.
Banjo-Kazooie because Microsoft owns Rare, and Banjo-Kazooie is on THEIR system.
The fifth complaint I have is the lack of titles. Nintendo only releases three titles every week (of dubious quality) but somehow Japan has managed to get nearly 200 more games than North America. The systems are lacking, too. There’s Commodore-64 games finally available but you actually can’t use a real USB keyboard when playing Commodore games, an on-screen keyboard comes up.
The sixth complaint is that there’s no other way to play old Nintendo NES games legally. Nintendo never ported to the computers nor released a compatibility system to play them. Emulators with ROMs are technically illegal, but they provide a superb way of playing them to Virtual Console. You can play any game you want without waiting for the mystery games that are released every week. I mean, the App Store on the iPhone was newer than the Wii yet there are now tens of thousands of applications there. And I bet that when the Wii is dead and gone, many console games will be left in the cold.
The seventh complaint is that Nintendo only listens to themselves. Who cares if the fans demand Game X and Nintendo decides to release Game Y? Nintendo will get money either way. I can write about why I hate the Virtual Console and get a million hits but Nintendo won’t ever care. I would normally suggest writing Nintendo a heartfelt letter about their policies and why they should change it, but that’s been done.
It has never worked. The only way to bypass the system (legally) is to keep using that N64/SNES/NES and snap up games at the local pawn shop or flea market. The way to (illegally) bypass the system is just to download ROMs, use your favorite USB joystick, and have fun.
Thanks for reading!
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