Sunday, December 21, 2008

Wii.

Wait, have I posted about this before? Maybe. If so, I'm doing it again.
So this is kind of a random post since nothing really prompted it. But I don't like the Wii. There, I said it. I spent my childhood with Nintendo, I loved their games to death. I practically exploded in joy when we got our Gamecube, which was my first televised game system.
But now we have the Wii, which washed away Nintendo's previous charisma. They sort of still work the same, they still have a lot of exclusive first party games and they're continuing their old series and all that, but it just doesn't feel like Nintendo anymore. Maybe it's that controller. Moving away from the traditional "game controller" design may have brought in many housewives and old folks, but it's turned off most of the gamers. Motion control is fancy and it does make for some pretty interesting games, but a lot of the time the games feel shoehorned to the motion control and would be infinitely better with a regular controller. SSBB was wise to make both Gamecube controllers and the Wii Classic Controller an option, but unfortunately SSBB was just SSBM with less fun. But I digress.
I think the Wiimote would've been dandy as a secondary controller for the motion-control games only. That way, we wouldn't have all the games that could be good forcing themselves to use motion and then all the good motion-control games could really shine. Right now I am going to point out WarioWare Smooth Moves. I haven't played it a lot, but it's probably one of the best uses for motion control I've seen yet.
Now that we've covered the controller, let's look at the actual system. It doesn't feel, look, or taste like a game system. I don't know what it does look like, but not a game system. When you turn it on you get greeted with a warning message and then a menu, no fancy startup screen like we had with the Gamecube and no instant-game like with the N64. Maybe the controller not being a traditional controller also contributes to this. The packaging doesn't make it look like a game system either. Under the hood, it's underpowered, almost as if it's stuck between this gen and last gen. This definitely contributes to it not having enough good games, the developers want to put their best on the 360 and PS3 because now that the hardware allows, they really can make any game that comes to mind. 
Speaking of the games, how about them games? There just aren't enough good ones. Yes, it does have it's good games. But there's not enough. Mostly all they've done is made a new game for each famous franchise of theirs and then there's nothing else. No game companies are putting anything on it because there's nothing to put on it. So instead, all the little companies and non-game companies are throwing random crap at it. Nintendo's also made a "Wii" series, which was decent (for a pack-in game) at first but now it's just a collection of "hey look at what we can do." Wii Sports was pretty good for a pack-in, Wii Play was arguably better, then Wii Fit was just kind of "what" and Wii Music has no purpose. And how about them balance boards? Sure, it's another unique way of playing games, but I can't say I'm particularly interested.
Anyway that's all I have to say, unless I think of something and update this. Hopefully Nintendo will stop trying to be "advanced" with their next system and focus on making the best thing they can.

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