Disagreeing with the majority of our last review for Wii which managed to score a ridiculous 100%, I decided to write a second opinion review and give you guys an honest scope.
The Launch.
From watching videos and seeing photographs of launches around the world, I had high expectations for the launch in my small home town. On the news, there were stories of people camping out 2 days before launch to get a hold of the Wii system, which really got me thinking “How early should I start queuing?. Because my local GAME is situated inside a Shopping complex, launch wasn’t going to happen at midnight. However, the store was prepared to open early at 7am for us eager-beavers who were after the system.
After my usual chat with the guys in GAME, along with others who intended to buy a Wii launch, it seemed to me that everyone was under the impression that this town was going to have a pretty spectacular launch, just like USA and Japan had.
Not expecting to be first, and being guaranteed a Wii system, I set out to hang around GAME at 6am, more to try and catch a glimmer of the Nintendo atmosphere that is shown in all of the videos and pictures that I had seen. Unfortunately, I had no success. I arrived at 6am sharp, and nobody was around.. Two things came to mind… 1. I had the wrong day, or 2. All but one door into the Shopping complex were locked.
I also had a few moments to reflect as to whether the Wii wasn’t going to be the major hit that USA and Japan had experienced. Around half an hour until launch, and still nobody had turned up.
By the time people turned up, the store was nearly ready to open. One or two of the people I had spoken to seemed pretty ignorant, which didn’t really give me the atmosphere I was hoping for. The staff at GAME handled the launch professionally and brought the launch to life.
I received a Raving Rabbid for queuing, who is now sat by my Sensor Bar with his football.
I bid my farewell to the staff in the store, who weren’t too busy to respond, and I left the store. Unfortunately, nobody in the queue trailing out the store at this time had the courtesy to say anything, and kept to themselves.. So overall, I was disappointed with the way the ‘so called’ Wii fans handled the launch in such an ignorant manner, but I was more than happy with the way GAME handled the launch.
The staff seemed to have had a blast though.
When I got outside, I was greeted by one or two other Wii owners, who seemed pretty friendly and chatted whilst their taxi’s arrived. I guess if everyone had have been like that, it would have been a more pleasant experience all round.
Fortunately, most of the major cities had a blast and the odd town had a good time, but I still think the inhabitants of my town are ignorant fuckers who should have mingled a bit more whilst waiting…
The Console
First impressions were great.. For the size, the Wii is actually fairly weighty, and attracts dust like a magnet. The smooth surface is like that of the Nintendo DS lite, and the stand for the Wii does cause one or two marks on the console.
The blue optical drive light seemed to be a trademark feature of the Wii console but rarely makes an appearance. When the system it turned on, or someone sends you a message, the light will turn on and then turn off. Nothing spectacular…
The Wii GUI is great, although I find it a bit annoying that there are two channels that aren’t in use which are already there and cannot be moved.
The Shopping Channel.
When connecting to the Shopping Channel (which takes a long time, I might add), Nintendo performs a forced upgrade on the Wii to lock out potential exploits with the software and make the system run smoother, or give it new features. I was presented with a lengthy Terms and Agreements page with some pretty harsh information to digest, but I guess it’s all there for clarification.
After agreeing, I was presented with the Wii Shop, where I could purchase Virtual Console games, software, and add Shop Points.
The shop points can be bought from a store, or purchased online.
?6.99 for 1000 points
?21 for 3000 points
?35 for 5000 points
Anyone else feel a bit ripped off here? Basically, the more points you’re buying, the more you spend. You save 5p if you purchase 5 loads of 1000 points. Surely Nintendo should do a money SAVING incentive to get people purchasing more points, after all, the virtual console isn’t really costing them that much money.
The games are a joke too! 500 points for a NES game, 800 for SNES and 1000 for N64. That means, I can buy a NES game for ?3.50 and Nintendo 64 games for ?7. Anyone else feeling ripped off? I can buy the original games for less than that, and not risk losing them.
Whilst I haven’t tried the virtual console games, the Classic Controller feels really comfortable. There are 2 groves in the back of the controller as if it was to have something clip on, but nothing has been announced so far.
The Photo Channel
Now, the Wii makes use of the SD card reader and the Bluetooth to be able to view pictures and movies from SD cards and phones. Whilst it’s not really that useful by itself, it does give you the ability to have fun with the pictures, by drawing on them, adding things to the pictures, and even do jigsaw puzzles with photos.
The fun only lasts around 3 minutes, and then it gets tiresome.
There is also the ability to attach images to your message board, which serves no major purpose really.
Mii
Cheap and tacky looking. There could be more variety in the Miis, including more hats, glasses, tattoos, scars, etc, and their body types could be a bit more sophisticated than a ball handed, fat, thin, tall or small person.. Where are jugs? Girls do have breasts.. How do you expect us to make celebrities like Jordan if we can’t give them Boobs? And it’s not just women who have breasts, some men do as well!
Whilst Mii’s are a nice addition to the Wii, they could be a lot better, because my Mii doesn’t look like me, and probably never will.
A cool feature is being able to let your Mii’s join a friend’s parade on their console, but has no real purpose besides that.
Loading Games
I was disappointed with the time it took to recognise a disc, the Gamecube appears to do this a lot faster. Nintendo might have employed a new disc verification checking method to prevent piracy (especially since Action replay and Freeloader don’t work on my Wii, and Datel aren’t licensed to publish their products on any Nintendo products anyway, thus, stopping Gamecube piracy that could lead to Wii piracy).
Performance
A review for Zelda will be coming up soon, but I needed to point this out. There are times within Zelda where Link has to combat a large quantity of enemies at once, and the game does lag up severely, so is there REALLY that much room for developers to push the boundaries of the Wii? The Gamecube did a good job at preventing lag within games, but from my experience, it’s present in some Wii games, which makes me wonder whether Nintendo should have put more power under the hood, to keep a firm foot on the ground.
Wii Remote
Nintendo claims the Wii remote will keep batteries running for 60 hours, or 30 hours if the pointer is being used. Besides all games using the pointer, you’d be lucky to even get 30 hours out of the best brand.
The controller rumbles every time you move to another menu, which -although isn’t annoying- must reek havoc on the batteries life expectancy alone. The rumble feature can be turned off, but I prefer it on, despite it killing batteries.
The speaker is loud crackly and downright crappy. The quality that is being spewed out is terrible, for any game, and sounds really cheap and at times, reminds me of a ?12 fisher price learning toy. Reducing the crackling noise isn’t too hard since you can turn the volume down, which then makes the speaker bearable. The poor sound quality really doesn’t immerse me in the game, any more than you’d imagine it would. It’s no shock that Nintendo never gave a proper demonstration of the sound which comes out of the Wii Remote. This is a feature that just bumps up the cost of the controller, but I guess it makes good use of the Bluetooth capabilities.
The Nunchuk attachment is very comfortable to hold, and makes you wonder why Nintendo opted for such a horrible blocky design for the remote. It comes with a Z and C button, in addition to the analogue stick. It also contains motion sensors which can help with certain actions.
To be fair, keyboard and mouse doesn’t have shit on the Wii remote and Nunchuk combination, and in my opinion, they could certainly out-do the keyboard and mouse. It provides the same accuracy through 3 dimensions, instead of the two that a mouse provides, in addition to other motion capabilities, and buttons; it isn’t limited by the desk, mouse or mouse mat that you use; and the analogue stick makes movement at lot more refined and accurate.
When I told my friends that the keyboard and mouse doesn’t have shit on the Wii remote and Nunchuk they had to disagree, well unfortunately for them, they haven’t had the pleasure of using the Wii remote and Nunchuk in a first person shooter game.
The Sensor Bar
Although, not quite a sensor bar, it does provide some infrared LEDs so that the Wii Remote can calculate its position on screen. The bad thing about the Sensor Bar and Wii Remote combination is that you’re never REALLY pointing the remote at the screen, you’re pointing it relative to the sensor bar.
Playing With Your Neighbours through the wall..
I’m not sure if anyone has experienced this anomaly yet, but the other day, I turned on my Wii and I was locked as player 2.. I checked my other remote to see if it was player 1, but with no luck… It seems that one of the issues of using Bluetooth are that you can easily become a part of your next door neighbours game, without you or him realising it. The most frustrating part was how I couldn’t seem to get a lock on to my Wii unless I turned it on manually before I activated the controller.
This also causes a problem where my Wii can magically turn itself on and off, and no doubt my neighbour has the same problem.
Note to self: break into neighbour’s house and steal his Wii so this doesn’t happen again.
Of course, he could just move his Wii into another room out of range.
Overall:
Was the system worth waiting so long for? Absolutely. Whilst the Wii does have it’s ups and downs, you can’t beat what Nintendo have prepared for the Wii’s future, and I have to admit that Nintendo are definitely on to something, despite all the bad press that they’re getting lately about self-bricking Wii’s and faulty wrist straps., but then again, the public never hear about when somebody does something right. Bad publicity is still bad publicity, and this is still a console that everyone should play just once before they make up their minds about it, not through reading horse shit that other websites or the news or the papers print. Hell, I wouldn’t even rely on this review, or any review to determine whether or not the Wii is worth buying…
As a matter of fact, my Dad came around the other day to visit before Christmas, and he didn’t have a brilliant opinion of the Wii before hand, but after having a go on Wii Sports for a few minutes, he’s now considering buying one for himself.
For the design and size, I’d have to give the console 7/10 because it’s pretty, but scratches easily, and the light isn’t always on.
The remote gets an 7/10, because it’s indestructible, but could be shaped better for the hand, like the Nunchuck, and the sound could be of higher quality. (as much the games fault as the controllers to be fair).
The channels score an 8/10 because it’s going to make life a lot easier to find what channel you want to find, rather than scrolling through a dozen menus.
Mii’s could be better, but aren’t, so 3/10 for them.
I’m going to leave performance out because I hope there is potential, but I just haven’t seen it yet.
The concept of the virtual console is fantastic, but is too pricy for my liking, so I’ll be generous and give it 6/10.
I won’t be giving the console an overall percentage or rank because the console doesn’t sell the console, the games do. I’ve only mentioned the features of the console alone, and although there isn’t much to do by itself, there is still some fun to be had, but not as much unless you buy some games.
I recommend Wii Sports or Zelda: Twilight Princess for starters.. Wii Play, not so much… but you’ll hear about that in my review. |
