Now that Sony’s Blu-Ray has defeated Toshiba’s HD-DVD format, there is no reason not to buy a Playstation 3. The Nintendo Wii has coasted on novelty, but its failures as a serious gaming platform will be no match for a PS3 market.
Don’t get me wrong: the Wii is pretty cool. I own one, but I still ignore most of my real world responsibilities with my computer. The ability to throw my wiimote through my LCD screen doesn’t make up for its shortcomings. Besides, I can already do that with my remote control.
Why do these graphics look familiar?
Oh, yeah: the Wii is marketed for high-definition flat screen TVs, but does not deliver high definition graphics.
My biggest disappointment happened before even plugging the damn thing in. It was when I opened the box and found the same standard red-white-yellow audio/video adapter that is used for every Nintendo system since Super NES. The closest you can get to HD is to purchase a separate adapter with red-blue-green video component plugs.
I already use the component outlet on my TV for my now out-of-date DVD player. It makes my movies look marginally better with “Progressive Scan,” kind of like when cassette players were installed with stereo sound. (Oo, I can hear different levels of static from two directions!)
Instead, I have to wave my hand at the Nintendo 64 with slower loadtimes. In fact, most of the third-party games look just like their prequels on the PS2.
Miis, hungh! (Good gawd!) What are they good for?
Absolutely nothing. (Woah-oh-ooooh!)
One of the biggest marketing features is the creation of a mii. Your mii is more than an avatar; it’s supposed to be you plugged into the game. Unfortunately, that only game is Wii Sports.
Why would Nintendo borrow the most immersive element of any MMORPG and not make it more useful? Easy: Nintendo makes games with franchise characters. They’re not about to replace Mario or Sonic with your crafted stormtrooper mii, especially considering how much they paid Sega for that vaguely hedgehog, Benji Madden.
So what do Wii users do with their miis? They enter them into contests. Nintendo couldn’t think of anything better to do with their overhyped avatar system than encourage users to make more stormtroopers and Guy Fawkeses*.
*A SeriouslyAside:
Seriously, what a wasted opportunity! They could load your mii into the comm screens in StarFox, or–as I would call it–StarFawkes.
Where did the lifelike wiimote actions go?
The sole purpose for buying a Wii is to swing the controller like a sword or, if the game context allows, your pimpcane.
Some games do this, and do it well. The Legend of Zelda, yet another sequel that reboots the Zelda series*, requires the player to swing the wiimote like a sword and brandish the nunchuk as a shield.
*Another SeriouslyAside:
Seriously, what’s the deal with Zelda games? Every new console means you have to pretend the last set of adventures never happened. Even Mario is built on an ever-expanding universe that embraces goomba, shy-guy and go-kart alike. In comparison, Zelda looks like Hollywood remaking the same damn movie over and over again. Oh, wait … they do that.
The other games, though? They use the same conventional control structure from every other modern console, only split it over the wiimote and nunchuk. See the little joystick on the nunchuk? That’s no coincidence. Even Zelda is complicated with these controls instead of letting your sword do all of the talking.
Because this is the Wii, though, they added some half-assed Wii moves that rarely work as intended to third-party games. These include:
- “Push the wiimote towards the screen.”
- “Lift the wiimote straight up.”
- “Lower the wiimote straight down.”
- “Shake the wiimote.” (They could at least add the qualification “like a Polaroid pictcha!”)
What these really do is punish players that jump with/tilt their controls when punching button combinations. You know the type: they also stick their tongues out a little during boss stages.
So, once again, the only games to really take advantage of the Wii’s biggest novelty are Wii Sports and some of their Mario games, most of those consisting of lame mini-games like “hammer this nail” or “shake your kitty tail” (no, really).
Why am I still gaining weight?
One of the most bizarre bits of hype for the Wii are advocates claiming that it improves fitness in your normally sedentary gamer. That’s great, except that implies that you have to stand up.
I’ve never been to Japan, but I know that many of them live in apartments with less floor space than your average pickup truck bed. So, they actually hang their flat screens on the wall at standing eye level.
That doesn’t work as well in America because, although we can hang our flat screens on the wall, we don’t. It’s not an issue of finding load-bearing hardware; it’s all of our damn components. Sure, the TV’s on the wall, but where do you put your cable box, surround sound equalizer, DVD player and–most importantly–the Wii?
So, we put our TVs on the same stands that their box predecessors sat on, which is always at a sitting eye-level. That means that you have to punch down at the IR receiver when boxing. Sure, you could move the IR bar to above the TV, but then it’s too high and you’re punching up now.
In response, most Wii owners that I know play all games, including Wii Sports, sitting down. For a man, sitting down while playing sports is like sitting down to pee. I refuse to sit, so my boxing matches are either all uppercuts or body shots.
Friends not included?
Okay, so Wii has another marketing novelty: playing with your friends. The idea is that when you own one, every party is a Wii party at your home, farm, movie theater or office.
The best analogy for Wii parties is pools on The Simpsons. When Lisa had the only pool in Springfield, everyone flocked to her house. She reveled in her new-found popularity, eschewing her once hyper-productive brain. Once more people got pools, the house on Evergreen Terrace faded into relative obscurity … until the next time Homer incited mob violence.
People accuse Nintendo of under-producing the Wii to generate waiting lines and false hype. As cynical as I am (I once called all songs “bad rhyming poetry”), I don’t believe that. There are two factors in the scarcity of the Wii:
- Every American has to own the latest and greatest product.
- Once every American owns said product, they will hoard it to themselves.
By denying every American home a Wii, Nintendo knows that people are more apt to convene at the homes of those willing to camp out in front of a Best Buy. In other words, Nintendo was trying to give nerds a real chance at a social life.
Now that more people have them, the original nerds are left like Martin Prince: trunksless and alone, wistfully singing Frank Sinatra.
So if we’re going to play alone anyway, why bother with a low-def Nintendo clone with an aggravating wireless system? It’s time to upgrade to a PS3/Blu-Ray.