My Wii Mini Review : First Impressions

[DemoCoder]

My console trilogy is complete. I have an XB360, PS3, and Wii now. I just unboxed it and played it today for the very first time. I got it primarily for my son, who is too young really to use the controller on the XB360/PS3, but I did notice he liked waving the six axis around.

My conclusion? WiiFans, you are not going to like it.

Why the hell do people like this thing? In no way does it match the hype.

First off, the list of games I tried. Wii Sports (pack-in). Rayman, Cooking Mama(?), and Trauma Center.

1) Setup. Getting used to the controller in the beginning is very annoying. Trying to navigate the on screen menus is very irritating as the cursor jumps around alot, as if you're taking a picture without image stabilization on a camera.

2) Wii Sports. I had expected that using the controller, I would get a sense of the controller as a virtual extension of my arm, but instead, I felt more disconnected from most of the games as the gesture recognition and lag was incongruent with the physical motion of my arm. For example, Wii Tennis seems very laggy, from the time you swing your arm, until the time it executes the swing seems like several hundred milliseconds, far slower than say, using a button press on XBOX360 Topspin or Virtua Tennis, and oddly missing the 'readiness-to-hand' feeling of other tennis games.

See, the thing is, with physical motion of my limbs, I do not expect latency in executing my movements. I expect my avatar to react as I do.

I did not feel that any of the Wii Sports games were 'funner' than XB360/PS3 equivalents, but of all the Wii Sports games, I felt that Boxing was the best, of course, a pale shadow compared to Fight Night.

3) Cooking Mama game. I found this game somewhat funner than Wii Sports, in that a) I had no similar/better games on my other consoles to compare and b) some of the motions seemed more congruent with my physical motions with less lag.

4) Trauma Center. Worst than DS version. See, I find that most of the WiiMote actions would be far funner with a mouse or stylus. Compare the feeling of 'stitching' someone up in Trauma Center with a stylus, the precision you get, vs the Wiimote, where the lack of haptic 'touch' feedback from pressing down on the 'body' feels very odd.

So far my experience has left alot to be desired. My son will probably like it, but I find the user interface to the games extremely annoying. I am used to high framerate, low latency, precise controls. The Wiimote is no where near as precise as a mouse, touchpad, even analog stick.

It feels gimmicky like the Eye Toy, but oddly enough, I found that the Eye Toy seems *more* reactive to my motions. But I would not want to use an Eye Toy as the controller for *every one of my games*

The 'channel' based menuing system is probably the most innovative thing about it I've found, I found it intuitive, probably more so than the XMB.

But I've gotta say, this is definately a 'party only' console for me, something to drag out when I have visitors, and in no way, my meat-and-potatoes game system, and I'm not even harping on the graphics/SD! (Rayman had slowdown on an arena with like 50 low-poly bunny rabbits, believe it or not!)

Hmm, let's see. COD4, Bioshock, Virtua Tennis, Tiger Woods, Fight Night 3, OR Wiisports....umm...yeah.

I will try Harry Potter, Zelda TP, and a few others next week.

 

[Bohdy]

The Wii is not really marketed for people quite as .. discerning as you...

 

[Todd33]

I played my friends last weekend, I think it was like his second time playing it in over a month of owning it. We bowled, boxed and played tennis. It was more fun than I thought, but any multi-player is fun with a friend. I got the distinct feeling that what I thought I was doing with the controller had little to do with what was going on in the game. I think the Wii gives the illusion to non-gamers that they are playing a game and doing well, kind of a $250 placebo effect.

 

[Sis]

Agreed completely. I haven't been this disappointed in a console in a long, long time. I bought the console mainly for Zelda, but after about 10 hours of play I grew so sick of the gimmicky and oft-unresponsive controls that I just stopped playing. I'm now considering borrowing a friends' GC version, just so I can use a standard controller.

Wii sports is still a blast with friends, though basically all you do is wildly swing--there's no real strategy or skill. People are buying it because of just how accessible Wii Sports is. It's instantly playable, and people can be good at it with no skills. In that way, Wii feels more like an interactive board game system than a true video gaming system.

The Wii sits there, collecting dust. I even unplugged it recently because the dvd slot started glowing blue to indicate an update is available (I presume) and I just couldn't be bothered to turn it on.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

First off, the list of games I tried. Wii Sports (pack-in). Rayman, Cooking Mama(?), and Trauma Center.

There's your problem. Trauma Center's good, but more of a niche game. Wii Sports is cool but the game's more of a demo. Rayman and Cooking Mama? Why did you even buy them in the first place if you know you won't enjoy mini-games?

 

[fearsomepirate]

I've gotten some time with Wii over the last week, and my impressions are similar. It's not like there are a bunch of killer games slated for Wii in the first place. Anyway, I think the IR controls are plenty sensitive, although clearly some kind of software filtering is necessary for games, but the accelerometer-based stuff is all completely laggy. In Wii boxing, my avatar would only strike after I'd completed a gesture, and both golf and baseball have significant delays. Mario Party was pretty fun, but again, the lag made it frustrating. I remember some game where you had to dodge coconuts with a monkey, and sure enough, he didn't move until after I'd moved the controller. The same went for some snowboarding minigame and a racing one. It makes sense, too. A button provides a near-instantaneous input. Motion controls require the gesture to be completed, or at least enough movement to plot some kind of curve and distinguish data from noise. That's inherently going to take more time. Wii's a great idea on paper that in real life doesn't work all that well. Maybe if the Wii had a CPU fast enough to do some more aggressive predictive filtering or something it would work, but Nintendo didn't think that more computation power could be used for anything important.

 

[digitalwanderer]

They'll be addressing all these issues when the Wii HD comes out.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There's your problem. Trauma Center's good, but more of a niche game. Wii Sports is cool but the game's more of a demo. Rayman and Cooking Mama? Why did you even buy them in the first place if you know you won't enjoy mini-games?

Because these are the key types of titles for Wii? They define the quintessential Wii experience? I'd have thought if you wanted to see what Wii was all about, these games are the ones people are more likely to turn to than Red Steel or Elebits (Eledees in the EU).

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Because these are the key types of titles for Wii? They define the quintessential Wii experience? I'd have thought if you wanted to see what Wii was all about, these games are the ones people are more likely to turn to than Red Steel or Elebits (Eledees in the EU).

Do they? To me, these games seem more like tests and experiments on the Wii than something that truly shows off what the system can do. Well, Wii Sports isn't one of them. It is a short but full fledge experience. What about well done ports that show off how well the play with the Wii controls? People love RE4, Godfather, and Scar Face. I mean, these games sound more like something he would be interested it. Outside of lazy ports and some wacky experiments, the Wii really is lacking games that'll show off the system.

Remember the DS?

 

[Sis]

Do they? To me, these games seem more like tests and experiments on the Wii than something that truly shows off what the system can do. Well, Wii Sports isn't one of them. It is a short but full fledge experience. What about well done ports that show off how well the play with the Wii controls? People love RE4, Godfather, and Scar Face. I mean, these games sound more like something he would be interested it. Outside of lazy ports and some wacky experiments, the Wii really is lacking games that'll show off the system.

Remember the DS?

The issue isn't the games, it's the control. Because the controller isn't precise enough, the games must rely less on skill and more on simple mechanics. Though I will say that Paper Mario was good. The Wii-mote was used with good effect there, I thought, which is to say that it supplemented the primary controller and was not the main gameplay mechanic.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

No pro wii comments yet? I'll be the first then

Why the hell do people like this thing? In no way does it match the hype.

First off, the list of games I tried. Wii Sports (pack-in). Rayman, Cooking Mama(?), and Trauma Center.

Well no wonder you dont like it that good. Wii sports imo is more for ''non gamers'', its only a bit fun playing with friends. I havnt played rayman, cooking mama is like a flash game. Havnt played trauma center either but I think its the kind of genre you have to like.

1) Setup. Getting used to the controller in the beginning is very annoying. Trying to navigate the on screen menus is very irritating as the cursor jumps around alot, as if you're taking a picture without image stabilization on a camera.

Than you are doing something wrong. If you just upp the strenght of the signal to the max its perfectly stable.

2) Wii Sports. I had expected that using the controller, I would get a sense of the controller as a virtual extension of my arm, but instead, I felt more disconnected from most of the games as the gesture recognition and lag was incongruent with the physical motion of my arm. For example, Wii Tennis seems very laggy, from the time you swing your arm, until the time it executes the swing seems like several hundred milliseconds, far slower than say, using a button press on XBOX360 Topspin or Virtua Tennis, and oddly missing the 'readiness-to-hand' feeling of other tennis games.

Agree. But I think its because the game doesnt follow your movement on screen. It only translates your move to a motion once you made the actual move.

So far my experience has left alot to be desired. My son will probably like it, but I find the user interface to the games extremely annoying. I am used to high framerate, low latency, precise controls. The Wiimote is no where near as precise as a mouse, touchpad, even analog stick.

It feels gimmicky like the Eye Toy, but oddly enough, I found that the Eye Toy seems *more* reactive to my motions. But I would not want to use an Eye Toy as the controller for *every one of my games*

Before really judging it you might want to try some games that can actually be called full games. Try the godfather for ''real time'' beating and kicking someone, RE4 to see how much better shooting with the wiiremote is than with sticks (and maybe even red steel if you can see beyond its flaws) and not forget zelda which doesnt really uses the controller that well as its designed for the GC but it still works comfortable. Maybe also check out games like exite truck which arnt that good but the controlls work pretty well once you get used to it.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The accelerometer controls are not as good as I thought they'd be, but the pointer works great. It is a little strange not having that physical feedback when you move the cursor as you would moving a mouse or a stylus, but you get used to it really quick. RE4 is a really great game to try out if you want to see how quick and precise the pointer can be. I felt the same way about Trauma Center. I'd rather play it on the Wii than on a dual analog controller, but I'd take the stylus over the two of them. Same with Cooking Mama.

I've never had the pointer jump around on the screen, but I've heard some people mention it. Is it possible that something is interfering with the IR? My tv is small, so I sit about 10 ft away. Not much room for interference.

It's a new interface and it hasn't even been out for a year. All of the titles you mentioned were launch titles, except Cooking Mama. Things will get better. We're talking about the first significant change in user input since ... um, the gamepad was introduced? It'll take some time for the designers to get it right.

If you sit down with Wii sports, you'll find it is actually pretty responsive. Gold if the one I find the most difficult, because my swing power is all over the place. Bowling and Tennis both have a good amount of control. Boxing is an oddball, because it seems you have to do the punches in a very specific way, and once you figure it out, the control is pretty decent. That said, Wii sports is kind of just a demo.

Zelda is a great game. The controls are good, even though they're obviously tacked on from the GC version. Never found them unresponsive, and aiming with with wiimote is far better than the analog stick. Attacking by swinging the remote does seem novelty though.

I think the real "test" for the Wii will be how well the first batch of big titles play, like Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3 etc. If you judged any system by what was available at launch, I don't think any of them would be worth buying. Perfect example is the DS. Took a while to come into it's own, but now it's fantastic.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I've never had the pointer jump around on the screen, but I've heard some people mention it. Is it possible that something is interfering with the IR?

No because it's a visual system. Unless you have sporadic IR sources appearing around your TV!

The matter of 'jumping around' is probably more a matter of definition, because by basic biology and trigonometry it's clear there's going to be some cursor movement. Unless you're a surgeon, you likely don't have a rock-solid arm. If you're close to the TV those small, natural movements won't amount to much, but if your at the limit of the Wiimote range, some 3m away in my experience, those small motions are amplified to several pixels either way of where you're pointing. The result is that the cursor jiggles on the spot. Also if you're right on the edge of reception, the Wiimote cuts out on and off, causing the cursor to jump around a fair bit. I think the range is much less than people expect. First time I used Wii the controller wasn't working well, and it took a while to guess it was a range thing. Leaving forwards just a few extra centimetres got it back on track.

 

[standing ovation]

Now this is priceless!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDdErzFwrRY

 

[Rainbow Man]

My conclusion? WiiFans, you are not going to like it.

It feels gimmicky like the Eye Toy

Unfortunately it seems you picked the three gimmickiest games on which to base your first impression of the system on.. I wouldn't judge it myself until I'd tried some REAL games.

Metroid's out soon. Mario Galaxy will be another big-hitter of course..

Both of these games are almost infinitely more polished and well-tuned than the three casual titles you've had the misfortune of experiencing.

Real gamers crave real games!

Pewace.

 

[Skrying]

Your game selection was horrible. No wonder you didn't like it...

 

[DemoCoder]

Unfortunately it seems you picked the three gimmickiest games on which to base your first impression of the system on.. I wouldn't judge it myself until I'd tried some REAL games.

Metroid's out soon. Mario Galaxy will be another big-hitter of course..

The question isn't whether Metroid will be a non-gimmicky game, the questions is whether or not it will play better with the Wiimote than playing with a traditional dual analog stick setup.

Real gamers crave real games!

Unfortunately, in most of the 'real game' reviews of Wii titles, there are huge complaints of control schemes. e.g. Prince of Persia. Was Red Steel a 'real game', because the control there looked terrible to me.

I tried to pick games that would show the Wiimote's strengths, not games that were traditional FPSes with Wiimote control slapped on, rather, games *designed* for cursor-style control.

In any case, to someone who mentioned it, I didn't buy any Wii games yet, these are rentals.

For me, it comes down to this: I was promised a revolutionary control scheme. I imagined being immersed into the game. What I got was a jiggly high-latency gesture control system.

The Wii is based on a fallacy that it is the physicality of motion that immerses you, when research has shown that people's internal body-map gets extended around tools in your hand and becomes integrated (second nature) during use, regardless of whether or not they are anthropomorphic in movement.

The key issue is reaction time, that's why steady framerate (and IMHO, 60fps) coupled with near zero-lag control schemes in important. If your onscreen avatar reacts instantly to your control, after a few minutes, the controller will become 'invisible' and second nature, and you won't have to think about it.

On the other hand, if 30% of the time, performing a gesture a) lags up to 300ms and b) doesn't get recognized property (game doesn't do what you commanded it to), the control scheme does NOT become invisible or second nature.

The Wiimote just doesn't seem precise enough to me. It's as if you had an optical mouse with a refresh rate of 10hz, and a jitter inaccuracy of up to 10%.

How about this for a next-gen console: Graphics be damned, the only requirement is that all games must be locked at 60fps, no exceptions, and that control latency cannot be more than 3 frames.

 

[Rainbow Man]

I dunno what exactly you've seen while playing with your Wii Demo (no pun intended ) but my pointer doesn't jitter. At all.

Not unless I sit too far or too close to the system. Maybe you need to move closer. Or maybe there's a lot of wireless traffic in your livingroom screwing with the bluetooth connection.

I do agree there's a fair amount of lag in the wii pointer though.

Anyway, if you truly believed you would be immersed in a new experience first time you tried the Wii - then I believe you were setting up too high expectations for oyurself, heh. Nothing can accomplish that today IMO. We'd need like a full-sensation bodysuit together with stereoscopic retinal projection goggles or something to accomplish that..

RThe wii is a nice toy IMO. A tiny little console that can play some rather pretty/cool games a la Metroid and Mario Galaxy and others. And it will have lots of gimmicky stuff available for it too that may or may not interest other people (everybosdy votes channel wiifit brain training etc etc etc).

So there's two aspects to this console. The serious and the frivolous and from what it seems the frivolous is going to be in (prhaps massive) majority and will make Nintendo an absolute assload or two of dough in the process.

Long-time gamers may have a hard time coming t ogrips with that. I kind alike my little wii though. I tend to buy some virtual console stuff for it every now and then waiting for some real games to be released..
Peaxe.

 

[DemoCoder]

See, my opinion is that Nintendo is lucky they aren't selling the Wii at a loss, because I think most people, casuals, will keep the Wii as a party game system, but will not go out of their way to buy many games for it.

That is, like a piece of fancy exercise equipment that looks innovative and stylish, but sits in a closet unused, I think the Wii's days are numbered, because I think over the long time, the software market for the Wii is going to stagnate, as people buy better games on other systems rather than buy ports with hacked on control schemes. Especially true when the Xbox360 Core hits the $200 mark.


I think that games which sell custom designed controllers (Racing steering wheels, Guitar Hero, dance pads, etc) work far better than trying to design a universal do-everything pointing device.

The Wii is great for my 2.5 year old son, but I think Nintendo is in a honeymoon period right now, because of high prices of PS3/XB360, and riding a wave of hype amplified by low availability.

Most people can't *play* the Wii at kiosks like they can with the PS3/XBox360, so many people's first Wii experience will be after they already buy it or in a 'party atmosphere' at a friends house. I think if Wii kiosks let people play instead of watch a video showing people play, alot more people would be put off from their purchase.

My wife only spent 10 minutes with the WIi and is already annoyed by the controls.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

No because it's a visual system. Unless you have sporadic IR sources appearing around your TV!

Doesnt every light source also emits IR? I noticed sun and room lights can make the pointer jump around the screen. When I got my wii in december I had this a few times during the winter. But now its summer I dont have it at all. Some people also said their christmas tree makes the wiimote go bananas.

The question isn't whether Metroid will be a non-gimmicky game, the questions is whether or not it will play better with the Wiimote than playing with a traditional dual analog stick setup.

Yes. Even RS plays better with the wiiremote than analoge stick shooters. Now RS isnt perfect by any means but its alot better than reviewers say. You have to force yourself true the first 1 or 2 hours but after that it really isnt such a bad game.

I agree that alot of games are bodged, but this is more because of devs not using the controlls right than the wiiremote not being a capable device. If you play games like godfather, exite truck, zelda and RE4 you cant honestly say those controlls dont work well.