My Wii Mini Review : First Impressions

[tongue_of_colicab]

I've already spent $300+ on this system, so I feel I am justified in criticizing it for not delivering on its promises.

You shouldnt have bought the games you did, your critizizing the system on ''bad'' games, it would be the same buying x360 and only play pac man on XBLA and say the system doesnt live up to its HD gfx and all. First play some decent games before you critize the system because you obviously cant do that by playing freakin' cooking mama.

 

[N00b]

Well, I played Wii Tennis for over 2 hours, after searching the web for control tips, and could not detect any topspin or slice.

From Gamefaqs.com:

Forehand Topsin: Twist the Remote from the buttons facing up to the buttons facing down.
Forehand Slice: Hold Remote with the face of it towards the sensor, followed by swinging upwards and twist the remote away from the sensor.
Lob: Swing from a lower area to a higher area.
Backhand Topsin: Twist the Remote from the buttons facing down to the buttons facing up.
Backhand Slice: Hold Remote with the face of it away the sensor, followed by swinging upwards and twist the Remote towards the sensor.

 

[DemoCoder]

You shouldnt have bought the games you did, your critizizing the system on ''bad'' games, it would be the same buying x360 and only play pac man on XBLA and say the system doesnt live up to its HD gfx and all. First play some decent games before you critize the system because you obviously cant do that by playing freakin' cooking mama.

I already stated I didn't buy any games, I rented them. Next.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Boils down to exactly the same doesnt it? you played crappy games giving you a crappy first impression.

 

[DemoCoder]

From Gamefaqs.com:

Have you tried it? The result isn't a pure topspin or slice, it's in fact, almost pure sidespin. Or atleast, the way the game renders it makes it look nothing like a traditional topspin.

I found the exact same instructions on another site, only they had correctly labeled it sidespin. A proper topspin should arc strongly downwards and bounce higher, and a slice should be slower, flatter, and bounce lower. When I try to execute a topspin in Wii Tennis, the ball just arcs left or right more strongly. Maybe it does have a slight topspin, but the sidespin aspect completely dominates.

Maybe I just suck, but I am a USTA tennis player, and I'm telling you, this game feels way more crappy than other tennis games, the rendered shots don't look like the shots you ask for. In Topspin or Virtua Tennis, I can tell a topspin or slice from the moment it leaves the racket.

And that's my problem with the Wii. The controls are too imprecise. They don't do what you ask *WHEN* you ask (lag), and because of precision issues, there is a large error rate.


But hey, let's assume your right, and that a wrist twist = spin. Well, of what use is that, when the rest of the game is so fubared? All they did was map a gesture to what is a button press in other games (or nunchuk stick move in Rockstar pingpong), nothing like the real kind of control you'd expect in Tennis or Ping Pong.

My point is, anyone whose really played tennis or table tennis, and got ahold of a controller that is supposed to model your arm movement, would expect precise control over the ball, like they would with a real paddle.

You don't get that on the Wii. And the lag issue in Wii Sports singlehandedly destroys the game for me, all other detrimental aspects not withstanding. Simply put, I do not want to *BUFFER* my next move 300 milliseconds in advance. I do not want to suffer a control system to which I must 'learn to deal with it' (the delay), when I don't have to suffer that delay on the Xbox360/PS3 equivalents.

 

[DemoCoder]

Boils down to exactly the same doesnt it? you played crappy games giving you a crappy first impression.

I went on IGN/Gamespot, and rented the top rated games supposedly giving Wiimote experience (I don't bother with ports/Zelda since these games are just regular games with Wiimote slapped on).

Many people raved about Wii Sports. Trauma Center is a top title. So really, stop making excuses.

How many people buying Wii know that the only games that don't suck are RE4 and Godfather, both of which are ports that I already played on other systems?

I mean, if it is so hard to find a good game on the Wii, that in and of itself is an issue. It means most of the content is shit.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

#3 What happens if Wii drives devs to pump resources into casuals, with shoddy graphics, dumbed down controls, and what happens to MS/Sony as far as what they'll do next-next-gen? Do you really want to see MS/Sony release overclocked versions of the XBOX360/PS3 with high margins and gimmicky control schemes?

I think Nintendo went to the extreme as far as low tech is concerned. Even if MS and Sony decides to release a lower cost machines in the future that doesn't mean they will go nearly as far as Nintendo went, I don't think that recipe would work for them and they probably know it too. I must say that this has been a concern for me too, but it's just too unlikely to happen for me to lose sleep over it.

Yes, what Nintendo did was good for their bottom line, but I'm not sure it's good for us gamers. Sure, it brings a bunch of people who never cared about games before into the audience, but you know what, I want games designed for me, not games designed for the lowest common denominator.

Well Wii offers variety, we already have these two HD-consoles that offer similar experience, I personally don't mind that there aren't three similar consoles. Looking at past gen, the three similar consoles didn't really enrichen the total offering. You probably should have done some more research on Wii before the purchase.

I do agree with lot of what you have said though. Wii does not appeal to me currently and it will take some VERY special games to make it appealing.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I was more talking about the major AAA devs such as EA and Ubisoft

Don't say "What 3rd party games would sell well?" and then change your question because the answer isn't games you want to play. Just straight-out say "What 3rd party games that are called Madden would sell well?" or "What 3rd party games that aren't on Wii would sell well on Wii?" The fact is, there are a decent number of 3rd party games that have sold respectably or even well, which bodes better for the future of Wii development than it did for Gamecube.

 

[DemoCoder]

Before this Wii Tennis issues goes any further, I will try it again tommorow with a different tact. It occurs to me that I am using learned 'real' tennis style, whereas it appear Wii spin control requires far more 'exaggerated' rotations of your wrist than you would do in reality. Maybe that's why its sidespinning instead of topspinning.

Still, I watched a wii video purportedly showing a slice, that looked like a 'lob' to me.

p.s. Topspin (tm) is supposedly coming to Wii, let's see if they are able to eliminate the lag and gesture issues.

pps. this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WHKQuh_puI seems to show that some level of 1:1 mapping is possible (although I still see a wee bit of lag), hopefully some game company hires this kid.

 

[Zaphod]

You're assuming that the attach rate for a Wii game ported to the PS3 and 360 will still be acceptable.

I'm not talking about ports from the Wii at all.

You're talking about a situation where developers would have to give up development on the PS3 and 360 entirely in order to use the Wii as a lead development platform.

Yes. Or, rather than 'led platform', at lest first platform.

And for every developer that chooses to do that (I haven't heard of a single one yet, let alone a mass exodus that is being predicted)

It's not so much about choosing what you'd like to do than it is about doing what you can get funded to do. If the Wii continue to outpace the other two at the current rate (and attach rates doesn't drop through the floor) I have little doubt that publishers will fund what they deem being the best bets for profit first. This will (unless the whole business grows) limit the options of studios as there won't be as much money to go around for funding 'big' titles as there otherwise might have been (had Wii sales been in GC territory).

 

[Scott_Arm]

If you play that table tennis game for the 360, you'll find there's a huge delay between when you press your button and when you swing to hit the ball. I guess it has carried over to the Wii. Hardly something you can criticize the Wii for when the 360 version is the same. Wii isn't a full featured tennis game. It's meant to be arcade, so don't expect perfect realism. Top Spin is coming out, so that will be a good one to see how well tennis can work. It will include 3 different controls schemes with varying levels of user input. The most basic will be like Wii tennis and the expert will have full control.

The Wii isn't shitty hardware. It's a well made little machine, it just isn't very powerful. As long as the games are fun, the hardware is good enough to do its job. I think everyone was hyped on perfect motion recognition, and it is disappointing, but if you forget about it and just sit down to enjoy the games, you'll find yourself having a lot of fun. I think the effort to do something different should be welcomed and not criticized from breaking from "tried and tested" methods. Tried and tested has been on rinse and repeat for a long time. Maybe the Wii won't pan out, and it'll lose a lot of steam in the coming years. It will have paved the Wii for Nintendo for their next system, which could maybe deliver what people want with real 1:1 motion.

Another thing I want to mention with motion recognition, is the software side. The accelerometers are not super accurate, but I think there are also difficulties handling the input on the software side, which can lead to varying quality of input across titles. Hopefully it will improve over time as companies get used to working with the system.

 

[Arwin]

Before this Wii Tennis issues goes any further, I will try it again tommorow with a different tact. It occurs to me that I am using learned 'real' tennis style, whereas it appear Wii spin control requires far more 'exaggerated' rotations of your wrist than you would do in reality. Maybe that's why its sidespinning instead of topspinning.

Still, I watched a wii video purportedly showing a slice, that looked like a 'lob' to me.

p.s. Topspin (tm) is supposedly coming to Wii, let's see if they are able to eliminate the lag and gesture issues.

pps. this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WHKQuh_puI seems to show that some level of 1:1 mapping is possible (although I still see a wee bit of lag), hopefully some game company hires this kid.

That's very cool! I just wish we'd get sixaxis drivers for motion control, I'd love to experiment with them ... if they keep not coming, I'll have to get a wiimote.

There is some lag here though between his movements and the sticks, but all in all it's very neat.

Seems to be only using tilt, this demo, and just one axis too.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Seems to be only using tilt, this demo, and just one axis too.

Yes, it's locked to one axis. I don't know if including the other's would introduce some sort of drift, and limiting to one axis is an easy way round that.

I'd have hoped though that seeing as motion is Nintendo's baby, they'd provide a comprehensive set of functions in the SDK for different filtering and analysis. If all they've given is a controller with a bunch of analogue outs and are leaving it to the devs to work out how to interpret them, that's a bit of bad form. We hear next to nothing about Nintendo's SDK efforts. How do they compete with XNA, EDGE, and the rest of the other patforms' tools? Are Nintendo improving things over the GC kits, or are they content to leave things as they are?

 

[wco81]

The basic question about the Wii is, is it capable of translating your exact motion to the screen?

Or is it limited to gesture recognition (actually maybe just motion/acceleration recognition) being used to trigger canned animations?

Wii Sports you can just wave it in any direction and it would trigger a golf swing, a tennis swing (either forehand or backhand), baseball swing, baseball pitch.

Is the system capable of rendering your actual motion in real time? So that if you have bad mechanics in a golf swing, that is shown on the screen?

Did Tiger Woods render actual motion or did it just use your motion to trigger canned animations?

Is the motion more than just a proxy for button presses?

 

[wco81]

This just proves you havnt even botherd actually playing Wii tennis because if you did you'd know just how wrong your comments are.

Timing and the way you move actually do influance the movement of the ball alot and you can do back and forehands. The only thing with wii tennis is that it wont map your movement to what you see on screen, but the actually movement data is used to see where the ball should be going, it just doesnt translate into the animation.

But isn't it true that all you have to do is flick your wrists to get the onscreen character to swing?

You don't have to pretend to do an actual forehand or backhand swing?

Does anyone here think that a lot of Wii buyers believe that it does map your actual motion to screen?

 

[Scott_Arm]

But isn't it true that all you have to do is flick your wrists to get the onscreen character to swing?

You don't have to pretend to do an actual forehand or backhand swing?

Does anyone here think that a lot of Wii buyers believe that it does map your actual motion to screen?

Yes
No
No

 

[Arwin]

Yes
No
No

Re the forehand, backhand thing ... do you mean that you can do a forward move or a backward move rather than a forward move either forehanded or backhanded?

Because so far when I played the game I sometimes messed up because I didn't do a backhand. I like the way that works, and I'm not sure what you mean if not the above, which I haven't tested myself, but which also would be a little counter-intuitive.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Re the forehand, backhand thing ... do you mean that you can do a forward move or a backward move rather than a forward move either forehanded or backhanded?

Because so far when I played the game I sometimes messed up because I didn't do a backhand. I like the way that works, and I'm not sure what you mean if not the above, which I haven't tested myself, but which also would be a little counter-intuitive.

You don't have to pretend to do an actual forehand or backhand. Doesn't matter which way you swing, it will work, from what I remember. I haven't played it in a while.

 

[Natoma]

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.

.......................

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 answer to your question is Yes, it does. Every review of Metroid to date has stated that it is by far the best FPS controls of any console game, ever. It very nearly approaches keyboard and mouse.

Everything you've stated, Metroid Prime 3 delivers.

Speaking of Metroid: http://wii.ign.com/articles/815/815424p1.html

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was originally set to launch with Wii, but the year-long delay has been very much worth the wait. Call it a first- person shooter or a first-person adventure -- doesn't matter. I call it the best game on Nintendo's console. It is clear from the moment you pick up the controller that Prime 3 was developed exclusively for Wii. Not only do the new controls respond quicker and with more precision than any dual-analog-helmed FPS ever created, but the gesture system works brilliantly, too. Meanwhile, the title delivers everything a Metroid fan could hope for, including spectacular environmental puzzles, epic boss fights and intense combat, all wrapped up in a package that spans multiple worlds and is filled with re-traversal exploration. A cinematic storyline made possible by beautiful art and graphics rounds out the experience, which is complemented by a medal system and WiiConnect24 compatibility.

....................................

Corruption is a shooter design at times, an adventure at others, but throughout the entire experience it remains the number one reason to own a Wii. The presentation is simply beautiful, the gameplay is more responsive and precise than any console experience to date, and the final product is the best on the system, period.

As said many many times, give developers time.

This is probably the first review of any Wii game I've read where the reviewers didn't have gripes about the control scheme in some way shape or form.

If you're looking for that kind of super precise controls, go out and buy Metroid Prime 3. Apparently this is just the start, given the other games up for release with the same super tight controls.

 

[Arwin]

You don't have to pretend to do an actual forehand or backhand. Doesn't matter which way you swing, it will work, from what I remember. I haven't played it in a while.

It will work each way, but you'll still do a forehand or backhand, depending. So if you always only make a forehand movement, then you'll always make a forehand, which similar to real tennis (though much simplified and easier obviously) won't allow you to hit a winner in some instances.

In other words, if you want to hit the ball to the left of the court, you can do so using a forehand or a backhand, but it's going to be a lot more effective using a backhand (faster, further to the right, etc.).

I played Wii Tennis with an official Wii Tennis instructor in an airport demo unit somewhere, and this is one of the first things he taught me. I forgot to use the backhand initially, and I could tell the difference very clearly once I started to remember to use the backhand.