Posts tagged ‘wii’

Like condoms during the Olympics, Nintendo’s console is in great demand. This seems to be because the console is the cheapest of the current generation, rather than anything spectacular about the console. I was going to use this blog to complain about the Wii, specifically its name, the amount of shovelware on the console and waggle being the new button mashing, but I’ve decided to be more positive, so here are five things the Wii should be able to do:

1. Guns. The Wii has a controller that points at the screen. Light guns point at the screen. So why are there no decent games or light guns for the Wii? Part of the trouble is with the Wii remote’s odd design — the buttons are in the wrong place so a new peripheral is needed, but surely if Duck Hunt could be made for the NES, then a decent game can be made for the Wii. Seems like an easy way to sell a lot of games.

2. Swords. The Wii knows where the controller is pointing and how it moves so it could be used as a sword. I don’t mean like in Red Steel where there are three possible moves — I want my character in the game to do exactly as I do with the remote. I want the game to teach me actual sword fighting moves. And I want to use a lightsaber.

3. Autostart. If I want to play a game on my 360, I turn it on. It starts up, starts the game and logs in, all by itself. To play a game on the Wii, I have to press A for the safety warning, point the remote at the screen, press A to select what I want and then press A again to confirm that I didn’t retardedly select the wrong thing. Then I get told not whack anything with the remote and to use the safety grip and the wrist strap. It takes about half an hour just to weigh myself on the Wii Fit. Speaking of interface problems, it’d be nice to be able to use a classic controller on the menu screen, or have the weather and news already loaded with Connect24.

4. Accurate pointing. The Wii lacks a way to callibrate the remote, so there’s no way that the onscreen pointer will be pointing at the place you are pointing at. It’s a laugh to see people new to the Wii expect the Wii to be able to know what they’re actually pointing at.

5. Connectivity. I know after that after Nintendo’s constant fascination with connecting the gamecube and the gameboy, everyone’s sick of the idea, but given that my house is already full of DSs and Wiis and that no extra cables would be needed, it be pretty cool to be able to play games that use both, or send games to the DS that have been downloaded from the Wii, like Nintendo said they would do two years ago.

Oh, bad Wii puns. It’s been too long. I arrived home today to find that Andy had purchased a WiiFit. You may know these from their mind-bogglingly dull billboards, which appear to be taking the reliable marketing tactic of “oh, you so want a rectangular piece of white plastic.” It turns out that they’re a lot more exciting than their unassuming exterior would have you believe. The platform is of course pressure sensitive and allows you to balance, perform yoga, do aerobics, and various other things even more exhausting than Wii Tennis. By the end of my first session I was buggered, but I’ll be coming back because of the COMPETITION. Much like Brain Training on the DS, WiiFit keeps track of your progress and measures you against your friends. And I’m kicking serious arse; after only one day, I’ve already managed to be less fat than Andy due to the sneaky height dependency of the Body Mass Index.¹ I don’t know if families were starting to get sick of Wii Sports, but surely this can only solidify the console’s place amongst perfectly normal people who want to have fun without leaving the comfort of their homes or shooting imaginary people.

1. Andy’s not the first to be screwed by the BMI. Little girls are getting their feelings hurt, too. Having previously downloaded the BMI dashboard widget, I was well prepared for hurtful labels. ↩

It may have become obvious that I haven’t been writing much about things here. This, naturally, is because I’ve been too busy playing/watching/reading the things that I should be writing about. Thus, a quick catch up is in order, on some of the more interesting things that I should have been writing about recently…

Heroes

Heroes has just begun in Australia, but through the usual channels, I’ve been following the American broadcasts. At first, I must admit, it looks like it’ll be a snorefest a la LOST, but there’s one or two key differences that become apparent as time goes by…

For a start, most of the questions tend to get answered, and replaced with new questions. There’s none (or not much) of the ‘unanswered thread escalation’ that one gets in The X-Files and such. Most of the mysteries are simple “How did he get here?” sort of things that don’t stretch out irritatingly. The “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” arc actually finishes (to an extent) halfway through the series or thereabouts. Which is nice.

Also, because all the characters are split up and moving in different directions, if there is a plotline you don’t like, often it doesn’t stink up the rest of the show. Like, hypothetically, if the Nikki/Jessica plotline was really, really dull, you can kind of deal with it.

Wii

My brother got a Wii. Finally. I’d been playing me a bit of the old Wii tennis, and thought I’d put my Pro Tennis Mii onto the Wii remote and show him off to Andy. Irritatingly, it turns out your Wii Sports information is not kept in your Mii, or at least not the bits that come along when you put the Mii on a Wii remote. Unless I did something wrong.

That was a confusing paragraph. The Wii is fun though. A quick variation on the anecdote that everyone’s been telling; my Mum has been playing Wii Sports and loving it, despite almost never playing a game ever before. That’s how good Wii Sports is. Excite Truck is also good.

Stargate SG-1

Still patchy, this show. And it’s sneakily come back in other countries before Battlestar Galactica has finished. So you can’t expect Andy to start reviewing it again. After all, he’s busy not reviewing Battlestar. Maybe he’ll get to it later. Last week’s show, ‘Family Ties’, was particularly disappointing. I don’t know what it is about shitty character actors that so enthrals the makers of the show. It’s as if they see this actor mug for the camera, do an irritating voice, and completely fail to bring any sort of believability to the part and think “Yes. Yes. There’s a story about him. I can see it now. It’ll be completely unbelievable and irritating. How cool is that?”

The Fountain

Do you like overwrought emotion, long periods of silence and a general lack of drama? Then this film is for you. I can see how The Fountain could have been an awesome film. Bits of it are exciting, bits of it are beautiful. As a whole, though, the word “ponderous” comes to mind. I doubt I’ll review it, but someone else might.

An interesting point about The Fountain — the space backgrounds were done not with computer generated effects, but with particles in water being filmed in slow motion. An interesting point about going to see The Fountain — if you don’t know that, you assume it’s computer generated, and it goes completely over your head.

Nintendo says “Wii will rock you.” By which they mean that they’ve renamed their next console. It’s not Revolution anymore. I don’t hate the new name. It’s unique. It’s … sigh … it’s just that it’s pronounced ‘wee’ — as in urine. I sympathise; I understand the troubles of choosing a name. But Wii?

I’m pro-choice. I believe that a baby should be brought into this world with a loving family or not at all. So that’s why this week I cancelled my DS Lite order. The price is not going to be dropped to the original price of US$169 for weeks, so I could have waited or incurred the import tax. Neither option is palatable. Would it be a loving family if every time you looked at your baby you thought how much it cost you a hundred dollars more than necessary? Or that you could’ve’d it weeks ago? I was chatting to a guy on the net and he said that he’s never been taxed even thought he’s imported lots of expensive stuff. Google showed me pages from the Australian government suggesting either a $250 limit or a $1000 limit. So I might’ve been able to import without the extra cost. It’s like being told your baby may be born with an extra foot or muscular dystrophy. I didn’t want to live with the uncertainty.

Other reasons for the cancellation:

• My excitement about the DS Lite has gone. With the delays, price rises and Australia never getting anything first I feel bitter about the whole situation.
• I was also worried that I would love one child more than the other, that I might shun the orginal as if it told me that it was emo.
• Lik-sang have cancelled their payback points so the DS Lite and a recent games purchase would’ve got me up to 3/4 of a free game. No more.
• The DS Lite has a different power cord to the original, so I would need an adapter of some sort. I’ll wait for the Australian release, whenever that is.
• There’s also rumours of a black DS Lite.

I found it better to put the whole affair out of my mind.

On an unrelated matter, Mike, do you live in Auckland?

Or perhaps we shouldn’t. Because the last thing the internet really needs right now is another bunch of guys making jokes about this. But what the hell.

I’m not sure exactly how many jokes such a simple word can sustain. If I had to be exact I would say heaps. I have read hundreds of jokes today. You think they would stop, but they just keep on coming.

Andy and I were amazed.

Anyway I felt this site lacked a place dedicated to Wii jokes, so I made one. Notice how I’m not actually going to make any, because I’m off to bed.

Just leave you with one I stole from Eurogamer…

‘Hello mr games store owner, can I have a wii please?’

‘No, the bathroom is for staff only’