November 14, 2006

My Wii Experience

So, as I've mentioned before I got the chance to go to a Nintendo public event at the Atlantis pavillions at Ontario Place, and so today I did go.

There, I saw and said Hi to both Tony and Ryan from vgmfusion.com, I also recognized that one guy from Electric Playground (not Tommy Tallarico), and was Kris Abel from Canada AM there because I think I saw him too...when I got home I was like "I should have asked them (Tony and Ryan) their autographs on the VIP pass, darn!".



I had a VIP pass (inside look of pass) which gave me and others the chance to be the first to play Wii for 30 minutes before anyone without a pass.

We did stay a little longer than 30 minutes, close to 50 minutes, but then we had to leave, or I could just join the normal line and wait to play it again but the line was quite big so I decided to go home.

By the way, as we left they gave us a booklet, and inside that booklet was this DVD. Nothing new in either booklet or DVD that we didn't know from before.

Unfortunately 50 minutes was not enough to try every game on display, so I only got to try Super Monkey Ball, Wii baseball, Wii Golf, Wii Bowling, Excite Truck, Rayman, and DragonBall.

The nunchuk surprised the hell out of me. It's so small, so light, and so comfy that it felt like it wasn't even on my hand. The Z and C buttons are easily accesible, and the analog stick worked fine for the small amount of playtime I had to use it.

I liked the remote, it's small just as I expected. it's light, it's not as comfy as the nunchuk because of its shape but you definately have a good grip on it. You can acces the B/A/d-pad easily all at once, and even the +/-/Home buttons can be accessed without moving your hand from the A/B/d-pad position. The 1 and 2 buttons work best when the remote is played sideways (like in Excite Truck). The D-pad works great, infact I think it is better than the DSLite d-pad.

The rumble was really nice, much better than the GC rumble because it isn't too over-powering.

Lol, I forgot to try and hear anything from the remote speaker.

Always use the strap, I didn't have a problem but I seriously warn you to use the strap on games with more physical movement than expected.

So what about the games, hmm, which one should I start with:

DragonBall:
Apparently they only got this game today, because I asked some questions to the Wii-assistant and she didn't know and replied that they just got it today, so I tried it by myself without any help from her.

One of the first things I checked was the sound option menu, and I can clearly say that they left the option to listen to the Japanese voices.
As for the Japanese music, I couldn't see any specific option for it, so I don't know if it is automatically enabled once I choose Japanese voices, but then again I couldn't listen to any music because the environment was either too loud or the TV volume was low, however I did pick the Japanese voices and grunts.

Gameplay wise, let me assure you that the game will be quite easy to play with the motion controls, all motions I did for dashing and ki attacks translated perfectly into the game, I can fairly say that it's so easy it took me less than a minute to learn dashing and ki attack motions, really really easy.

What about graphics? lol, I was so into the game I didn't even give myself some time to stare at the game without being able to play it. It looks fine, nothing like 360 or PS3 obviously, and I was more interested in how it plays anyway.

Excite Truck:
I raced 2 times, 2nd place in both races in the same track, and the Wii-assistant barely taught me anything so it was another easy 'pick up and go'. The driving motions are wierd though, but once you get to know the mechanics of controlling the vehicles you will understand why they chose such driving motions.

They had the TV volume low so obviously I can't say how it sounds, but judging from the videos I've downloaded on IGN the music ain't that bad, if you still don't like it either turn it off or shove some MP3s onto an SD card and listen to your own kind of music.

The graphics looked fine.

Super Monkey Ball:
I played 4 or 5 levels of the first world, I think. I'm getting this game for sure, it looks fine, however I felt that I wanted more time with the game when I left the event, don't get me wrong, it's just that I'm so used to playing games with the analog stick that it just leaves this awkward sensation that of something new.

Rayman:
I only had 2 minutes with this game so barely enough time to say anything worthile other than that graphically the game looked better than I thought it has been shown on released gameplay vids. the bunnies are funny though, they made me laugh when I heard them screaming while I played Excite truck.

Wii Sports (Baseball, Bowling, Golf):
Well you already know how it looks and sounds, so how do they play? They play nicely but take into consideration that it is a first gen motion controlled sports game.

All three were quite easy to understand the gameplay mechanics, and I don't understand why people complain about Wii Golf because I had no problems in finishing 1 hole in 3 strikes, that's all I played of it anyway.

Wii Baseball was quite interesting, I really liked the pitching, you can just do a flick motion with the controller just like when you flick with fishing rod in real life. I really suck at batting lol, I never got a homerun, but my playing partner did (lucky bastard).

Wii Bowling, easy easy easy to understand how to play it, but to actually strike (take all pins down in one throw) isn't so easy, I'm not saying it is uber hard but I don't remember ever making the ball going in a straight line lol, lots of fun for sure.

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In the end I really wanted to play more, I really wished I had been given 3 hours to play more and other games too, but like many others I will have to wait another 4 days until my Wii gaming marathon commences.

2 comments:

Ben Ciotti said...

Cool

Caliban-J.E.A.M. said...

Who ever you are, welcome to my blog and thanks for posting :) .