What We Think of Wii
By Toronto Thumbs Staff - February 26th, 2008
Although Wii has been a great success for Nintendo, it still has its ups and downs.
An article we posted back in November highlighted that Wii has great games despite common online opinion. In our first Toronto Thumbscast, we discussed whether or not the Wii was for people like us (that is, people who have been playing video games their whole lives). Adam Russell and Michael Pugliese stated that Wii is not necessarily the “casual” system that many perceive it to be, but rather a “mass market” console. And they’re absolutely right.
The Wii has revolutionized gaming, but not in the way we all thought it would. We thought Wii would change the way we played video games forever. But what it has really done is increase the gaming market to include more people. Although there are more people gaming now, Wii hasn’t really changed the fundamental way games are played. For as amazing and fun as Wii Sports is, there’s an unfortunate number of games that don’t make very good use of the Wii’s biggest strength: its controls.
Prior to the system’s release, we were all looking forward to accurate motion controls. We wanted sword fighting. We wanted realistic sports titles. But where are those games today? The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess does feature a fair bit of swordplay, but all the moves are done with predetermined gestures replacing key combinations. As gamers, we had become used to button sequences to pull off moves. While the Wii Remote has the potential to be much more intuitive than that, holding down a button and swinging downwards is still a key combination and still something that needs to be remembered. And for people who had been gaming all along and were comfortable with key combinations, they had to learn a new control scheme altogether. How, exactly, is that intuitive?
Fig. A - Grab your Wii Remote.
In many cases, developers have simply replaced button combinations with button combinations and shakes. Playing TMNT on the Wii is a sure-fire way to end up with a severe case of carpal tunnel. Too many games make such poor use of the motion controls that we wonder just whether or not these games were beta tested. Mortal Kombat: Armageddon uses remote gestures for special moves and they seem to backfire half the time. Thankfully, the game also supports the Classic and GameCube controllers. So then why bother with the motion controls?
The fact of the matter is that there are many Wii games that could have easily been (and actually have been) on other systems. And one might ask if that’s actually a bad thing.
Well yes and no. It’s a bad thing because Wii was in theory supposed to be the system that brought the world amazing and innovative games, yet too much of the system’s library are just middle-of-the-road budget titles. On the other hand, it isn’t necessarily bad because Wii is the biggest thing in gaming right now. Many people who’ve never gamed in their lives own Wiis, so putting older games from other systems (and we’re talking ports here, not Virtual Console releases) is arguably a good way for these people to experience certain titles if they hadn’t before. However, some of these ports were never good games to begin with.
Although it hasn’t been the near virtual-reality experience some of us were expecting it to be, Wii has broadened the gaming market and brought gaming back to its mass appeal roots, which is a huge feat in itself. While the PS2 might have made gaming cool again, Wii is doing its part in making it an acceptable hobby and pastime. And developers are obviously taking advantage of the fact that now there are people buying games who really don’t know anything about them.
We’ve all seen the typical movie tie-in title. It’s released on every system simultaneously and more often than not, the game will stink no matter which console it’s on. This shouldn’t be surprising, given the fact that one developer will often be tasked with versioning out seven different builds of a game and the deadlines are always tight to coincide with a movie’s release. But game companies know these titles are going to sell just because they’re connected to successful movies that kids like. So why would they bother making an amazing title and pouring all their resources into it if the bare minimum will yield satisfactory sales numbers? This has been happening for years, and sadly the terrible movie tie-in is showing no signs of going away.
Fig. B - Smack friends or relatives who buy bad games.
Similarly, we’re seeing a lot of developers porting over their old titles to the Wii to flip a quick profit. In some cases, the game actually ends up being enjoyable. Several Toronto Thumbs editors are big fans of The Godfather: Blackhand Edition, and the upcoming Okami looks very promising. But on the other hand, Wii also gets crap like Star Trek: Conquest, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Ninjabread Man.
A lot of long-term Nintendo fans who’ve followed the company through the years and stuck by them through the dark times (namely the N64, Virtual Boy, and GameCube periods) are obviously upset at the large amount of lower-quality titles available for Wii. And because many of these fans are members of the online community and can shout loudly, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that somewhere between all the bad games are very great and and polished titles that even snobby gaming veterans can enjoy.
Sure, at this point there’s still only a handful of them - but the console’s been out for a mere 16 months. And considering the fact that it’s still selling out everywhere, does Nintendo really need to release more games right now?
Of course! If they don’t keep releasing great games, they risk having the good games lost in a sea of terrible ones. So far there have been a few third-party publishers who actually get what makes the Wii so great and aren’t porting over everything in the quest for a quick buck. For the most part, third-party titles are giving the Wii a bad name.
But as long as poorly-produced budget titles keep selling, companies will keep pumping them out. People who know well enough to check game reviews and who look into developers will likely be able to steer clear of buying bad games. But think about this: many Wii owners are not computer-savvy people. They’re not necessarily people who know that video game reviews exist. So when they’re out shopping for a new game and see a compilation disc of “party” games for $30 beside a single game that’s $50, well, which one are they going to buy? Most likely the cheaper title, of course.
Fig. C - Raise hands in victory pose.
So what can be done about this influx of bad games? This problem actually has several solutions. The first one is Nintendo could stop allowing these titles to be published. Sadly, this is probably never going to happen. Realistically, it’s up to the publishers of the good games to take control of this situation. A universal game price across the board would be a good first step at decreasing the ubiquity of bad titles.
A good second step would be for gamers to get the word out on which games are worth getting and which ones are not. Posting your disdain for certain game publishers on message boards might help you feel better, but it isn’t really going to help the situation. Think of it from the perspective of these game publishers. Are they going to stop selling budget titles because twenty people complained about them online? Of course not. But that doesn’t make you helpless. Chances are, you know someone who isn’t the typical gamer but who has a Wii. Not only that, they may actually have bought that Wii because of you.
Although you’ve done well in getting more people into gaming, your duty as a gamer doesn’t end when your relatives and neighbours become Wii owners. You need to guide them and let them know which games will be worth their investment. If you keep them from buying poorly-made games, you will be doing your part in stopping these games from being produced. Just don’t go recommending something like Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles to your grandmother. That would just be wrong.
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5 responses so far:I think that there were a lot of unfair expectations of the control scheme. Sword fighting and combat are interesting concepts, and would seem to be a shoe-in for implementation with the Wii-mote. The problem is that even with “rumble,” you will not get the realistic feedback to emulate actual combat.
Wii Sports is a great title, but a lot of those sports don’t have you using your chosen sport tool to block incoming blows. Every instance is just a one-off of activity. Smacking a ball with a bat, or a racket, or a golf club. Boxing is pretty clever, but I find that half the people are concentrating so hard on flailing around so much that they neglect any sort of strategy.
So how much realism do people expect? Start adding too many elements of realism (eg: 1:1 controls) and you may just alienate some of your audience. I agree that it is more of a mass-market gaming system. But it is a mass-market gaming system for the casual gamer.
It’s still the honeymoon phase. It’s the long-haul that’s going to prove that the Wii is a lot more than it seems.
With such potential in the Wiimote, and arguably very little progress in developers exploiting those controls since the original launch titles, it’s hard to not feel disappointed. It doesn’t help that folks like Johnny Lee (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/) are doing the type of stuff that I was hoping would be integrated into games by now.
Since it took 16 months to get a good light gun implementation, I’m afraid that the hardware limitations will date the system before it has a chance to reach its full potential.
Be a good friend and don’t recommend Rampage: Total Destruction to ANYONE!!!
Jorge, how would 1:1 controls alienate people any more than the ongoing onslaught of bad games? I share Kirk’s concern that developers may take so long to understand the scope of the Wii’s true potential too late in the game.
Think of incidental movement. How would a fully 1:1 control scheme tell the difference between intentional movement and accidental movement?
How would you really feel as if you’ve hit something? A European broadsword, for example, is used on the recoil. That is, you smack something, and use that contact to put some energy behind your second swing. Without effective force feedback (1:1), you don’t have that ability, so you suffer the annoyance of inefficient movement.
That’s only one way to look at it, mind you.
You know you hit something because the Wii Remote *should* be able to electrocute you slightly, forcing the muscles in your arm to lock up. Simple!
Of course, no one would want to play a game that electrocutes them. I mean, no sane person. It would also cut down on the amount of Wiis in retirement homes. Or maybe it would increase the number, as the remotes would be able to be used for defibrillators.
See? Who’s tapping into that potential?
This comment has been brought to you by excessive snarkiness.