The wii topic

[frogbeastegg]

Anyone else got one?

I'm actually a bit disappointed with my early stroke-of-amazing-luck Christmas present It's the only time I've brought a new console and not had some kind of "Wow! Great things lie ahead!" feeling. I find I'm slowly feeling gutted.

First the general good of the console:
The analogue stick on the nunchuk is nice. Best I've used, to be honest. Very responsive, and it feels right. The part where your thumb rests is coated in a very grippy rubbery substance, so chances of thumb slippage are slim.

It's a dinky little console. Cute.

Wireless controllers means no wires. Yay!

The wii-mote has rumble built in. Nice, considering a lot of other wireless controllers don't.


The general bad:
You can't turn the console off unless you unplug it. Most won't care about this, but as I have the console in my bedroom I do. I don't want power lights on while I'm trying to sleep.

I can't sit down to play. I have to stand up or most of my wii-mote swinging isn't picked up. In the course of a typical working day I walk approximately 5 miles and stand for 9 hours. I don't want to be forced to stand when I'm trying to relax. I've discovered another flaw to this: I hurt my knee two days ago. I haven't been able to play my Wii for two days because standing is painful. So much for the generic console advantage of being able to sit comfortably while playing, and playing while ill.


I have two games: Zelda and the copy of Wii Sports which comes bundled.

Zelda is fine - it's Zelda for heavens sake! Except ... it's all so blurry. Reviews have said it looks like a Gamecube game; my Gamecube was never this blurry. I found that console's graphics to be more than good enough, and still do the occasional time I fire it up. I was expecting minor steps forward in the graphics department, not a big slip backwards.

The more serious issue is the controls. They feel so bolted on and gimmicky. Wave your wii-mote about to initiate sword attacks. Except the result is no different at all to pressing a button. I find I'd rather be using a normal controller, save for when I do a spin attack. Shaking the nunchuk to get a spin attack is the only improvement I've found on the control scheme so far. Aiming projectiles via the wii-mote is not as easy as I'd like, probably because I have to waggle the remote about at arms length in front of the TV before it detects it to put the cursor on screen, a process which sometimes results in the cursor appearing instantly, others in taking precious seconds. The fly in the muddy ointment is that occasionally I find Link doing things I don’t want him to in battle and dying because of it. Like flying over an enemy’s head into an instant death cloud of poison. Meaning I had to repeat several minutes of play to get back to that point because the save/continue point system is still in the early 90's. And then he did it again. This is a far cry from the older 3D Zeldas, where I felt Link was so well under my control I only needed to think of doing something and it was done.

I'm not sold on the wii-mote speaker either; why is having tinny-sounding sword swooshes coming out of the wii-mote classed as better than having proper quality sword swooshes coming from the TV? The result is just odd and a bit tacky.

It all adds up. Ocarina of Time is my favourite game ever. Majora's Mask isn't far behind. I enjoyed Wind Waker, with the exception of the boring sailing, until it got to the awful fetch-quest near the end. I'm simply not getting the same feeling of awe and addiction with Twilight Princess. Everything I like about it is undermined by the blurriness, the controls, and having to stand to play it.


Wii Sports isn't my usual cup of tea; I don't like sports and I don't like sports games. But it came free, and it should be good to play with my boyfriend. It has five games: tennis, bowling, golf, baseball, boxing. Bowling and baseball are mind-numbingly boring. Golf is the least interesting game out of the lot to me, I haven't tried it yet (why bother with golf when there's Zelda?!).

Tennis is the one I should have liked; it's the one I was looking forward to trying. It should have been great, given the motion sensor controls. It isn't. A lot of my swings don't pick up, or trigger the wrong kind of move. Left side control is the biggest problem: I swing on my left and the character stubbornly swings on his right. Tennis is the one which gets all that talk about non-gamers picking up a wii-mote and playing happily in seconds. I haven't won a single game of tennis. I've scored 1 point. In 11 games. In the same time I've watched the ball bounce past my character as I swing the wii-mote futilely more times than I can count.


Not entirely related but still a factor in my end feeling: You can play gamecube games on the Wii. Excellent! I have an imported US gamecube, and there are some titles I never imported. I can play the PAL versions now. Theoretically - none of the shops near me have gamecube titles. Amazon.uk doesn't have the ones I want except as second hand extortionate rip offs. Nowhere has them. I'm talking first party Nintendo titles like Pikmin 2 here.

And another: All games on the virtual console for PAL territories are PAL versions. Huzzah - we got a crappier version of the game the first time around, and can now download a crappy version again, paying more for that 'privilege' than any other territory. There's no option to get a proper 60Hz version even if your TV supports it, and nearly all TVs in the UK now do. Most worrying of all this means that games which didn't reach PAL territories before likely won't come to the virtual console. So no Mario RPG et al for us.


:sigh: So in the end most of my problems really come back to one thing: the motion sensor controls. They don't work reliably, they don't work comfortably, and they feel gimmicky in one out of my two games.

I have tried moving the sensor bar from below the TV to above it, standing closer, standing further back, I've turned down sensitivity, I've turned up sensitivity, I've even tried telling it the sensor bar is below my TV when it is above it and vice versa in the hope that would help. Moving the bar above the TV made a slight improvement, but it also ensures I absolutely must stand to play.

Gah! I’ve got Zelda and I can’t play it because I’ve hurt my knee and can’t stand to use some gimmicky feeling controls I’d rather do without!

[Husar]

I'm sorry for you, not a console gamer myself, I had my doubts about the accuracy of such a control with motion sensors and wireless and so on, it just felt like it wouldn't work reliably. Then again, one would expect it to if it is sold publicly and if your success in games depends on it.
Maybe your controller or receiver has a fault or you need to stand really close to the TV(which also doesn't sound that good, even worse because of your knee). There was also some homepage about TVs broken by the Wii mote because apparently it can slip out of your sweaty hands if you move it around fast, the cord breaks easily and so it can land in your TV, just be careful with it.

[MSB]

Just another bad that was on the news:
The wii's controlers have straps that are too thin. These can break and cause large ammounts damage to anything from TVs to windows should they fly off

[The Wizard]

I don't know what the heck people are doing if the Wiimote gains enough velocity to start flying fast enough to damage something

[Xiahou]

Just another bad that was on the news:
The wii's controlers have straps that are too thin. These can break and cause large ammounts damage to anything from TVs to windows should they fly off

I'm perfectly willing to call BS on the majority of the "my strap broke and my wiimote broke my TV" stories- they don't pass the smell test.

Here's a link to a guy who stress tested his strap- nothing that could be considered ordinary use would break it....

----------------------------------

frogbeastegg, I'm sorry to hear you're having so much trouble, I certainly don't have any of those complaints- maybe I can help some.

First, the "power off" issue:
When you turn the Wii off via the Wiimote, it actually just goes into Standby (yellow light) mode- which allows the wireless networking to stay active for the WiiConnect24 feature. The idea with WiiConnect is to download updates, ect while you're away from your Wii. But from what I can tell this functionality isn't implemented yet- so leaving it on standby does nothing other than generate heat it seems for now. To turn it off properly, you have to hold down the actual power button on the Wii until the LED turns red. If it's the small LED light that's bothering you this probably wont help too much.

"Tinny" sounding wiimote speaker:
Yup, it's sound quality isnt the greatest. Some people think it's because it's a cheap speaker, I tend to think it might have something to do with the limitations of bluetooth... Either way, I prefer to just turn down the speaker volume- I like to be able to hear it faintly still, just not so loud that it drowns out the better quality stereo/tv. If you can't stand it at all, you can just turn it all the way down.

Wiimote pointer functionality:
I have almost no problems here- it goes where I point it. I recently purchased Elebits, which is extremely pointer intensive. It involves grabbing objects and furniture with your "capture gun" and flinging them around as well as zapping tiny elebits by pointing at them and pressing a button. I generally play sitting down, with the only exception being when I'm swinging my arms around like an idiot- which I can't do as well sitting down.

You can diagnose ALOT of problems through the sensitivity screen in your Wii settings. Keep in mind that the sensor bar isn't a sensor at all- it simply broadcasts IR light from transmitters on each end of the bar. The wiimote uses those signals as markers to determine it's position.

So, if you go into the sensitivity settings you should see two white dots on the screen. Move the wiimote around and make sure that you always have two dots as you point it at different parts of the screen. If you don't have two dots, your sensitivity is too low. If you see more dots, either your sensitivity is too high or you're getting interference from another IR source.

One problem I had was when I played seated on my sofa with my coffee table in front of me.... I had left my game cases on the coffee table in front of me, and noticed that my pointer was jumping all over the screen- what was happening was that the IR light from the sensor bar(I use mine under my TV) was reflecting off of the plastic game cases and confusing the wiimote- this was apparent under the sensitivity menu, as extra dots showed up whenever I tilted the Wiimote downwards. The solution, obviously, was to remove the game cases. I've occasionally had similar problems with drinking glasses, ect being in the way- but it's not problem now that I know what to look for.

Hope this helps some- let me know if you have any other questions.

[frogbeastegg]

Wii-mote flinging

Ditto. I don't believe any of those stories. My wii-mote's strap is solid, and the wii-mote is light enough that I doubt it could damage my TV even if I threw it with all my puny strength.

If it's the small LED light that's bothering you this probably wont help too much.

Alas, it is the red light. In a dark room it's surprisingly disturbing.

Wii-mote speaker

So much for my tentative hope I was missing something which made it into a good feature instead of something which seems bizarre. Oh well. Maybe in the future. For now I'll leave it turned down quite low, it's alright when it's like that.

Elebits

Oooh - is it good? I have my eye on that one. It's out here at some unstated point in 2007, which probably means February or later. Nintendo do something wonderful, and do a near-simultaneous worldwide release – then leave Europe dragging behind on games. As usual. Disappointing, moreso as they were doing games releases for the gamecube/GBA with less than a month of lag at one point.

If you see more dots, either your sensitivity is too high or you're getting interference from another IR source.

Ah ha! It was picking up the room's main light and treating it as another source. The light is not centrally hung (idiots who modernised this Victorian house had all kinds of silly ideas about where to put things) and is positioned to my left as I stand in front of the TV. I have to play with the room in darkness except for my reading light above my bed, and I still have to stand.



Testing out my solution to the light problem led to a Wii-sports filled evening with my boyfriend, sharing the single Wii-mote and taking it in turns to play. I'm terrified by how good he is at the boxing! I always thought him harmless. Turns out he's Muhammad Ali reborn. He loved it, and says we will have to get an extra Wii-mote and some other two player games. I'm thinking of the Wii play pack, and possibly Rayman.

Myself, I'm still not a fan of Wii-sports. It's sports. Tennis was alright though, and the whole experience improves considerably when the controls work. The automatically adjusting difficulty level is unique in my experience - it actually works! When you win a match your next is noticeably harder, when you lose it's a little easier, and the step up or down is never too big. Give me a game based on something I like and Good Things could happen ...

Looks like you need someone to help you with finding imports.

The thought had crossed my mind. I have been plotting. You should have mail soonish.

If the Wiimote gets you down, buy the standard controller at any gaming shop

I could hook up my wavebird or standard gamecube controller, so forking out for extra controllers is thankfully not necessary. The hitch is that Wii games don't give you the option to use standard controls, just as virtual console and gamecube games don't let you use motion sensors. I can see Nintendo's point in not allowing this; motion sensor is the big selling point of the Wii, and without it the console is open to direct comparisons to the PS3 and xbox360. .

[Xiahou]

Glad I could help some.

The sensor bar is really an interesting creature imo- people have already discovered many ad-hoc substitutes for them, including modded remote controls or even candles to transmit the needed IR signal. There are already 3rd party sensor bars cropping up on the Internet that run on batteries instead of needing to be plugged into the console. Hopefully we'll see adjustable length ones someday to help those who have freakishly large TVs.

When you say you have to play standing, is it because the pointer functionality doesn't work when seated? Obviously, WiiSports is pretty much designed to be played standing, but I always play Zelda(which is awesome) and Raving Rabbids seated without any problems. If so, make sure it's all the way out to the edge of whatever your tv is sitting on- so the signal isn't being blocked from the angle you're seated at.

I haven't got to spend much time on Elebits yet (just the tutorials and the first level), but what I've seen looks neat. The motion control is really something in game- you can grab objects and toss them around, move them up, down, left, right, or even forwards and backwards by pushing/pulling the Wiimote towards or away from the screen- neato. The level I played consisted of me basically trashing my room (lifting boxes, over turning tables, opening and emptying closets, ect) in my search for elebits. When you collect a certain amount of them, you can power devices (ie: your TV, toy car, ect), which in turn flushes out 'power' elebits. Collect enough of these guys and the weight that can be manipulated by your capture gun goes up. Towards the end of the level I could move most objects in my bedroom, that was when I really had the place trashed searching for the last few buggers- looked like a hurricane had been through.

[Kekvit Irae]

Not entirely related but still a factor in my end feeling: You can play gamecube games on the Wii. Excellent! I have an imported US gamecube, and there are some titles I never imported. I can play the PAL versions now. Theoretically - none of the shops near me have gamecube titles. Amazon.uk doesn't have the ones I want except as second hand extortionate rip offs. Nowhere has them. I'm talking first party Nintendo titles like Pikmin 2 here

Looks like you need someone to help you with finding imports.

If the Wiimote gets you down, buy the standard controller at any gaming shop.

[frogbeastegg]

Pape: You want me to stick tacky blue putty stuff on the on/off switch of my shiny white console!? Gah!, I say to you, sir, gah!

BDC: Go and buy Zelda. Then play it. Finish it. Then go and buy all the other 3D Zeldas, play and finish them. Then come back. Go now. This is one of my favourite series, and it contains my favourite game ever: Ocarina of Time. I don't get on with the 2D ones though, to my ever-lasting disappointment.

And as for kiddy, it may not have blood and gore and swearing, but I find that seldom makes anything mature at all. On the contrary, games with that often feel very "I'm a teenager and wannabe cool!!1!" to me. There's very few which use it to good effect.

Some parts of the recent Zelda games are quite dark, if you think about them. There also tends to be a sorrowful atmosphere to them, and the endings are bittersweet at best. If you think about them.



Anyone played Monkey Ball, Red Steel or Rayman? We can't decide which one to pick up with Wii Play. :sigh: This is the problem when you give your boyfriend the chance to give his opinion, instead of choosing for him and telling him to be happy

I have fond memories of the first Monkey Ball, but didn't find the second to be nearly as good (level design wasn't as good, the camera had real problems on some levels, story mode was crap, and the whole experience felt less pure). I have never been a fan of the mini games in this series, with the exception of the first game's version of monkey flight. I hear this new one has bosses. This sounds like a terrible idea and makes me doubtful. Monkey Ball is about rolling monkeys in balls around intricate levels collecting bananas and teetering on the edge of death, not about bopping stupid monsters.

Red Steel has swords, guns and ninjas. He likes that sort of thing. I don't mind it occasionally provided it is well done and not a straight run and gun type. Red Steel has had a lot of reviews complaining about poor controls and bugs, and it sounds like a very straight up shooter.

Rayman sounds so silly and perfect to play with another person ... except it also sounds short-lived. It's going to be a while before Wii games go down in price. Being nothing but mini games it also doesn't have much meat to it for SP gaming.

[Lehesu]

I also heard that Red Steel is god awful.

[Xiahou]

Pape: You want me to stick tacky blue putty stuff on the on/off switch of my shiny white console!? Gah!, I say to you, sir, gah!

Just hook it to a power strip that you can switch off when you're not playing. That'll save you from unplugging it all the time.

Something tells me that I'll be getting Monkey Ball for Christmas, so I'll know more about it then... I have heard some mixed reviews on it though.

I had rented Red Steel, and it's not a bad game. The controls seem a little awkward at first, but I got used to them within the first hour. It's basically just a shoot em up with a thin plot about rescuing your GF who's dad is a Yakuza lord. The sword fighting is kinda fun, but they don't make much sense in the pacing of the game- You're running along shooting everyone in sight, then you go into a room with a guy with a sword and you duel him instead of just blasting with a shotgun... for some reason.

I own Raving Rabbids and it sounds like you got it nailed. It's a collection mini-games with a all but non-existent plot tying them together. The mini-games are good fun and have a sense of humor, but alot of them seem to involve similar motions.

--------------------------

I just got the forecast channel and the Internet channel installed on my Wii. Both of them are pretty neat w/forecast channel you can view your local forecasts or zoom out to a global views and spin the view to other towns/cities around the world. The Internet channel is just a customized Opera browser, but it supports Flash- which means it can play youtube videos and play Flash online games.

[Fragony]

Wii's got it, oh baby wii's got it.

Couldn't be happier with my purchase. Ok, I am with the frogmod, the wii specific elements aren't that great in Zelda, but aiming with the wiimote is a great improvement.

Now about Zelda, WIW. Awesome. I always get nervous when developers talk about making the game darker, Zelda needs to be kiddie. But, it works. I am especially fond of the soundtrack, just epic, lots of horns yay. Just finnished the first dungeon, loving it to death.

[frogbeastegg]

Ok, I am with the frogmod

:calls off her ninja death squads:

Congratulations on finding a wii


Xiahou, thanks. I think what I may do is wait until my few days off over New Year, then rent the three games and see what they are like. Wii Play remains sold out everywhere, with no date for restocking.

Did you get Monkey Ball?

[frogbeastegg]

I got Rayman and Monkey Ball for my birthday, and Red Steel may be making an appearance later on. I managed to locate a copy of Wii Play two days ago as well.

Rayman is stupidly fun so far. I love the games which involve shooting rabbids with plungers Brilliant. The dancing mini games are better than I expected; rhythm games aren't my cup of tea, yet vaporising rabbids in time to music is quite addictive. The toilet door one is a pain; I can't last more than 20 seconds in it. For some reason it doesn't seem to pick up the hand being placed over the doors, so no matter how quickly I shake the nunchuck the doors always open and I get a face full of plungers. That's the one, single solitary control issue I've encountered; the rest of the game plays to perfection. I can't imagine playing it on one of the other consoles.

Monkey Ball is a very mixed bag. Most of the mini games I've tried are a bit crap, and too many have fiddly and/or unreliable controls. Some are reasonable. Snowboarding is alright, and the space invader rip off one is decent enough. The bird flying one is far and away the best so far; the controls work beautifully, and it's quite relaxing. But I was never a fan of Monkey ball's mini games; the original monkey flight is the only one I've liked.

The main SP game is about as good as Monkey Ball 2's, though the controls are going to take a bit of getting used to. Presently they don't feel as accurate as my old analogue stick. Given time I expect I'll gain fine control.

Monkey Ball’s bird mini game has gotten me thinking about how good a Wii katamari game would be …

I shall try Wii Play when my arms stop hurting. Spraying oncoming hordes of rabbids with carrot juice is hard work. My puny little arms are in danger of getting muscles

[frogbeastegg]

I did get Red Steel as well. I haven't enjoyed a console shooter as much since Perfect Dark on the N64. I don't understand all the complaining about the controls; they felt natural to me after five minutes of play whereas I have never been able to get on with using dual analogue sticks. I always ended up blowing my own feet off, or running about in circles. Much prefered Perfect Dark's control set up, with forward/backward/strafe on the cluster of buttons, and look on the stick. The training sword fights were neat too; nothing wrong with them. I did tweak the sensitivity a bit, and set the sword fights to large movements instead of small, so maybe that is important in getting it to control well.

I'm not a shooter connoisseur; in fact I haven't really played any for several years. Maybe it's my uncultured tastes showing? Whatever, it's fun and that’s all I care about.

Wii Play is great when played with another person. My boyfriend and I wasted an entire hour on it before moving on to a bit of tennis. Target shooting is fun, and the fishing game. We didn't like billiards much.

[Fragony]

Feel the same way about Red Steel, they just should have given the makers more time because a lot of awesomness is underdeveloped. People are complaining about the cheesiness, but that is intentional. What made Max Payne so charming was the over the top noirishness, Red Steel does the same thing but with Hongkong action flicks. Common, what is it with these japanese that they drop weapons and go samurai the minute they see a sword

I really have no idea what the game does so terribly wrong, it has ok graphics, lots of destruction and a control scheme that kicks the crap out of the mouse/keyboard setup. People that have trouble with the controls only prove thhat the evolutiontheory isn't complete. I am dancing my way through this game making headshots I never thought possible. The final stages really demand that you are comfortable with the controls, it gets hard

Swordfighting sucks though, shame.

[Xiahou]

I really have no idea what the game does so terribly wrong, it has ok graphics, lots of destruction and a control scheme that kicks the crap out of the mouse/keyboard setup.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that Red Steel puts keyboard/mouse FPS controls to shame- but it most assuredly does put analog stick FPS controls to shame.

I'd also go one further than "Ok" graphics, and say that in many places they actually look quite good. Red Steel shows alot of promise for the Wii in general, imo. Consider that the game was probably designed almost totally on the development prototype Wii (basically a GC with a Wiimote) and, iirc, developed before the Wiimote "learning" development kit was released as well. This suggests to me that there should still be significant room for improvement graphically and in terms of controls for things such as sword-fighting.

While I'm at it, the sword-fighting really isn't bad at all. It's just all about timing- parry/dodge, attack, attack, then rinse & repeat. If you can get proficient at the knock-back parries, you can usually put a beating on a guy pretty quickly.