2 posts tagged “wii”

Do you consider yourself a "hardcore gamer"? Do you own a Wii? If yes, do you play your Wii regularly?

I love my Wii, there are so many quirky titles available for it - but it doesn't get nearly as much playtime as my Xbox 360... I started thinking about this yesterday when Leo Laporte mentioned it while chatting with his audience. I've had my Wii since the system launched, purchased most of the major Nintendo titles (Mario, Zelda, etc) but it sits atop my entertainment center, vigilantly watching over me as I run over pedestrians in GTAIV.

But I look at my game shelf, I see Smash Brothers, Paper Mario, Mario Galaxy, Zelda, Mario Strikers - all games that I have finished (Zelda, Galaxy, Paper, Smash) or just burned out in a few days; I don't see myself playing Strikers again with Smash Brothers being out, and even then I can't see when I'll be playing Smash Brothers with the RG Crew when we all want to play Rock Band or GTAIV online. But why? Smash Brothers is a fantastic game - even according to us - but when I want to play online with my friends, I have to put on a blindfold and hope for the best. Maybe this is why the Xbox360 is so popular with 'hardcore' gamers, we know we want to play with our friends online - especially with all the current gen consoles offering this gameplay - Microsoft's Live system is a simple solution, works great (most of the time) and we can easily find our friends based on their gamertag. Nintendo wants us to share 12 or 16 digit "Friend Codes", go through multiple menus to input them, and FCs don't carry over to other titles. I know they're doing their part to protect little Timmy and Susie who want to play Happy Feet against their other 5 year old siblings, but shouldn't WE have a choice in how we connect to our friends?

Sadly, I think Wii also has had some bad timing lately. While "everyone" picked up Mario Kart Wii, don't forget what else came out that day - GRAND THEFT AUTO IV - maybe that has a small impact on what hardcores are going to be playing longterm; the straight forward party racing title with only so many options, or the open ended world of Liberty City? I still am glad I chose Boom Blox instead of Mario Kart - but even now that I have finished Boom Blox, it gets played by my non-gamer relatives instead of me.

I still have hopes for the Wii - they are still working on expanding into more mature titles, similarly to the end of the N64 era where we saw Conker, Perfect Dark and even Shadow Man, hopefully to keep some hardcores coming back. Games like Killer 7's Sequel "No More Heroes" are a great start, maybe Nintendo will hit that piece of super software that keeps gamers coming back again and again, for more than bowling.

At least they can bank on Fanboys.

I'm going to be very straight forward. I didn't like Smash Bros on the Gamecube. It didn't really click with me like the Nintendo 64 edition of the game did. I owned a copy of Melee right from launch but it never had a lot of play time on my console. So when Brawl was announced I was skeptical. I didn't think I would bother picking it up, maybe rent it once or twice and that would be it. So its been a week since launch and here's what I think so far.

I luckily used my 'inside connection' at a local rental store to get my hands on their copy of Brawl before anyone else. I took it home that afternoon and by the end of the night I had decided I would take Brawl back to the store the next day. Simply put, I needed to own a copy of the game. While Melee had not held my interest, Brawl grabbed ahold of me and I've logged a ton of time in the past week beating up Pikachu, Donkey Kong and more.

So why buy Brawl instead of rent? I'm told that the game mirrors Melee identically - though I think it plays smoother than ever before. Other than the graphics upgrade, obviously all the new unlockables (Characters, Levels, Music, Virtual Console Demos, etc) are the big reason to buy SSBB. There is simply so much unlockable content that players will need several days to unlock all the new content. The new singleplayer experience, the Subspace Emissary is just a rehashed adventure mode, but the cutscenes are funny; playing through SSE unlocks more content as well!

Online play is another new addition, however the few times I've connected online to play its been really lagged, disconnects and just a bad experience. When I played against someone locally it was smooth as if we were in the same room. I hope this is just first week jitters (much like the Mario Strikers title) but I still think Nintendo is looking for the "in the living room" experience with friends, instead of online. On that note, the "Friend Code" system is annoying and a serious pain in the ass. I know Nintendo is trying to protect the kids that are buying their games, but there should be an 'advanced user' setting that lets players connect with a single username instead of these 16digit codes.

Overall Brawl follows the Melee format that made it popular, throws in a bunch of new characters and levels, online play (that kind of works), a new adventure mode and a fantastic multiplayer experience. If you don't own this game already, you need to go and buy a copy now.

Overall Score: 95%

Pros: Lots of control options, tons of unlockable content

Cons: Online play doesn't work properly all the time.