.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT WIIVIEW
.TITLE Playing with my Wii
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.SUMMARY That title sounds so bad. After having it sit in a box for five days while he worked on various publishing deadlines, Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz finally hooked up his very own, personal Wii gaming system. This article contains his first impressions.
.OTHER
That title sounds so bad. After having it sit in a box for five days while I worked on various publishing deadlines, I finally hooked up my very own, personal Wii gaming system. This article contains my first impressions.
.CALLOUT My very first impression after opening the box was a four-letter word.
My very first impression after opening the box was a four-letter word. It was late at night and I’d just discovered the Wii’s interface cable came only with an RCA jack, and my amp only accepts S-Video. For those of you who aren’t A/V junkies, the RCA jack provides much lower quality video than an S-Video interface does.
I didn’t want to go searching for an S-video cable, so initially, I was Wii out of luck. I finally found a converter dongle from RCA to S-video in my bin of parts, but it wiilly annoyed me that the Wii came with an RCA interface only.
.TEASER There are way too many Wii puns in this article, but it’s worth reading anyway. Tap here for the rest.
Now, wii know the Wii is designed for traditional TVs and not HDTV, but could it have killed Nintendo to include a converter dongle? It turns out Nintendo doesn’t even make an S-Video cable. You have to search Amazon for an aftermarket brand.
.H1 Browsing the Web
Once hooked up, I set up the WiiFi interface and adjusted my router to allow the Wii to connect. Then I downloaded the Opera Web browser. Opera works ok, but uses about 20% of the screen for the basic navigation buttons that don’t hide or go away.
While browsing, though, I was impressed that I could watch some nice-looking YouTube video on it (George Carlin) and that was pretty enjoyable. The Opera browser has no indicator that a page is loading. The browser needs work, but since it’s still in beta, wii’ll give it some time.
.H1 Wii Sports
Next, I played Wii sports. This is a bit wild. First, it is incredibly immersive. You get into a standing batter’s stance to hit a baseball, and swing the controller like a tennis racket in Wii Tennis.
.H2 Wii Bowling
At first, Wii Bowling seemed dumb, because it appeared to just be a matter of how hard you swung your arm. But that’s not the case. I cleared some space in my media room and did the actual three-step bowling approach, swung my arm, and wiileased the B button to let the ball fly. After a few rounds of this, it really, wiilly felt like I was bowling.
When Denise and I played together, wii truly did have the feeling of being at our local bowling alley (minus the stank and silly shoes, of course). Absolutely an incredibly immersive experience.
.H2 Wii Baseball
Pitching is stupid, and seems to be based on just strength of throw. Batting is incredibly fun. There’s not a lot of control (I couldn’t get it to bunt), but still, you can generally aim your hit. And you can assume a batter’s stance, time your swing, and actually feel like you’re hitting the ball with a bat.
.H2 Wii Tennis
Dangerously addictive. My favorite of the Wii Sports games. There is seemingly considerable control with the Wiimote.
.H2 Wii Golf
What’s the point? I know, some of you like golf and I guess this feels vaguely golferly. I still can’t make myself care.
.H2 Wii Boxing
Playing Wii Boxing results in a definite workout, but the controls were sluggish and it wasn’t clear why a hit scored or didn’t. If the controls felt tighter, this would be the standout.
.H1 Overall impressions
The Wii is definitely fun, I actually worked up a sweat, and I’ve got a couple of sore muscles from twisting in ways I haven’t since I was 17. Sadly, Wii Fitness says my fitness level is 75 years. I’m not that old and don’t think it can be right. I work out twice a wiik with a trainer and lift weights, but if you were to interpret 75 as my gaming skill age, it’d probably be right.
The Wiimote controller has an on-board speaker, which didn’t make much of an initial impression on me, but after a few days of playing, I realized it made the sound of the ball hitting the bat when playing baseball or the ball hitting the tennis racket when playing Wii Tennis. This added immersiveness to the gameplay, because the impact sound is coming from exactly where you’d expect it to come if you were wiilly playing. A nice touch.
Overall, I’m impressed with this new style of gameplay. I was very annoyed that Nintendo cheaped out on the interface cable. The inclusion of Wii Sports makes me want to find more controller intensive games. I want a good batting game, with very subtle controls. I think a good table tennis game, with precise controls, would be a killer app as well.
Wii just got in Wii Play (with table tennis and pool) and in next few wiiks and wii’ll see if the Wii continues to thrill with party games.
If it weren’t for the lack of an S-Video interface cable or dongle, the Wii would earn a five-out-of-five for being wildly innovative and changing how it feels to play video games. But Nintendo cheaped out slightly, so they lose a star.
.RATING 4
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the Nintendo Wii, visit http://www.nintendo.com/channel/wii.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
