The Wii Party
October 31st 2006 23:56
So, I played the Wii last night.
And I liked it.
9PM last night marked the opening of the NSW leg of the national "Wii Party" competition, in the Millennium Room of Telstra Stadium in Olympic Park. Around 60 people rocked up, from young to (relatively) old. Once 9PM struck, everyone converged on the escalators to get to Level 4, where the Room is located. Poor planning on Nintendo's part meant that the registration table for the event was situated right next to the escalator. In theory, it must've been a good thing. People walk off the escalator and go straight to the table, and then head on in to the party. In practice, however, it wasn't so peachy. A queue soon built up... onto the escalator. People were unwilling to move even slightly away from the table, so those on the escalator were catapulted into an unmoving mass of nerdy fans. After a few seconds, it was evident there was a problem. The moving escalator became clogged with the queue, causing no small amount of chaos.
Eventually, though, the Nintendo reps took some initiative and moved the queue to a more reasonable location. Forms were distributed, stating in no friendly terms were we to take any photos, with any kind of device. Seeing as pretty much everyone had a camera, or at the very least a camera-phone, there was some minor unhappiness. The majority of the people, being internet denizens, however, were already aware of the no-cameras rule, having read about the Melbourne event. Anyway... after around 10 minutes of waiting in line, I managed to get to the table, was signed in, and headed on inside.
The room actually looked a little sparse. There were 12 or so Wiis, two to a stand, with a ~32" LCD TV each. This area was currently off-limits - patrons held back by the sheer willpower of the Nintendo reps. People instead decided to gorge themselves on the free soft-drink and party food that waiters brought out. After a few minutes, all 57 competition winners were inside and salivating. I don't have a clue where the missing three were, but you can be sure they weren't happy. A few quick words and pointers from the beardy Nintendo rep - no photos (once again), play nice, don't cut the queue - and it began.
A few people bolted, a few people sprinted, but the majority of people briskly walked to the consoles. The largest crowd gathered around the two Zelda consoles, where the latest and not-before-seen Zelda gameplay video was being shown. It was amazing - that's pretty much all I have to say. Seeing Link walking around a town, swimming through water, rafting through some dangerous rapids, trotting along on horseback, FIGHTING on horseback... amazing. I _really_ wanted to play Zelda. And as it turned out, after a short and agonizing wait, I was one of the first to be handed the controller and nunchuck.
Now, this was my first experience with the Wiimote. It felt the right size in my hand, and so did the nunchuck. I was actually expecting it to be heavier though, which was the slightest of disappointments. I'm a fan of heavy peripherals - my old Logitech MX700 mouse with a heap of 5c coins glued inside it comes to mind - but the Wiimote was light, though not dangerously so. With wrist strap tightened (so no chance of sword-swinging sending the controller across the room into someone's Coke), I started the dungeon demo level of Zelda. It was fantastic. I'm sure you've all read the experiences many times, so I won't bore you in much detail. The controls took a few seconds of getting used to - being a PC gamer for a long time, with only short stints on the Gamecube, so the joystick is a very novel thing for me - but soon enough I was slashing up orcs left and right. I found that it was pretty much all in the wrist... any too-vigorous arm movements had the dangerous possibility of pulling the nunchuck along with them.
So, Zelda was fantastic, and fishing was intriguingly playable. On to Excite Truck I went, this time waiting in line for a little longer than before. With car and track selected, the Wiimote was held in hand a la steering wheel, and the game began. It was very fast-paced and the controller was extremely sensitive, though playable. One thing I disliked about Excite Truck was that a seemingly-thin tree was able to stop your oversized marauding gas-guzzler in its tracks, really putting a stop to the fast-paced gameplay. I guess everyone'll just have to learn to avoid them.
With ET completed - placing a dismal 6th, I might add - I moved to the far corner of the room, where the Wii Sports and Wii Play consoles were set up.
I should take a moment here, after discussing Zelda and ET, to talk about the graphics. There's been a lot of debate on the power of the Wii, and the sensibility of Nintendo in releasing a console with no high-def support or awesome-processing-powah like the PS3/X360. I'm definitely not starting a debate here, so I'll say one thing. While the graphics on these two games - and they're the games which are the most traditional in terms of using polygons and shaders and whatnot - were not up to the standards of the X360 i was playing earlier in the day, they were certainly passable and functional. A little jaggy close up, perhaps, but not without an abundance of pretty shiny surfaces and lighting.
So, on to the Wii Sports games. First up was bowling. Playing against a rather pasty-faced fellow (who I assumed was on loan from the hallowed halls of Aussie-Nintendo), I quickly found my groove, and got the hang of putting spin on the balls. Several strikes followed, and I walked away victorious. Bowling is singularly easy to play. Aim the ball where you want using the D-Pad, hold B, swing back, swing forward, and release B. And that's it. Fun, too.
Tennis was next up. A best of 3, I found myself playing against a rather dashingly handsome fellow, muscle-bound and tanned... he seemed rather out of place. Now, I've never been particularly good at tennis in real life, and I think it may have shown in-game. I had a bad habit of twisting the Wiimote at just the wrong time, sending the ball straight out without any hope. So, after a few brief sorties - without so much as a momentary comeback from me - the game was decided. A little dejected at my lack of skill, I moved up to play the Wii Play games.
Duck Hunt - sorry, Shooting Gallery - was some great two-player fun, though I did sometimes find myself getting confused as to whose cursor was whose. I probably should've been paying more attention though, instead of talking to the Nintendo girl who I was playing against. Duck Hunt was enjoyable to say the least, though I lost out by a few points. The only other Wii Play game on offer was Laser Hockey, a reimagining of Pong, except with Wiimotes. It was actually a little hard to master. Tilting the controller tilted the paddle in-game, and was certainly hard to get used to.
The only other game on offer was Warioware. This, I admit, was what I'd been waiting for. The best use of the Wiimote there, it was incredibly fun. I must've played it about 3 or 4 times. Before each mini-game (hula, push the man over, pop the balloon, put in the false teeth, drive the car, lift the dumbell, don't drop the broom, hammer the nail... you name it) started, a note would come up telling which way to hold the Wiimote. There was a whole ~30 or so different stances possible, so I'm sure there's going to be a LOT of fun to be had with the retail version.
And, that's pretty much it. No more games to play and it was just on 11PM, closing time. I trudged back to my car with a happy heart.
PS. Because I'm a happy soul, I'll leave you with some pictures of a Wii demo kiosk in Japan:
And I liked it.
9PM last night marked the opening of the NSW leg of the national "Wii Party" competition, in the Millennium Room of Telstra Stadium in Olympic Park. Around 60 people rocked up, from young to (relatively) old. Once 9PM struck, everyone converged on the escalators to get to Level 4, where the Room is located. Poor planning on Nintendo's part meant that the registration table for the event was situated right next to the escalator. In theory, it must've been a good thing. People walk off the escalator and go straight to the table, and then head on in to the party. In practice, however, it wasn't so peachy. A queue soon built up... onto the escalator. People were unwilling to move even slightly away from the table, so those on the escalator were catapulted into an unmoving mass of nerdy fans. After a few seconds, it was evident there was a problem. The moving escalator became clogged with the queue, causing no small amount of chaos.
Eventually, though, the Nintendo reps took some initiative and moved the queue to a more reasonable location. Forms were distributed, stating in no friendly terms were we to take any photos, with any kind of device. Seeing as pretty much everyone had a camera, or at the very least a camera-phone, there was some minor unhappiness. The majority of the people, being internet denizens, however, were already aware of the no-cameras rule, having read about the Melbourne event. Anyway... after around 10 minutes of waiting in line, I managed to get to the table, was signed in, and headed on inside.
The room actually looked a little sparse. There were 12 or so Wiis, two to a stand, with a ~32" LCD TV each. This area was currently off-limits - patrons held back by the sheer willpower of the Nintendo reps. People instead decided to gorge themselves on the free soft-drink and party food that waiters brought out. After a few minutes, all 57 competition winners were inside and salivating. I don't have a clue where the missing three were, but you can be sure they weren't happy. A few quick words and pointers from the beardy Nintendo rep - no photos (once again), play nice, don't cut the queue - and it began.
A few people bolted, a few people sprinted, but the majority of people briskly walked to the consoles. The largest crowd gathered around the two Zelda consoles, where the latest and not-before-seen Zelda gameplay video was being shown. It was amazing - that's pretty much all I have to say. Seeing Link walking around a town, swimming through water, rafting through some dangerous rapids, trotting along on horseback, FIGHTING on horseback... amazing. I _really_ wanted to play Zelda. And as it turned out, after a short and agonizing wait, I was one of the first to be handed the controller and nunchuck.
Now, this was my first experience with the Wiimote. It felt the right size in my hand, and so did the nunchuck. I was actually expecting it to be heavier though, which was the slightest of disappointments. I'm a fan of heavy peripherals - my old Logitech MX700 mouse with a heap of 5c coins glued inside it comes to mind - but the Wiimote was light, though not dangerously so. With wrist strap tightened (so no chance of sword-swinging sending the controller across the room into someone's Coke), I started the dungeon demo level of Zelda. It was fantastic. I'm sure you've all read the experiences many times, so I won't bore you in much detail. The controls took a few seconds of getting used to - being a PC gamer for a long time, with only short stints on the Gamecube, so the joystick is a very novel thing for me - but soon enough I was slashing up orcs left and right. I found that it was pretty much all in the wrist... any too-vigorous arm movements had the dangerous possibility of pulling the nunchuck along with them.
So, Zelda was fantastic, and fishing was intriguingly playable. On to Excite Truck I went, this time waiting in line for a little longer than before. With car and track selected, the Wiimote was held in hand a la steering wheel, and the game began. It was very fast-paced and the controller was extremely sensitive, though playable. One thing I disliked about Excite Truck was that a seemingly-thin tree was able to stop your oversized marauding gas-guzzler in its tracks, really putting a stop to the fast-paced gameplay. I guess everyone'll just have to learn to avoid them.
With ET completed - placing a dismal 6th, I might add - I moved to the far corner of the room, where the Wii Sports and Wii Play consoles were set up.
I should take a moment here, after discussing Zelda and ET, to talk about the graphics. There's been a lot of debate on the power of the Wii, and the sensibility of Nintendo in releasing a console with no high-def support or awesome-processing-powah like the PS3/X360. I'm definitely not starting a debate here, so I'll say one thing. While the graphics on these two games - and they're the games which are the most traditional in terms of using polygons and shaders and whatnot - were not up to the standards of the X360 i was playing earlier in the day, they were certainly passable and functional. A little jaggy close up, perhaps, but not without an abundance of pretty shiny surfaces and lighting.
So, on to the Wii Sports games. First up was bowling. Playing against a rather pasty-faced fellow (who I assumed was on loan from the hallowed halls of Aussie-Nintendo), I quickly found my groove, and got the hang of putting spin on the balls. Several strikes followed, and I walked away victorious. Bowling is singularly easy to play. Aim the ball where you want using the D-Pad, hold B, swing back, swing forward, and release B. And that's it. Fun, too.
Tennis was next up. A best of 3, I found myself playing against a rather dashingly handsome fellow, muscle-bound and tanned... he seemed rather out of place. Now, I've never been particularly good at tennis in real life, and I think it may have shown in-game. I had a bad habit of twisting the Wiimote at just the wrong time, sending the ball straight out without any hope. So, after a few brief sorties - without so much as a momentary comeback from me - the game was decided. A little dejected at my lack of skill, I moved up to play the Wii Play games.
Duck Hunt - sorry, Shooting Gallery - was some great two-player fun, though I did sometimes find myself getting confused as to whose cursor was whose. I probably should've been paying more attention though, instead of talking to the Nintendo girl who I was playing against. Duck Hunt was enjoyable to say the least, though I lost out by a few points. The only other Wii Play game on offer was Laser Hockey, a reimagining of Pong, except with Wiimotes. It was actually a little hard to master. Tilting the controller tilted the paddle in-game, and was certainly hard to get used to.
The only other game on offer was Warioware. This, I admit, was what I'd been waiting for. The best use of the Wiimote there, it was incredibly fun. I must've played it about 3 or 4 times. Before each mini-game (hula, push the man over, pop the balloon, put in the false teeth, drive the car, lift the dumbell, don't drop the broom, hammer the nail... you name it) started, a note would come up telling which way to hold the Wiimote. There was a whole ~30 or so different stances possible, so I'm sure there's going to be a LOT of fun to be had with the retail version.
And, that's pretty much it. No more games to play and it was just on 11PM, closing time. I trudged back to my car with a happy heart.
PS. Because I'm a happy soul, I'll leave you with some pictures of a Wii demo kiosk in Japan:
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