Ok, I think it’s time for me to reply to some of the comments now.
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Gold isn't even the highest, Platinum is.
You’re absolutely right, Mario. Thanks for pointing that out.
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Complaining about dull presentation and slow pace in a BILLIARDS game? Also completely ridiculous.
As I noted elsewhere in the review, the graphics and sounds (and so also the presentation) play a relatively small role in your enjoyment of the game. So don’t consider the complaint about the dull presentation to be a huge one. I mention it because the presentation is particularly bad in Billiards. It shows that Nintendo put very little effort into creating a fitting mood for the mini-games. Even Monkey Billiards in Super Monkey Ball 2 had actual graphics around the table, which at least gave you some illusion of being in some cosy bar with beer-drinking monkeys and jazz music etc. In comparison, Wii Play Billiards shows nothing more than a low-res black and white texture.
As for the slow pace, I’m not after some crazy adrenaline kick. Real-life billiards is pretty slow, so it’s natural for a billiards videogame to be that as well. But, once again, Billiards in Wii Play is an extreme case. There are lots of other billiards games – both on consoles and available for free on the internet - that are far less drawn out and cumbersome to play, yet still offer the same amount of depth.
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they all fail in showing off the exciting potential of the kind of gaming experiences that the Wii Remote can offer.
Not really. People say "hey I wonder how the remote would work for Ping Pong", they play this, the answer is "well"..
Instead of showing people how you can play a 35 year-old game differently with a remote, why not try to create games specifically designed around the remote? Nintendo has always stressed the importance of creating entirely new gameplay experiences, and the Wii – with its unique controller - fits perfectly into this philosophy. But Wii Play – with its many “remakes” of existing games and existing game ideas – doesn’t.
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It's just fun, and easily worth a pissweak extra $10. That's like 5 games of air hockey in the arcade.
You can also spend $10 on one or two great VC games. I can think of at least a dozen of those that are superior to Wii Play.
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I think this review is being extremely unfair, but sadly I see this being the norm when people review Wii Play. For all its good intentions, Wii Play is a tech demo game, perhaps even more so than Wii Sports. Like someone said, these were basically the quick demos shown at E3 for the hell of it. Even Nintendo realized that the only way they can move copies of the game is if they include a Wiimote alongside it.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by this paragraph, but tech demo or no tech demo, Wii Play is still a game that should be reviewed on the same terms as any other game. Of course, the fact that it’s a budget title should be reflected in the overall recommendation/disrecommendation. But you can’t use the term tech demo as an excuse to give the game a higher score (though I’m not sure, if that’s what you really meant).
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The BIG mistake would be comparing it to Wii Sports. Yes, both games present you a simple concept that uses the Wiimote greatly and are aimed towards the casual gamers, but Wii Sports does it through sports while Wii Play does it by mini games. The concepts are vastly different from each other, so saying one is better than the other would be an unfair treatment.
By that logic, you wouldn’t even be able to compare the mini-games in Wii Play to each other, because some are based on sports (Table Tennis), some on racing (Charge), some on puzzles (Find Mii), some on shooting (Shooting Range) etc. I think it makes perfect sense to compare Wii Play to Wii Sports. They are both compilations that consist of small games that can’t stand on their own as fully-fledged titles. They’re both highly accessible. They both try to show how the remote can be used in various ways. They cater to the same audience, share the shame visual style, and a part of the same overall strategy that involves drawing non-gamers to Wii. Whether you’re throwing a bowling ball in Wii Sports or shooting clay pigeons in Wii Play, you can still compare and comment on how fun, how deep, how satisfying the game is and how well it looks, sounds, controls etc.
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But NWR's audience isn't kids and non-gamers. Ideally a NWR review should be making a recommendation to the NWR readers. If reviews are entirely for the target demo of the game then it isn't fair to write bad reviews for something like That's So Raven because any idiot who likes that show probably would like the game for it. NWR readers are going to be fairly hardcore. We're certainly not non-gamers. So if hardcore gamers will grow bored of it then it makes sense for this review to give it a poor score. That informs us that we, not being kids or non-gamers, won't like it.
The review isn’t deliberately directed towards hardcore gamers or casual gamers or any other group of gamers. However, since I see myself as a hardcore gamer, and since the review is an evaluation of the game’s artistic and gameplay qualities from my point of view, it’s reasonable to assume that other hardcore gamers would generally be more agreeable with the review compared to “casual” or “non-gamers”. It’s not my job to tell if little seven-year-old Timmy or his grandma who never played a videogame before would enjoy Wii Play. I’m not qualified to say. Instead, my job is to present and make an argumentation for my own views of the game, which can act as a guide to the reader towards a possible purchase or rental decision. Pale puts it well:
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There are so many issues involved with reviewing games. That is why it is so important to read more than just the score. Some people will expect price vs. content to come into it. Others will expect target demographic to come into it. The point is it's impossible to please everyone from every background.
Before I bore you all to death, let me just finish this post by reiterating that I don’t think Wii Play is a terrible game. A score of 4.5 means that the game is slightly below average. I think Wii Play is far from being a AAA title. It’s a fair distance from Wii Sports, but it’s not terrible. You could easily do worse than pick up Wii Play. But why do it when there are so many better alternatives?
Topic: REVIEWS: Wii Play (Read 20094 times)
