After finally getting some hands-on time with the Wii, am I a true believer?
Only being 17, I wasn’t able to attend E3 earlier this year and get my hands on the Wii. Furthermore, I wasn’t invited to the Miami Wii Party, and when the Nintendo Fusion Tour passed through Florida, I didn’t make the trip. Being one of the only staffers not to have grasped a remote in my hands, I was sufficiently dissatisfied.
Well, I’ll just go ahead and say it – I was pissed.
Luckily, I heard news this past Saturday that GameStop stores are now showcasing playable Wii kiosks, and after a couple of phone calls, I drove six miles down South Dixie Highway with my brother, a digital camera, and a body full of determination. I was going to play some Wii, and nothing was going to get in my way.
Besides, traffic, of course. Lots of that got in my way.
Expecting to see droves of like-minded gamers, I was relieved to see not a single customer in the store – just a couple of employees and an EB Games dude shooting the breeze with the cashier. I headed on over to the Wii booth, but there wasn’t a remote in sight. I was a little shaken – I thought the Internet had failed me (like that ever happens, right?) – but a GameStop staffer told me all she needed were my car keys and I’d be on the road to Video Game Pleasure Town.
“Oh, we’re going!" I exclaimed. In my head, obviously.
After pressing the Power button on the remote, I was surprised by the lack of a start-up animation – after the obligatory seizure warning, I went straight to the Wii Channel menu. I was a bit tempted to jump straight into the Mii Channel, but I fought the urge and went ahead into the only game playable: Excite Truck.
I really wish I was playing Zelda… DAMN YOU, WINDY!
The truth is, I wasn’t very happy with the game. The controls were responsive enough, mind you, and it was a full-fledged racer, but the implementation of the remote felt a tad gimmicky. Tilting left or right equated steering, while the 1 and 2 Buttons were Brake/Reverse and Accelerate, respectively, and pushing any direction on the D-Pad allowed for a boost. While in the air, rocking back allows for a longer jump, while rocking forward yields the opposite effect.
Unfortunately, the tilt novelty wore off kind of quickly, and after that, I probably wouldn’t have cared if a traditional layout had been used. It was still fun, but if you buy Excite Truck at launch, it’ll be because you like arcade-style racing games, not because the controller puts a new spin on the genre. Otherwise, you’ll probably be disappointed.
Something I was eager to experience was the speaker, which Mike Gamin had criticized back in September at Nintendo’s New York event. While I hate to say it, he’s right – it’s extremely low-quality. I’d even put it below the DS – it sounds more like a GBA. In Excite Truck, it’s used for crashes (emitting a crunching noise), but it was pretty grating, and after a while, it got a bit annoying. As I’ve said many times, I’m probably going to disable this feature when I buy a Wii.
With that out of the way, let’s get on to what I did like. Even though I wasn’t in love with the game, I was extremely impressed with the controls. There was no arm waving involved - just the subtle movement of my wrists, and there was never a time when I felt sore or tired from playing (and this was no short session – at least thirty minutes).
As you can tell by my nerdish glee, there is no pain involved in playing a Wii.
At the end of the day, I was just happy that it felt natural. It couldn’t have taken more than a minute to get acclimated to the tilting, and I’ll be honest: the tactile feel of seeing my movements re-enacted on-screen was awesome. I really wished I’d been playing something a little more hardcore, like Zelda or Metroid, so that I could really delve into the intricacies of the new control method.
After getting my time in with Excite Truck, I went ahead and tooled around with the Mii Channel. If you’ve tried the online version, then there’s not much to tell you. It’s virtually identical aside from the obvious trade-off, using a pointer instead of a mouse. For those of you who haven’t given it a whirl yet, you create a digital avatar using dozens of feature options that eventually resemble something close to what you look like.
Hmm… That’s not really my hairstyle…
By this time, a few other people had walked into GameStop, and were beginning to ask the clerk about giving it a whirl themselves. Not wanting to deprive them of the pleasures I’d just experienced, I figured I’d have to say goodbye for now. There are still a couple of weeks until launch, so there’ll be plenty of opportunities to come back and get some pre-release goodness.
Until then, I’ll be seeing little white remotes in my dreams. For a while, I wasn’t sure if I’d fall in love with the whole “Disruptive Development" idea. After playing it for myself, I’m absolutely positive.
Just not in Excite Truck’s case. Zelda for the win!
