Topic: IMPRESSIONS: Wii Music

[GregLover5000]

Haha, I don't think I'll be able to find a pole long enough to touch this with.

I think MadCatz is coming out with a white plastic 20-foot pole peripheral just for this game.

[trip1eX]

Alot of critics were down on the WiiSports after playing it too.  And you see how WiiSports has ended up doing.

I think some folks are missing the point of Wii Music.  It seems like a big complaint is that it sounded horrible when a bunch of people got together and played, but I think that's a complement.   It's supposed to be a toy of sorts.  A toy instrument and not just a controller.  Hence you can play bad and good music.

I think the point of the demo was to show this, but it was lost on the entire core gamer crowd.   By controlling the tempo and the arrangement you can come up with your own versions of songs.  And like an instrument (and a game) you're bound to get better the more play.  And there's seems to be few limits to your creativity.

Plus I'm not sure why the core crowd wasn't wowed by the drums and the virtual drum machine this game will have.  The professional sounded great to me.  And, for me, there's quite a bit of appeal to the mode where you can learn to play some drums.  (I heard there's a 2-wk lesson mode or something.)

Combine that whatever else the game offers (I understood there were modes) and it looks like a winner.  I'm sure it will have the most appeal to families, but I don't see why it wouldn't be a fun party game either. 

[MegaByte]

Alot of critics were down on the WiiSports after playing it too.  And you see how WiiSports has ended up doing.

Also keep in mind that Nintendo hadn't gotten the sensitivity settings down when they first presented Wii Sports.  Things turned out a lot better than what we were shown at E3 2006.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Alot of critics were down on the WiiSports after playing it too.  And you see how WiiSports has ended up doing.

Also keep in mind that Nintendo hadn't gotten the sensitivity settings down when they first presented Wii Sports.  Things turned out a lot better than what we were shown at E3 2006.

It wasn't the sensitivity issues people had a problem with it was the concept of the game. I remember clearly all the whining pre-Wii sports, not soley because of some control issues but that it was "blah blah tech demo. Nintendo is stoopid for packing it in".

[NWR_pap64]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have another Wii Play in our hands...

Frankly, it looks like it could provide moments of fun, to the right audience of course.

If you look at all the cynical and harsh impressions, they all come from gaming journalists who come to expect more. Wii Music is never intended to be a very detailed, hardcore and even harsh music program. It aims to be a fun music simulator.

Instruments and lessons are extremely expensive, but kids and some adults want to play an instrument for the hell of it. Wii Music looks to do that and then some.

So to the optimists who think people are being harsh on this, take note. Its not their fault. This is a game designed with children and families in mind, not the uber leet gamer.

Imagine for a second that a very famous Broadway critic goes to see a Children's play. Of course he will bash it to death because he is used to seeing lavish and professional play, and what he is seeing is a humble play. But I'm sure the parents, the people involved and the kids will enjoy it likewise because it was a well made effort by them and everyone got to enjoy it.

This is how Wii Music is to me; a game that the hardcore will despise, but the casual, and even some open minded core gamers, will enjoy.

It does hurt that Miyamoto is the one behind this, but to both the core and the optimists. Simply because Miyamoto is one of the greatest geniuses ever it doesn't mean that he can't tackle fun and silly projects like this. Do I need to remind you whose name is on the Boom Blox cover, and on Tiny Toons and Animaniacs for that matter?

Also, I do expect this to be better than expected. Not because of blind optimism, but because the Wii franchise games always seem to leave a bad impression at first, but end up being fun and at times very compelling experiences.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Midway's Game Party is a million seller, after all.

[NWR_Lindy]

What the hell is wrong with being an "uber leet gamer"?  It's like people are trying to distance themselves from the hardcore just to defend Nintendo.

I don't want toys, I want games, dammit!  Nintendo is welcome to make toys, but give those of us that don't want that some love as well.  Right now we're getting no love, which is the crux of the issue.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Games are toys.  Wake up.

[NWR_pap64]

 

What the hell is wrong with being an "uber leet gamer"?  It's like people are trying to distance themselves from the hardcore just to defend Nintendo.

I don't want toys, I want games, dammit!  Nintendo is welcome to make toys, but give those of us that don't want that some love as well.  Right now we're getting no love, which is the crux of the issue.

Says the man with Snow White as his icon .

And really, the term "hardcore" has lost its meaning in this debacle.

To me, a hardcore gamers is someone who plays a lot of games, enjoys them greatly and spends a lot of money on them. A gaming fanatic.

Now, there's hardcore, the gamer who plays nothing but uber manly games like Halo, Gears of War and Team Fortress 2 and associates himself with the toughest gaming companies.

Are you hardcore, or are you HARDCORE?

[ShyGuy]

I think Nintendo has become an extension of gamer's quarter life crisis. Duck hunt would get scores of 1.0 if released today.

[shammack]

Games are toys.  Wake up.

Thank you.

[Ian Sane]

"Hardcore" is a bullsh!t term abused by different people to the point that it has no clear meaning anymore.

Hardcore gamer really is a good term to describe someone who sets world record scores in old arcade games or beats all their games on the highest difficulty.  Though the term often extended to just mean people with a strong interest in games.  The "smart" gamers so to speak.  Those that were good at avoiding crap.

However MS started using the terms to refer to their target demo so suddenly people started associating first person shooters and HD as hardcore gamer stuff.  Microsoft's target demo with the Xbox was 13-25 males and if anything relied more on image than even Sony.  MS sure as hell didn't target kids and was very North American focused which doesn't fit the image of the "gamer enthusiast" type of "hardcore gamer".

Nintendo then created a strong divide between the old market and the new.  "Hardcore gamer" came about as a label to describe anyone who wasn't part of the blue ocean group.

Maybe we should just say "gamer".  If the other group is non-gamer I think that would fit.  "Gamer" is a common term to describe someone with a serious interest in videogames.  Someone who just buys a Wii to play Wii Sports every once in a while would never describe themselves as such.

Nintendo however would probably get confused as hell if you asked them "what are you working on for gamers?"

[King of Twitch]

Heh. Reminds me of when they redefined the word "competition" based on having a DVD player or not?

You just have to inoculate yourself from new PR-speak every five years

[mantidor]

From the impressions, I can't believe Nintendo says this should be used as a music education device for children. When the thing doesn't encourages you AT ALL to get better and doesn't even grade you how in the hell are you going to teach anything with that? I'm now so curious about the input I'm hoping they have from actual musicians, what would Kondo think about this thing? ALso, does this has any sort of create your own melody mode? was it shown at E3?

edit:

oh I forgot, is there any sense of control over the music? I still don't understand how can you not fail but at the same time control an instrument. If I have input over the instrument I should be able to fail if I wanted to, right?

[GoldenPhoenix]

What the hell is wrong with being an "uber leet gamer"?  It's like people are trying to distance themselves from the hardcore just to defend Nintendo.

I don't want toys, I want games, dammit!  Nintendo is welcome to make toys, but give those of us that don't want that some love as well.  Right now we're getting no love, which is the crux of the issue.

What is wrong with it is that it is a way of pitting "them against us", I've always hated the term hardcore, it is a sily and frankly stupid term. A "hardcore" gamer if ANYTHING is a gamer who loves to play all different kinds of games both casual and traditional. It would be like someone saying "Oh I'm a hardcore movie goer but I only watch war movies and sci-fi movies" that would make no sense. Now you can be a hardcore fan of a particular genre, but please don't call yourself a hardcore gamer. I think Pap said it perfectly in a previous thread, play what you love to play, don't try to slap labels on people to make yourself feel better. It comes across as arrogant when you do that.

Guess what? I like GAMES, that includes casual and traditional games. I enjoy playing what I, well, enjoy playing! I'll give anything a fair chance unless it has obvious quality issues and even then it depends. It seems people have become so jaded that they cannot enjoy themselves anymore or appreciate that this is an expanding market. I personally have found it amazing to actually be able to play fun games with people who would have NEVER thought of playing a game before. Wii Music may be yet another addition to my library for just this purpose.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

The way I see it, this thing is implemented as such: there is an active current note or chord at any given time. when you flick your remote or whatever it takes to make a sound, that active note/chord is played. In theory, that means that you'lll always play a "correct" note or no note at all. But it didn't sound all that good in my opinion, even when people tried to play as you'd expect if you knew the song. (God forbid you play a song you don't know, because there aren't obvious visual cues.)

[Jonnyboy117]

Games are toys.  Wake up.

This statement is wrong on academic, literal, and practical levels.  Toys are tools for entertainment.  Games are abstract constructs with goals and rules, sometimes defined by the player.  Wii Music is an electronic toy.  If I play Wii Music with the goal of creating the most obnoxious sounds I possibly can, then I have created a game based on the toy.  It's the difference between G.I. Joes themselves and playing war with them.

[Stogi]

But that doesn't mean games can be toys.

For instance, Bop-it is a game that is a toy as well. And besides, can't having as much fun as possible be a "rule" for a game? Then aren't all toys, games and vice versa?

[shammack]

This is getting into pretty ridiculous semantics, but if we accept Jonny's definition of toys as tools for entertainment, all games fit that defintion as well, so all games are toys.  But not all toys are games.  Games are a subset of toys.  So saying "I don't want toys, I want games" is like saying "I don't want games, I want first-person shooters."  Which doesn't make much sense because if you have a first-person shooter, you have a game, and if you have a game, you have a toy.

Wii Music is an electronic toy, but so is Resistance or any other Serious Game.  Resistance may have more goals or rules, but in the end they're both just ways of entaining yourself* and killing time.

* Insert your own snide remark about how Wii Music isn't entertaining here.

[Plugabugz]

Discussion forums are software toys. All forms of communication is just mental toys that we play with.

[mantidor]

The way I see it, this thing is implemented as such: there is an active current note or chord at any given time. when you flick your remote or whatever it takes to make a sound, that active note/chord is played. In theory, that means that you'lll always play a "correct" note or no note at all. But it didn't sound all that good in my opinion, even when people tried to play as you'd expect if you knew the song. (God forbid you play a song you don't know, because there aren't obvious visual cues.)

So its right to say you control the timing? All I can really do with the Mario song is to make it sound really fast or really slow? I seriously can't wrap my head about this, what kind of idea they had in mind, after all this are the same people that madethe ocarina in OoT, its hard to understand why they didn't follow such obvious example about making music.

[Svevan]

This is getting into pretty ridiculous semantics, but if we accept Jonny's definition of toys as tools for entertainment, all games fit that defintion as well, so all games are toys.  But not all toys are games.  Games are a subset of toys.  So saying "I don't want toys, I want games" is like saying "I don't want games, I want first-person shooters."  Which doesn't make much sense because if you have a first-person shooter, you have a game, and if you have a game, you have a toy.

Wii Music is an electronic toy, but so is Resistance or any other Serious Game.  Resistance may have more goals or rules, but in the end they're both just ways of entaining yourself* and killing time.

* Insert your own snide remark about how Wii Music isn't entertaining here.

This is such a reductive argument. It's like you don't even appreciate your own hobby. Why go head over heels to define games as meaningless, purposeless, useless - merely to justify a game company making a **** game?

Saying toys are tools for entertainment may miss the boat. All the posters here are right to compare toys and games because both involve "play." Games, though, structured and organize "play" into goals and restrictions. They often have real world counterparts, origins, or application. Games tell us about our culture's way of thinking, because games are a mental process. Toys are "create your own play" with absolutely no rules at all; they exist on a distractive level rather than an engaging one. Games can USE toys (ROB for instance). Wii Music, for all intents and purposes, is not a game. When we say "casual game" we're still referring to the typical definition of structured play: Wii Sports, Brain Age, Wii Fit all have the elements we define as "game." From the sounds of it, this has none of those elements.

My favorite thing about E3 is the reporting of impressions. No matter what we say, the audience here will retort "you're playing a demo, ergo you have no right to an opinion." Those who play the games are never trusted because "Nintendo/Miyamoto can do no wrong." Nevermind that Nintendo has been developing this thing for over 2 years, and they chose this moment to show it to us, and it plays as TYP has reported. Remember, E3 is the opportunity to show the best of what you have at the moment, and if TYP, a veteran of E3, says its the worst thing he's played at any E3 ever, I believe him.

[ShyGuy]

Well, when we get to play the game six months later and have a positive experience that is completely contrary to what was reported at E3, should we continue to trust them?

[Nick DiMola]

Well, when we get to play the game six months later and have a positive experience that is completely contrary to what was reported at E3, should we continue to trust them?

Depends. If on most occasions you agree with them on games, then sure, it just happens to be an anomaly. If most of the time you don't level with their opinions, then of course not, but you should already know that by now.

[ShyGuy]

I trust Miyamoto more than the NWR staff. If I have to choose TYP's word or Miyamoto's word. I choose Miyamoto's.