The Gamer's Quarter

[player 2]

I woke ujp at 5am this morning out of happenstance, and I ended up going to Best Buy waiting in line and snagging a Wii ticket to secure a Wii (2, even, my mom was excited to get one). The line was interesting. Far more interesting than the FFXII line. There were a ton more adults - 3 of whom were getting Wiis for themselves, and 3 of whom were waiting with their kids.

Anyways, I'm looking to buy a few games. I'm not sure which one(s) I'm getting, and that's where you guys come in.

Games that interest me:

Madden
Dragonball Z
Super Monkeyball
Zelda?

... pretty much anything new and different. Zelda is a big maybe because it's more different than it is new. Madden is less of a maybe because I hardly ever play Madden games, and it sounds like it's really innovative. I mean, they're describing it as minigames within context. That's like fucking real life man.

Anyways, I know there are a ton of Wii threads. This one is about interesting launch games more about innovation and creativity than anything else. I'll post my own impressions of games as soon as I get them. You guys should post impressions (or even just a *gasp* list) of games you've thought were innovative or creative, too. So!

Edit:

[B coma]

I too am pretty intrigued by Madden for Wii, and for reference the last football videogames I owned/played were NFL Blitz and Ten Yard Fight. Unfortunately I am already strapped for cash for, oh, the rest of the year.

I did, however, buy Excite Truck. After the first Bronze race tier, which felt really awkward, I got a feeling for the controls - then the game became totally awesome after that, and I went for S-Rank scores on all of the standard Excite courses, which opened Super Excite (which I think is hard mode? I haven't tried it yet).

[simplicio]

I bought Monkeyball and Excite Truck. Apart from a cursory glance at Wii Sports and Monkey Ball (which I mostly bought to be played with my girlfriend), Excite Truck hasn't left the drive. The reviews all shat on it with the standard "looks ugly" and "tech demo" and "sloppy controls" stuff, which is pretty wide of the mark. It's kind of in the same space for me as the Rush series, and maybe the SSXs too, but with much more of a focus on pacing. The whole thing's fast, and the controls are floating (not sloppy- the entire game is predicated on a feel of being ungrounded), so you need to be thinking about your route farther ahead than in most games. Plus you're looking to crash into opponents, buzz trees without crashing, alter the landscape for jumps, and boost your way to the next one without overheating. Then you're airborn, trying to pull of a spin or two while steering through hoops in midair and trying to land perfectly for another speed boost.

It sounds pretty standard I guess, but doing all that with the physicality and imprecision of the Wii controls really makes it all come together in a pretty thrilling manner. It's too bad there's no online, yes, and I'm hoping they make a sequel with that down the road, but what's here is fun and totally cohesive. For now I'll call it the Yoshi's Touch & Go of the Wii.

[dessgeega]

excite truck is pretty much the only wii game i'm interested in right now, if that means anything.
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[Nana Komatsu]

Hey player 2, are Wii that hard to find in Wisconsin? I'm going home for christmas and was thinking maybe I have a better chance finding one there than in CA.

[player 2]

I am kinda interested in Excite Truck, but I am mostly interested in games that deal with gestures in interesting ways. It's really simple to take a controller and use it well in a literal way, but if you can take a controller and seemlessly map complicated functions... well shit.

Also, Wii Sports > Zelda.

Also, Wii Sports > a lot of games.

Edit:

@ Nana

Are they hard to find in Wisconsin? Well, they're hard to find, but I'm not sure if they're harder to find here than in California. My advice is if you want one pick one up whenever the opportunity presents itself. I ended up falling asleep in my living room during a late night movie and waking up at 5am, so I decided to check out my local Best Buy (that's 5 minutes away from my house).
_________________
Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[simplicio]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that, player 2. Red Steel has many pages of gesture combinations (flick nunchuck and remote away from each other to open doors, or something), but I don't think that's what you (or any of the rest of us) are looking for.

[Nana Komatsu]

[B coma]

I would recommend Excite Truck to everyone, though I know a lot of folks find the MSRP of $50 to be a bit too rich for most games, and I tend to spend a lot of my income on games, so take that as you will.

Still, for a lot of the reasons simplicio mentioned it is one of the best launch games, the custom soundtrack feature rocks, and aside from the odd framerate (jumps back and forth between 30-60 FPS) the game is gorgeous.

[ApM]

Nana: The Toys R Us in my area gave out rainchecks such that you have one put aside with your name on it in the next shipment. They call you when it arrives and then you pick it up. It's like post-ordering! Totally no-hassle.

[player 2]

Let's bring this back to the topic of interesting Wii games.

What I'm looking for is interesting gesture control that isn't gimmick. Red Steel may not be your cup of tea, but I think they're heading in a good direction. Games like Madden and DBZ are all about the fantasy of being Reggie Bush or Goku - gesturing is a huge part of make believe. I actually should add Red Steel to my gotta-try Wii list.
_________________
Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[GcDiaz]

So how soon will EB Games/Gamestop have it in stock? I am more and more interested in getting it, but I want to trade in the Cube for the paltry discount.

[B coma]

How much would a Gamecube fetch right now, I wonder? I'd be more inclined to give ours away to a friend or family member at this point since we took in the Wii, but the 'cube actually belongs to my gal.

[SuperWes]

[B coma]

[dessgeega]

b coma, super mario land avatar is win.

this is kind of off-topic, but when is the gamecube version of zelda coming out?
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[B coma]

thanks

SML<3

GC Zelda is due early December

[GcDiaz]

[Pijaibros]

[kirkjerk]

Excite Truck reminds me a LOT of Smashing Drive, a completely underrated "learn the course" style smashing arcade port of a racer. Especially when you grab the "Full Speed Ahead" powerup with the sirens etc... the feel of it is uncannily similar in places.

And I've been pimping for it else where, but I think Monkey Ball might be the biggest and best smorgasboard of what might be done with the controller... there are some pretty big misses but some awfully lovely hits... I never thought Lunar Lander could be that much fun, and I never thought of using an upright Wiimote as a flight stick.

[player 2]

Hey guys!

I'm going to make a judgment based off of 2 hours with Zelda on the Wii:

I like it on the Wii. I like how there are sounds coming out of my hand. But it's not as good as it should have been. The best part about it being on the Wii is how comfortable the Wii remote feels. But! It never succeds on a gestural level. You never get the feel that you're using the items. What I want to do is pick up an item and learn how they feel. It's just not happening, and it's making me kinda sad.
_________________
Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[kirkjerk]

[player 2]

I wish I knew what kind of data is transmitted from the Wii remote to the console. Do they project spatial coordinates or something?
_________________
Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[helicopterp]

[grumbel]

[player 2]

[Lackey]

Any word on the Trespasser port for Wii?
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Lockeownzj00]

See, I really hate ragging on Zelda because I'm positive it's a great experience, but in my short experience I had two major problems:

1) The Wii gestures feel like an afterthought. They don't enhance the gameplay that much and make it ultimately make it feel...artificial.

2) The fucking HUD. It's ugly. It's fucking ugly. The grey buttons on the screen look like crap and are out of place. They detract from the magical aversion to everything. They're too close to the center.



I donno. It's a bad example there, but it just looks sloppy. Like a 40-second photoshop.

[dessgeega]

those wii buttons are sneaking up on that darknut!
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[dmauro]

[Shapermc]

[TOLLMASTER]

SD Gundam Scad Hammers looks interesting, but I'm guessing a great part of that is Gundam fanboyism, a disease classified as incurable by the CDC.

The Wiimote seems to control the giant mace your Gundam carries, while the nunchuk controls your robot. So it turns into a crazy version of Gauntlet or Smash TV where you're twirling around a giant mace. I hope that I'm not the only one who gets excited by that description.

[dark steve]

Weren't IC people saying it was the best Wii game of E3?
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[Harveyjames]

Twilight Princess's HUD is a vast improvement on Wind Waker, Ocarina and Majora's HUD, which is like trying to play a gameboy game with a bunch of M+Ms glued to the screen, so stop complaining.

[Lockeownzj00]

[B coma]

[dmauro]

[OtakupunkX]

[player 2]

Attention: Madden Wii is pretty fucking awesome. Now I'm off to try some Tony Hawk.
_________________
Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[GSL]

Um, I kindof like Red Steel a lot, and would be happy to explain why it's worth checking out if anyone's interested. The general consensus seems to treat it like an abomination that should have never been made, though, so...

[dessgeega]

i would like to hear about the game. a wii fps is a really good idea.
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[Cycle]

I, too, would like to hear about this game. I was going to get it regardless of bad reviews, simply because I want to play a FPS on the wii. This is the only option until Mario Paintball comes out.

[GSL]

Basically, Red Steel is an extremely fun title mired down--and only slightly--by a few technical problems, that only really detract from the game if you let them.

The main thing I love about the game, I suppose, is the attention to detail. The game world is absolutely amazing, not only the way it looks, but its interactivity as well. See, you can shoot most anything, and it reacts: security monitors shatter, radios spark, trucks explode. You eventually get bored destroying every inanimate object, and may even think, "Why the hell did the developers put all this crap in here? I'm out of ammo!" But it's all a trick. See, by being able to destroy so many minor set pieces at will, you won't bat an eye during, say, one of the earlier gun battles in a restaraunt kitchen, where your missed shots are knocking copper cooking pans off the wall, shattering stacked dishes, and causing the propane cooking stove (on the second playthrough, you actually notice the blue pilot flames) to erupt in a huge fireball and trigger the sprinkler system. You keep fighting in a smoky room with water pouring down on you. The developers completely sidestepped the typical FPS convention of 'exploding red barrels' by allowing you to destroy almost anything; the world is made more believable by the addition of all these little set pieces so that you just take it for granted that the parked freight truck will explode after you shoot it enough, and you smile with satisfaction when it does. I apologize if that doesn't make complete sense; it's something you have to really experience to believe it.

It's obvious the developers wanted to replicate an action movie (hell, there's a lobby scene straight out of the Matrix complete with shattering faux-stone panels and showers of dust from the ceiling when you hit pillars) and the dialogue reflects this in the campiest way possible. Common enemies' forgettable and often confusing shouts aside (They kidnap my girlfriend, kill her father, shoot and leave me for dead, and then call me a murderer??), the dialogue is just absolutely hilarious, and I refuse to believe it was anything other than intentional. Despite the game being set in Japan, it's obvious there wasn't a single damned native Japanese speaker on the voice cast; I imagine the whole thing is manned by a bunch of white honkeys whose only concept of spoken Japanese was taken from poorly dubbed 70's martial arts films. And yet, it fits with the game--this is seriously a 70's martial arts action game.

So, controls. The Wiimote takes a bit of time to get used to, even if you are familiar with PC FPS controls, but if you give yourself at least an hour to get acclimated, it becomes second nature. People complain about the extensive move lists, but really, there are very few moves that aren't ridiculously intuitive analogs of real human movement. Let's see: to flip over a table to use for cover... why, I swing the nunchuck (okay, whoever named that thing really needs to die) up, like I were upending a real table! And for grenades, I hold down on the control pad (alright, I admit that's a bit of a stretch) and either swing the nunchuck overhand to lob or give it an underhand flick to roll the grenades! Seriously, as long as you have even the slightest amount of imagination, the controls are a cinch. The Wiimote makes for great FPS gaming as a replacement to the mouse, and the nunchuck is a handy replacement for WASD once you get used to it.

The 'freeze time' feature I've heard ridiculed quite often is not at all as horrible as it sounds. You don't gain the ability until you're about a quarter of the way into the game, and then it still manages to avoid being cheap--it takes a while to fill up the 'freeze time' meter or whatever it's called, and once you do it's more fun to shoot the guns out of the enemies' hands then to try and kill them all at once. Shooting the guns introduces a fun little concept in that you have to keep the enemies covered until they surrender to you; ignore one and he'll just pick the gun right back up and start blazing away. Apparently if you force the leader of a group to surrender, he tells the rest of your opponents to do so as well; I've only had this happen twice because the little bastards keep shooting at me as I'm trying to cover their boss.

Okay, the swordplay. Straight up, it's nothing that will leave you in awe. But it's still not as horrible as the reviews make it out to be. You learn pretty fast that the trick is in a lot of exaggerated motions, sortof on the same level as all the games in Wii Sports. Yes, it's not a 1:1 representation of your real motion (which, to my knowledge, the game never promised) but it is quite passable and can even be pretty fun in the heat of the later battles when you've figured out how it works and earned some of the tricks. It certainly could have been done BETTER, yes, but if you're willing to give it an honest shot, you'll find that it's at least solid, if not masterfully executed.

So I hope this has been even slightly helpful; I get the feeling that I may have just been babbling. The important thing about Red Steel, I suppose, is to let it be what it is--it's not Half-Life 2 or even Doom 3 in terms of innovation, voice acting, or anything like that. But then again it's not trying to be, and is a good deal of fun if you approach it on its own terms.

[Tim]

I agree with the above post!

Pointing and shooting is fun and feels natural...when you don't have to move around a lot. Basically, turning is the only thing I have a gripe with. Sometimes the cursor will get stuck to one side of the screen and I have to waggle the remote to prevent myself from turning indefinitely. I'm sure it's just the game's programming, and not a fault of the Wii. Aiming in Zelda is really responsive, so I'm looking forward to future first-person games in which the control is completely figured out and done right.

Still, once you get used to how the controls work, it's no longer an issue.

I still have a lot of fun shooting in this game, and this is ultimately the type of FPS I've always wanted; one with lightgun-style controls AND free mobility. I'm looking forward to more FPS's on this system.

Has anyone played Call of Duty 3 for the Wii?

[OtakupunkX]

I saw the commercial for Call of Duty 3 at work last night and it involves someone using the Wii-mote/nunchaku combo to smash a rifle in a guys face. It looked pretty cool.

[player 2]

Hey you guys, let's start a Wii Review thread?
_________________
Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[Shapermc]

[GSL]

[Joe]

I am a fan of Red Steel, for most of the reasons mentioned earlier.

People need to get off the "rubber arm" thing. How is it game-breaking, in any way?
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[SuperWes]

Here's the review I wrote of Red Steel for an unmentionable magazine: