Wii Rant

[Blaine]

Personally, I'm pretty excited about the Wii. I guess with me being 27, everything that could be considered 'innovation' for the past 20 odd years of my life has only ever been 'better graphics'.

When I was really little, although I didn't realize what the hype, it was pretty easy to see that the NES looked a lot more like the games I played in the cabs at the store where my mom worked (Double Dragon mostly). But even a cursory look retrospectivly shows that one of the main selling points in the earliest of console wars was "arcade realism", which basically translates into better graphics and sound, since no console I'm aware of has a coin slot.

As the consoles slowly moved towards the late 80's and 90's, the gauge for game consoles on the school yard was 'bits' - "Dude, atari was like 2-bits, Nintendo is 8-bits and Genesis is 16-bits". 16-bit consoles were exciting, in many ways I hold them as the height of gaming (story for another time) and the amazing promise of the 64-bit Jaguar pretty much propelled that console. Just by it's supposed bit count. Bits were really important.

And as we matriculated over into the 3D realm, polys became important. Intially it was a simple numbers race for polygons. Soon enough people realized how deceptive this really was since all console manufacturers would release would be "8 Million Polygon" bench marks that were just millions of triangles. No textures, lights, sound, AI or even controls. Nothing approaching a game.

The raw poly power war is slowly loosing steam, having passed along graphical buzzfeatures such as "HDRI Lighting", "BumpMapping" and "Volumetric Lighting". With a heavy 3D modeling background, trust me when I say, all of these (whille cool)  translate in the geek-to-english matrix as "more pretty".

Here were are, gamers are saavier then ever, now they sell us the console almost exclusively using the more complex - but, ironically, simpler - statistics of raw processor power, RAM and drive speed. While these numbers always circled in the gamer tech circles, only now are they all common enough knowledge to be selling points.

Which brings us to why I'm pretty excited for the Wii. Honestly? I don't care about the graphics anymore. The parts of me that analyze the graphics are now totally subjugated by the parts of me that just wants a fun video game. I've been through all of the 'graphic' evolutions. I remember when Full Motion Video was the future. And while the graphics have made the games a lot cooler they haven't made them a ton more fun.

So here's the Wii. Absconding graphical superiority and innovating in the most basic of game device, control. I haven't played it yet, but I have it pre-ordered and all but paid off at my local game store. I have no proof that it won't flop, but I sometimes daydream about the games they could make. I can't justify it, but I'm excited.

For the past decade or so, I think I've only ever been 'interested' in new consoles. That's probably part of the reason why I'd get some of them later in the life span after certain titles came out (my own personal revenge for them never releasing the Robotech game, which was a main reason I bought a Nintendo 64). I've been interested. I don't think I've been excited since the SNES. Since the days I tried desperately to get one for Christmas, sneaking into my parents room and trying to subconciously implant the idea by whispering 'you will buy Blaine a Super Nintendo...' over and over again.

I'm genuinely excited again for a console, for the Wii. I've had a lot of the better games over the course of my life. Better games are cool. But I'm looking forward to new games. Different games. Unique games.

I wanna fall in love with games, again.

I want a Wii.

You?

[promising, but undecided]

Wii is worthy of discussion. Nintendo has a nefarious yet delightful reputation of going against the grain of what characteristics define "the next generation of gaming", and their newest console installment is yet another example. Of course their risk taking in not converting to cd format with the 64 I consider to have been a serious miscalculation-I still wonder why they did that... In any event, I'm with you on this: "more pretty" is nice in a next gen console, but obviously, that's half the equation. Gaming quality and experience is the other half-if not 2/3 of the math analogy, and I'll stand to say Nintendo knows how to deliver good gaming. (Perhaps a counter example is the Virtual Boy...?) In any event, hopefully their new system will be all the more "user friendly" for 3rd party publishers-I was bummed out when I had to betray my console loyalty when I had to buy a ps to play FF7. As long as they have a good line up-which it looks like it will; who WON'T love a new installment of Smash?-then yeah, I'm sure Nintendo will do well. Will I buy one? Haven't decided, Wii will see.

[NFG]

Everyone wants a Wii as a second console.  Many have doubts about the controller and its long-term suitability to fun games, but it seems to me they're all willing to take a shot.  And why not?  It's cheap, it plays your existing GameCube library, and it won't take much space.

I'm gonna get one, day of release if I can pull it off.  I'm really hyped for it, even if none of the launch games look interesting.

Let's hope it's got RGB out.  =)

[Endymion]

Getting one, but way less enthused about it than everybody else it seems Totally not into the idea of the motion controller. My PS3 is preordered so unless someone manages to keep me from it, I'll probably have the Wii last.

[NFG]

Man, I tell ya, between my hate for Sony and my loathing of 'mainstream' games (by which I mean FPS clones, racing games and the RPG du jour) the PS3 is not so much unattractive as it is actively plotting against me.

The Wii, despite the weird controller, is an uprated gamecube with a nifty new thing.  That's cool by me!  I trust Nintendo to entertain.

Really tho, the only console I'd ever buy without even a whiff of justification is a Capcom console.  They've always made the games I love most.  They might as well have made the Dreamcast themselves, most of my games bear a Capcom logo.  And RE4, well, it's just sublime.

[kendrick]

Maybe I'm old and curmudgeonly, but I can't muster anything more than cautious optimism for the new game consoles. I wouldn't even own an Xbox 360 right now if it weren't a holiday gift, and even then I only own four games for it. The PS3 isn't going to be on my radar until a major Sega RPG franchise appears on it either.

Specific to the Wii, I like the philosophy. Instead of looking to the next graphical leap, Nintendo is wisely thinking about I/O. On the other hand, there's really nothing on the Wii that drives me to want one right away. I'm content to wait out this particular holiday season and see who's left standing in July (and who's hit the discount shelves.)

-KKC, who needs to find the floor in his gaming room.