Free Candy For Everyone

The Wii has become an astoundingly successful console. Through all the hype, I still hadn’t managed to actually play with it, save for a quick hands-on at E3 back in 2006. My brother recently bought one so I went over and gave it a whirl. I have to say I stand by my initial statement - the Wii is not for me.

We played Tennis and Bowling on Wii Sports, Super Smash Bros Brawl, and then Super Mario Galaxy. Did I have fun? Sure, I was smiling and enjoying it. But I have a bad right shoulder from too many years using a mouse at the wrong height. It creaks and cracks and aches if I move it funny. Using the Wii-mote definitely counted as moving it funny. I was snapcracklepopping all over and eventually I actually switched the Wii-mote to my left hand to give my shoulder a little break. That’s not fun!

We switched over the Smash Bros and that’s probably the game I had the most fun with. It’s also the least Wii game of them all. It doesn’t make use of the motion sensors or anything at all. And amusingly, I am terrible at the game. I’ve played previous versions of it at parties before and I never quite seem to get the hang of it. Today was no different. I was pushing and mashing buttons but wins and losses seemed to have little to do with my actions. Playing as Pikachu always cracks me up, however, so I give this one extra points for style. Oh, and the speaker on the controller is ingenious. Whenever you select a character before a match they vocalize out of there, so you’d get a little “pika!” when you chose him. Totally cute. But fun for all of 30 minutes and I’m done.

Lastly was the great hope, Super Mario Galaxy. But I’ll let you in on a little secret - I have terrible 3D spatial awareness. I used to love platform games. The old school Super Mario games were awesome! But then these things went 3D and my confusion began. I’d misjudge jumps, I’d got confused about which way I was supposed to go. I’d wrestle with the camera, I’d get disoriented. It was all terrible. Well, I put platform games down for a while and haven’t touched any in ages. Played some of the new Ratchet and Clank but that was totally doable for me. Linear, clear paths, no crazy jumping puzzles or wonky camera work. I liked that one. Super Mario Galaxy was made to confuse me. The controls are fine, I get the pointing and the shaking (though this bothered my shoulder a bit and I kept tending to not shake it firmly enough). But having Little Prince-esque tiny planetoids that you walk on upside down made me keep tilting my head. My brother was actually laughing at how bad I was at the game. I just can’t quite judge where something is sometimes - is it on the ground in front of me or off the ground above me? Dunno, I can’t judge whatever cues they’re using to differentiate all that well.

All in all I had a nice time playing the games but I went home with any desire to buy a Wii killed. I don’t want to play those games alone at home. They’re little social games to share with friends, but when I game I want hours of solo entertainment and I don’t want to have to worry about injuring myself! Verdict, not for me.

Ok, I’m about to leave, but I saw this through a link on Penny Arcade and couldn’t resist a parting word. Or image.

Don’t feed your Wii after midnight.

Just read that there’s going to be a press release tomorrow about some “restructuring” of E3 that basically sounds like it’s gone, kaput, no more, finito and all that. Check it out on Gamespot via Blue’s News. It seems that the powers that be have decided that it’s too expensive, this spectacle of glitz and geeks, and it will be replaced by, essentially, meetings.

There is probably a lot of merit to this idea and everything, but all I can say is “NOOOO!” I’ve been to several E3s now and I love it. It’s too loud, there’s so much to see that you can barely take anything in, and I’m usually too tired to process much of anything by the end. But the chance to see all those games hands on - this year I got to play with the Wii - and see everything that we’re going to be talking about for months to come is fantastic. It usually takes me several weeks to sort through my impressions, but once I do, I’m always very glad I went. This year I blogged a lot of it, so you can check out the kind of stuff I mean here, if you’re curious.

I was already thinking about E3 for next year and making plans. Now it seems like there won’t be anything to go to. I guess I’ll wait until tomorrow to hear the details, but it sounds as though we’ll need to look for another venue to try out games before they’re here. PAX anyone?

Whoa. Alice over at Wonderland just threw this image into a post. In another example of other things I love creeping into the game world (um. Though I guess Stranglehold should be a bigger example of this, but there’s something about the face of a famous person. The real actual face, I mean!), check out this pic!