Two months, searches at six retail franchises, one cancelled order, and the U.S. equivalent of eleven thousand rupees have all led up to me being one of the first three million proud owners of a Nintendo Wii. Just a few things to get out of the way:
- Yes, the name is silly. It's weird enough to stick in your head, and you can't discuss it in polite conversation without snickering a little bit. Every joke that could possibly be made about the name has already been exhausted by nerds way ahead of the technology curve. At this point it's just a meaningless syllable.
- Yes, it's fun. No, you can't have mine. The main gimmick to the system is motion sensitivity, swinging a remote like a tennis racket, tossing it like a bowling ball or punching with it like a boxing glove. It has a chance of getting people who fear and mistrust video games to try one out, and it replicates a few basic sports to the point where you wonder why you're not just doing the real thing.
- Yes, it's obsolete as soon as you open the box. Hardware wise, it's a last generation system with a next-generation control scheme. They're gambling on people caring about the system's innovative means of input more than all the flashy bells and whistles that make up its output, and it's a cool direction to see being taken.
I skipped a generation of the video game console wars, and I'm hoping it'll be fun to jump back into things and host a few gaming sessions. It's gratifying as someone who thinks of technology as a positive uplifting spiritual force to see examples of games getting better, and smarter in terms of gameplay rather than just prettier. Now, I'm all about "prettier", just ask anyone, but it's nice to see it used as an introduction to something worth getting to know better, rather than an end unto itself.
I could write a whole post on the latest Zelda, if I didn't think the segment of my target audience which didn't include myself wouldn't get a whole lot out of it. But there are some interesting examples of technological improvements being able to improve the gameplay and all the possibilities therein. Just being able to do dynamic light sources allows them to design a lantern which you can use get to through dark areas and ignite torches, a concept which had to wait eight years in order to make the jump to 3D. It's a very well-engineered game that takes some serious puzzling to get through. Granted, I would have done a few things differently, but no one's perfect.
Having a controller in your hand that vibrates when you hit a ball and lets you hear the crack of a bat when you make contact changes the way you think about gaming. It doesn't have to be something where you focus all of your attention and all of your senses on a very small set of controls and visual cues, ignoring everything but a handful of flickering LED's. Instead, you can cavort around your own living room like an overly enthusiastic mime, and throw punches at digital avatars of the entire 2008 presidential lineup. What more could you ask for?
