Wii Owners - How's it Going?

[GoodKingJayIII]

So the Wii has been out for just shy of 5 months, and for those of you that own one, I'm wondering what your experiences are with the product.

I bought one the day after release. I own Twilight Princess, WiiSports, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. I'm sort of debating my next purchase, but it will probably be WiiPlay or Heatseeker. Overall, I've been very happy with the system. WiiSports is a great introduction to the system, and I still enjoy picking picking it up for a quick round of golf or Bowling. Twilight Princess is perhaps my favorite in the series of Zelda games, and I think the game is easily a Game of the Year contender. Ultimate Alliance I have been a bit more disappointed with, but I think that has more to do with the control scheme than the game itself.

One thing that has disappointed me about the system is the abundance of "minigame" titles. Stuff like WarioWare, Rayman's Raving Rabids, Trauma Center, are just not what I'm looking for when I play a game. I'm not sure how else to say it, but I want a much more complete experience. It's still very early to judge the system on that, but I want to see a wider variety of games in the future.

There have also been a lot of ports. I don't have numbers, but it seems like every time I turn around there's another port coming out for the system. I just read in Nintendo Power they're repacking both Band of Brothers games and setting up a control scheme for the Wii. Medal of Honor: Vangaurd is also a port. How about an original WWII game, built from the ground up, rather than taking an old game and slapping a new control scheme on it? Again, this is probably a product of it being a new system. As time goes on, I'm hoping to see more original fair for the Wii.

Overall it's been a good experience. For me, Zelda alone was worth the purchase. But I want fewer minigames. I want more original stuff. And I want Nintendo to really take advantage of the 3rd-party players (something they haven't really done for their last two consoles). I like the ideas behind the system, but I don't want it relegated to the party machine that I pull out when friends and guests are around.

To sum things up, I'd like to see a fuller, more well-rounded experience from the Wii as it matures.

 

[Alzrius]

I bought my Wii at a midnight release the day it came out, and I've been very happy with it since. The games I bought then were Zelda: Twilight Princess and Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2.

I do confess that since then, I haven't bought another game. As you noted, this is because it seems like there are a lot of minigame-style games and a growing number of first-person shooters, neither of which I'm interested in. That said, I'm going to buy Super Paper Mario shortly, and can't wait to get Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition, and a few other games coming up soon.

As for the number of ports you mentioned, I think that's just a matter of course at this point. A lot of third-party companies were hesitant to produce games for the Wii at first, fearing it would be a market flop. Now that it's become such a smash hit, they're all announcing games for it, and in the meantime porting over existing games with new Wii controls (and sometimes, as with MK:A, new content also). This will get better relatively soon, as you mentioned; I'm guessing by the fall, or even late summer, there'll be more original games of all stripes (*cough* Nights: Journey of Dreams *coughs*).

And of course, games aren't ports if they're developed for multiple systems concurrently and one of those happens to be the Wii (such as Spider-Man 3). As for original Wii games that you won't see elsewhere, there are a number here already, and even better things are on the way - games such as Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and Sadness (which I'm salivating over) are sure to be incredible.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the games I have, ironing out some GameCube games I never finished, and playing free minigames over at www.wiicade.com with the Wii's internet browser. It's good to own a Wii.

 

[JDragon]

I've only had mine for a little over a month at this point.

I only have the Wii Sports so far, but its keeping my wife & I entertained.

We borowed WiiPLay and used it a couple nights, but were not that impressed with it. So I'm guessing we will not be picking it up.

The cool thing is it has my wife playing video games, before the Wii she would play Hexic on the 360 every once in a while but that was about it.

The last few days she's come home and played for 30 - 60 minutes after work to blow off steam after a long day.

JD

 

[Anti-Sean]

That said, I'm going to buy Super Paper Mario shortly

I highly, *highly* recommend this. I bought it Wednesday, and so far, it is amazing. The only problem is that my wife wound up stealing the Wiimote from me for a few hours last night to play it. She's also a fiend for Trauma Center.

We have Wario Ware and Rayman for multiplayer party games, and both are a big hit with people. Excite Truck is a fun arcade racer as well; some of the stunts you wind up pulling off in it look pretty damn cool.

I'm eager to pick up SSX: Blur, as the control scheme sounds excellent, but I'll probably have to wait on it for a while.

The Virtual Console is also great: my brother is visiting this weekend, and I'm afraid that Toejam and Earl might eat up a few hours of our time like it did 15-16 years ago.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Wow, I completely forgot about ExciteTruck. I have that too.

But don't let my brainfart fool you. It's a really fun game. I played the bejeesus out of it for a month or two, but I've put it away to run through Metroid Prime 2 in preparation for Corruption.

 

[John Crichton]

Only playing Wii Sports. Own Twilight Princess.

I should prolly pick up another game soon. But I'm still working on a bunch of newer 360/PS3 games, not to mention Zelda: TP.

Overall, I'm impressed but still worried. Nintendo's 3rd party support is still terrible, as it has been for the last 2 generations. There are some games coming out from 3rd party devs that are interesting but the best stuff is still developed in-house. The real test will be late this year when the 360 & PS3 have their heavy hitters out along with a price drop.

As it stands now, Nintendo gets me to buy about 4 games a year for their fun little consoles. I hope it's more than that for the Wii, but I'll believe it when I see it. They simply don't have the selection of Sony & MS.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I got mine a few months back and love it as a party system.

The lack of 4 billion buttons is what sold it to me.

Other than Wii Sports I have...
WarioWare - wife's game, I dont' like it. She hasn't played it much after a couple of days.
Zelda - my game, never played it and can't remember why I bought it.
Excite Truck - awesome game, and I'm a person who hates racing games.
WiiPlay - fun bunch of minigames, kind of an expanded WiiSports.
Super Paper Mario - received in the mail yesterday, still in shrink wrap.

We occasionally have people over and the favorites are bowling, baseball, and excitetruck.

 

[Ranger REG]

So when are they going to make Star Wars "Jedi Duel" type game for Wii?

Hope they come out with a Wii-style lightsaber remote (probably a short version since most household don't have a lot of space).

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Overall, I'm impressed but still worried. Nintendo's 3rd party support is still terrible, as it has been for the last 2 generations. There are some games coming out from 3rd party devs that are interesting but the best stuff is still developed in-house. The real test will be late this year when the 360 & PS3 have their heavy hitters out along with a price drop.

You know, I'm willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt since it's so early in the console's life, but I have to agree with this based on past consoles. The Nintendo 64 was a total wash. Gamecube was much better, but not because of 3rd-party games.

It's going to be a crazy Christmas. Halo 3 vs. SSBB and Metroid: Corruption vs. ... whatever's coming for the PS3

 

[Ranger REG]

whatever's coming for the PS3

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