Wii Had Such Fun

Nintendo held a Media Summit last week where among other things they trailed and announced release dates for Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M (Trailers after the jump). I held back from newsing it because I wanted a little bit of perspective. I find myself merely whelmed by the prospect of these games and just about anything else Nintendo announce now.

I bought my Wii on launch day after spending most of 2006 telling everyone that it was going to be pure tits. Now, I haven’t played it in about 6 months, before that it was about 7 months. Part of me wants to know what the hell the company whose machines I grew up with is doing, and the other part of me just wants them to give me the goods, just let me know they still care and give me a game I want.

How has it come to this twisted, abusive relationship?

Super Mario Galaxy was a great piece of design. You can’t really tell here (or on an LCD TV, I imagine) but the graphics are as good as they can be first. Graphics are a quandary. Some of my favourite games have appalling graphics by today’s standards so to judge a game so harshly on outdated visuals seems spurious. However, good artistry and technique is a foundation for appealing games. Mario Galaxy is well put together, aside from good (you’ll have to trust me) graphics you have an inventive and balls out fun game mechanic.

Yet I find myself in a position where I know I will probably not play Mario Galaxy 2. It will be just as fun, I couldn’t put down the first and completed it fully to 242 stars. It will still have amazing level design. Also it has Yoshi. Yoshi is awesome. If you can think of a better Mario Kart character chances are you are full of shit, my friend.

I will probably not play SMG2 because come release day on 23rd May I expect to be knee deep in Red Dead Redemption. Yeah it has better quality visuals, sound and such, but the reason I’ll prefer to play that is because it will have a story I can sink my teeth into. Ultimately this comes down to time.

I am not put off by the fact SMG2 is “more of the same”, it’s good a game and doesn’t want or need to put some contrived new angle on to stay fresh. More of the same is good in the case of Galaxy, but because I already grasp the game from its predecessor it is easier to write off. I know what will happen.

I also played Red Dead Revolver but I do not know what will happen in Redemption. Back to my sub-point; I will only have time for one of these two games. I will choose Red Dead Redemption because it has a narrative I can get to grips with, involve myself with. If I had time I would love to play SMG2. Too bad.

So Metroid: Other M

It needs to use pre-rendered graphics for good quality cut scenes which in this day and age is pretty much outmoded. I can’t begrudge something for its low quality graphics, but in comparison to other machines this generation, the Wii just stutters. No More Heroes had poor technical visuals but I loved it, it used style to its advantage. Same with Wind Waker back in the day. But a pre-rendered cut scene? Come on. Years out of date. Use in engine graphics, otherwise it feels dishonest. I adore Metroid Prime 3:Corruption, everything about it was first rate. Other M offers to show us more Samus, a prospect which makes me queasy.

To quote Patton Oswalt, “I don’t give a shit where the stuff I love comes from, I just love the stuff I love“.

Where am I going with all this? Well I just intrinsically do not feel the need to play my Wii anymore. I need to play Heavy Rain, I need to play Episodes from Liberty City. I do not need to play Metroid:Other M. I played Super Mario Galaxy 2 basically two years ago. Would I like to play them? Yes. I would play everything if I could.

The dust gathering Wii is far from a revelation for let’s face it, all of you reading this. It has some great games, ok Twilight Princess is a gamecube port but my god, what a port. It is gorgeous. Okami, also a port (from PS2 this time) is one of the best games of the decade, again very good looking but took a hit when I upgraded from a Cathode Ray Tube to an LCD telly. I have since not been able to bring myself to play another Wii game on my LCD TV.

I am reluctant to play a Wii game on my television for fear it will look terrible and taint my memory. This is one major point where Nintendo has fallen behind the times. I applaud and agree with their sentiment that a great game does not need to be at the pinnacle of graphical technology, but when a game actively looks bad because of the limitations of the hardware, I feel ripped.

Now you're talking....

Goldeneye is the best FPS of all time. I could take all comers on Goldeneye, we used to play one-shot kills with pistols, the only way to play. Chelios will tell you what a nightmare I was, I spent so long playing this game due to equal measures not being able to afford to buy myself a new one on pocket money, and having all the hours in the world to do it.

Anyway, onto a strange phenomenon; memory can be shit and because of this we tend to remember games in perfect graphical quality. Let me qualify that. Obviously we don’t remember little 8-bit sprites as full high definition 3D models, what I mean is that our memories smooth out the glitches and bumps, the jagged edges and inconsistencies. We remember Goldeneye’s charmingly deformed face mapping and square hands, but we don’t remember it looked this fucking bad-

Yeah ok, for the time it was pretty good, but my point is look at how shit it is compared with your rose tinted memory bullshit filter, it is like an HD upgrade in your head. Does this make Goldeneye any less of an awesome game? Fuck no. That would be pants on head retarded. Would you excuse this kind of thing in a modern game? Hells no and you know it, unless it was some kind of deliberately reverential, referential homage.

I feel obliged to drop this in

EXPLOSION

Obviously Wii games are not this bad looking. Not that this is really bad, anymore than your grandfather is bad, unless he really is bad. It’s just older is what I’m saying, not ugly. Twilight Princess had some of the best artistry on the Wii but with frequent clipping, stiff hair and poor resolutions I found myself wincing, having to look past things to enjoy the game I love. Your friend my have warts, you don’t like the warts necessarily but your mind sort of filters them, you grow accustomed until you just don’t notice because you like your friend. By friend I don’t mean penis, by the way.

With Wii games forced to operate under a technical shortfall they must have good story, mechanics and be stylised. 95% of Wii games do not have any of these things.

It’s all to do with investment. If i’ve already invested so many hours into my Wii, I will need to invest more as a basic human trait for self justification. The Wii reached a tipping point where it physically could not provide enough interesting content to keep me investing and so it is essentially mothballed. My Wii games are as follows (discounting wiisports and wiiplay)-

-The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess – Still goddamn excellent.

-Super Mario Galaxy – As I said, a great game.

-Resident Evil 4 Wii edition – A previous generation port

-Okami – Another 6th gen port

-Mario Kart Wii – Very disappointing

-No More Heroes – Batshit crazy/awesome

-Metroid Prime 3: Corruption – Best looking

That’s it. I occasionally use it to play Harvest Moon and Zelda:Wind Waker from the GameCube. Nothing else interests me. That’s versus a library of PS3 games which I wont go into here. More isn’t better, but it sure as hell is merrier.

NOW you're talking

So, the Wii has……issues, technically speaking. It has a release schedule full of shovelware. It has mature titles but the big consoles have more and better mature titles.

People say it is a kiddy console to which I call bullshit. It has a tonne of shit I’ll grant you, but a well put together kids’ game is a well put together game, which happens to be aimed at kids. The same way Studio Ghibli and Pixar put out quality films that don’t talk down to an audience, so Wii’s (mostly 1st party) games are well designed pieces.

It really pains me to say it because I so looked forward to the Wii, lauded it, enjoyed it. It feels like an old friend I never speak to anymore. It changed the way people play games, it broadened the gaming horizon, paved the way for mainstream penetration, hell it drove us halfway there. But dammit, I just don’t need it.I’m just so disappointed.

I’m literally only holding onto my Wii because a) I’ve never got rid of a console, and b) the main reason, I want to play the next Legend of Zelda. That’s it. I’m keeping my PS3 because it can satisfy my eye while I play, it has more than one franchise I find essential, it has a wider scope of content, I can have regular demos and updates, I can have great sound and so on and so on.

I’m literally just waiting for them to send Link. And then it’ll probably be “thanks but I’m leaving you”.

I feel shitty for doing it but why should I continue using it?