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Techtite's Wii Reviews |
"Don't buy this system for a "wow" factor in terms of size or appearance. However, rest assured, this is pretty much the only gripe you'll hear about the Nintendo Wii on this entire review." ---from the review ----------------- Sidebar : ----------------- The remote rant that wasn't worth putting in the review, but worth cutting and pasting in the sidebar. I must admit this was an intriguing choice of controller shape, seeing how the Wii currently has no DVD player functionality. If they made the Wii able to play CD and DVD discs only to say "the controller doubles as your remote control for video discs," that would make more sense. However, the controller is fully motion sensitive, and does the job right, so why worry, right? ----------------- Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted! ------------------
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Nintendo Wii
Click picture for current order news (plus additional auctions & offers) for the Wii. A Techtite ReviewGamers were given an intriguing trio of contenders for next generation systems as of late 2006. On the one hand you had the X-Box 360, and on the other, the Playstation 3. Then there was the Nintendo Wii. Small? Surprisingly. Out of the running? Not hardly! Why? That's just it; it may not have the power, but it certainly has the originality, and the fun. Let's admit the biggest flaw straight out: yes, it is small. Early specs for the system weren't joking; this system is literally equivalent in size to three standard DVD cases stacked together. Don't buy this system for a "wow" factor in terms of size or appearance. However, rest assured, this is pretty much the only gripe you'll hear about the Nintendo Wii on this entire review. As Yoda might put it: size matters not.
Upon starting up the system, you're greeted with this admittedly (slightly) annoying "please don't sue us" disclaimer about games creating boo-boos for people who don't know any better. Then you are given the system's "main menu" of channels. Each game has its own channel. Download games from the Wii Virtual Console online (more on that later), and that new game is given its own "channel," shown as a little TV screen. It's a cute presentation of the main menu, and easy to navigate. It's also a perfect companion to the Wii remote's on-screen functionality. Just aim the Wii pointer over your channel choice and you're good to go. It all comes down to games, of course. Many a failed game system had the amusing feature that was not as amusing when third party games never used it. The original NES' "robot buddy" comes to mind, as does the Sega Dreamcast's "VMU" memory cards that could play small mini games (yeah...sure). Yet as of the posting of this review; there are a whole lot of games using the Wii's special features to the max, with many more on the way. Sonic and the Secret Rings, for example, will give you full freedom of control of Sonic at high speed, with just the tiniest tilt of the Wii remote moving Sonic subtly in that direction as he runs. Rayman Raving Rabbids is perhaps even superior to the Wii's currently in-package game, Wii Sports, as the perfect collection of mini games to exploit the Wii's uniqueness (click the review link to see what we mean!). As for Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess...what more can we say? I mean; the latest Zelda game is so intricate, not only are you in full control of Zelda's sword and bow; you can even go fishing! The Virtual Console is the icing on the cake. Think "X-Box Live Arcade," as interpreted by Nintendo, with Donkey Kong and Mario and Zelda and Sonic the Hedgehog as well. It helps that Nintendo is nothing if not humble, offering classic games from not only the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Nintendo 64, and Super NES, though also from the Sega Genesis and the "Turbo Graphix 16" system. Rumors are that Commodore 64 games are coming, though we have yet to see any, and frankly, we're all too busy playing dozens of classic games to worry about that for right now. If this system loses a half-star, it is because as of this review's latest update, it is March 10th and still no Wii's on store shelves. You may ask "what do you care you own one and few people do!" we say; that's the problem. Games aren't normally made in large quantities for systems only owned by an elite few. My nephew wants a Wii for his birthday in June. His whole family thought we could guarantee that gift for him, because "obviously" they'd have the Wii available by then. That was four months ago during system launch. Three months later and...Wii's are still hard to find? What. The. Hey?!? Then there's wireless networking. To be fair; Nintendo is the darkest horse in the networking wars, with the Game Cube given very limited online potential at all. Now the Wii is suddenly "fully" networkable online, and what's more, it attempted to be wireless networked as well. Suffice to say that this is where size does matter a little. Smaller systems mean smaller antennas for the wireless connection, right? That's what we're presuming, anyway, when most low-end wireless networks barely connected to the network at all, unless the system was in the same room as the network router...which, quite frankly, negates the whole point of a wireless network. The idea is that dad can have his direct wireless connection while sons and daughters connect wirelessly from their bedrooms across the hall. Yet the Wii, except for high-power routers with larger antennae, would keep breaking its signal with the network. We'd say this was worth taking away a half-star, though just barely, and we already took away that half-star from its grade, so...let's move on. There is also power to consider. Mind you; "power" is getting arguable, as those other next-gen systems are not a simple room-temperature VCR you can fit snugly into a tight shelf next to the TV. I've heard of people who are on their third X-Box 360, as they learn "the hard way" that with great power comes great need for ventilation. Nintendo Wii has no such worries, so of course its opponents respond with "well yeah but that means it's not as powerful." well yeah, though for less graphics firepower you have motion control, an awesome collection of classic games, an equally awesome array of exclusive-to-Nintendo titles like Zelda and Mario and Starfox, and...well, okay; maybe none of that matters to someone who's less of a fan of Mario and more of a fan of Halo or whatnot. It's still an awesome system, though..."power" or no power. As icing on the cake, there's 100% GameCube compatibility. How compatible is "compatible"...? Even your gameshark/Action Replay discs still work. That means that the game cube elements within Wii are exact, right down to the last memory address. Some have said this is because Wii is, at its core, simply a Game Cube with different packaging. That's just petty excuses for modern systems that have every reason to be backwards compatible, yet aren't. After all; Playstation 2 was fully compatible with Playstation 1 games, was it not? Yet not once did someone say it was a "Playstation 1 with different packaging." If you try to use limited "emulation" software to be backwards compatible with your old games, don't try to point fingers at the competition that is 100% compatible with old games. They succeeded in satisfying old customers, and other systems did not. End of story. In conclusion, the only real limitation of the Wii is that it's hard to come by, even a full season later. We would really hate for Nintendo to be the hare to Sony Playstation's tortoise, however, so we're hoping they have Wii's in droves in time for the summer gaming season. Kids will be out of school around June. If they aren't busy playing with their Nintendo Wii systems, that's because they couldn't get one, and that's a shame.
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Burnout
Near
Miss
Small
Crater
Large
Crater
Deep
Impact
Why
doesn't size matter? The real truth is: no matter how small the Wii is,
there's nothing it needs in the way of additional ports or other buttons on
the main console. In front of the unit is a power switch, eject switch, game
disc slot, and a
small panel which hides the wireless controllers' "sync" button, and the
optional memory card slot. Atop the system are two doors which hide the
controller ports and memory card slots, for the system's full
Game Cube compatibility. On back of the system is a USB port, power socket, video cable
socket, and the Wii's sensor bar.
Ah
yes; the sensor bar. First of all; yes, the Wii controller is
As
for the controller; again, I was a bit apprehensive when looking at the
entirely different concept of game controller design, of a mini "remote control" as
a game controller. Accessories for the controller (like the "nunchuk" and
"classic" style game pad for old games) plug into the Wii remote at the bottom.
Both the Wii remote and the nunchuk have motion sensitivity, so a game can
have you move your right hand one way and the left another, and create more
fluid control of a game's motion features. Rayman Raving Rabbids,
for example, uses both remotes for dancing mini-games; move the right remote
for movements to the right, and move the nunchuk for movements to the left.
The nunchuk also offers two additional "trigger" position buttons, and a
thumb sized controller for better game movement.