I get it now...

[Izuno]

So I haven't had a Wii until a week ago. Yes I am behind the curve, especially as a industry consultant. For the most part I've been playing the Wii over at my cousin's place who lives literally around the corner. I go over there and we play the Wii or his PS3 stuff and talk analyse what's good and bad about the consoles or the games...we talk about general gaming concepts relative to some of my client projects. It's nice. But I haven't really been interested in owning a Wii for myself because there hasn't been any games that inspired me for it...

...That is until a week ago when my best friend gave my wife and I a very belated wedding present: a brand new Wii. We drove up to Tahoe a couple of days ago and stopped in a Target near Sacramento and grabbed a copy of Super Mario Galaxy. I didn't feel that great about it but since the Wii was a gift I thought I'd invest some time in it and just get over it.

So after a day of skiing yestersday I busted out the Wii, and having played Wii sports a bunch I wasn't anticipating any kind of new experience with that game but I get how it's still fun. Etc..etc...yada yada ... I loaded up Mario Galaxy...

I get it now. SMG is amazing. I feel like I got smacked across the face by a friend saying "Get off your high horse you elitist prick. Respect the wholesome Nintendo fun-ness already." SMG finally made me remember what I loved about Mario back from the SNES days having largely sat out the N64 and GameCube eras except for a few games here and there.

In fact, my WIFE is in love with SMG, too. She has always loved Super Mario games back to when she was a kid with a SNES and she can still kick ass on that game. So to see her embrace SMG and the Wii motion controls is a real treat.

Anyway, taking the day of from skiing today to play more Wii and troll Mapcore. gg!

[FrieChamp]

I finally convinced my friend, who owns a Wii and is more of a 2D Mario fan, to get SMG and he likes it a lot, already finished it. I don't know what made me uncomfortable when I tried it.

I still find myself struggling with the 2 hands controller scheme, I don't have a Wii myself, so I probably just don't have enough time to get used to it. Might have also been the fact that I played one of the later levels or my friends repeatedly calling me an "idiot" when I played it.

I must say that I was quite impressed by the flawless execution of the 3D element, finally a game one can truly call a 3D platformer! The game's visuals were ace too, nice shaders and textures - I never thought games on the Wii could look so great!

You make me envious about the Tahoe skiing thing by the way

[-HP-]

Yeah, although my subconscience keeps telling me "WII sucks... "!

Although, I have to agree SMG really looks like a great game too me, but I don't own a WII to play it, and I prolly never will, so... HF

[Sentura]

i was happy to see SMG come out for the wii as it is probably the best game for it out there. but that's it; there's not really anything else you can play on a wii (other than the mario/zelda reruns), and i feel kinda bad about buying it. i was thinking that nintendo back with the announcement of manhunt 2 would feature a different demographic but i was sadly wrong.

i still use my wii alot, especially when i have friends over; but it just doesnt cut it as a console. i am actually considering selling at this point -- there's not really anything else looking up over the horizon and i'd be damned if something awesome like mass effect or drake's fortune -ESQUE came out for the wii. i guess my fellow wii owners on this board agree :\

[Taylor]

SMG, Mario Party and Zack & Wiki will probably justify a puchase for me, but the Wii still contains little in the way of "proper" games.

The sceptic within me also wants to say, though I don't if I should let it, that the reason people are rushing out badly presented wii-remote gimmick compilations instead of fully fledged games is because anything that isn't by Nintendo on a Nintendo console doesn't sell very well. Zack & Wiki's poor sales seem a good case of point.

[Thrik]

Super Mario Galaxy is one of the finest games ever created for sure, but I have trouble imagining most games on the Wii meeting its standard. The main problem is the hardware; although Galaxy is very special with its mechanics, it only gets away with it because the unique planet theme means there's no significant background geometry to render.

For casual gamers and kids the Wii will of course be magnificent, because let's make no mistake we're only just past the first year of the console; it took the 360 at least this long to get some momentum, and the same goes/will go for the PS3. There'll be many very fun games for those audiences, including Nintendo's usual top-class first-party games such as Smash Bros and Mario Kart.

The hardware 'cap' is very worrying though, and kind of restrains the console from really hitting its prime. While with the 360 and PS3 developers are continuously improving and pushing more beauty out, with the Wii they're pretty much using GameCube techniques that're very mature and aren't really going to look much better, or more complex (physics, etc). We won't see the evolution like on the last generation where, say, Metal Gear Solid 3 looked so much more advanced than Metal Gear Solid 2 despite being on identical hardware.

With that said, the cheapness of the console may mean Nintendo can be first to the punch with the next generation and go back to being competitive with hardware and having an improved iteration of the Wiimote concept. Because for sure, the Wiimote is a winner on all fronts in my opinion and if combined with 360/PS3 hardware it could be something amazing.

I doubt Nintendo would have had success pushing the fairly risky Wiimote concept with a more expensive console, though. They'd probably have sank for good.

I personally have no regrets about my Wii. Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy are amazing, and alone make me feel my money was worthwhile. Future Nintendo games that I'll love will be out soon, and there may even be a second Zelda (the Wii hasn't had a native one, really) before the end of the Wii's life. I pretty much just buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games -- always have.

[Mazy]

I really hate to have these feelings towards the Wii because I wanna be open minded and all, but it just makes me really angry most of the time. I mean when you play something like SMG you realize just how amazing a console it could be if everything was just half as good as that, but the sad reality is that its pretty much only 1st party thats worth a shit at the moment. The only games I've really had consistently fun with so far have been SMG and Wii Sports, and considering that it almost costs the same as a 360 Arcade (The 360 NOT to buy tho), then it makes little sense to me why anyone that consider themselves "hardcore" would buy this first over a 360 or PS3. Apparently its also a big problem that, although the Wii is selling more than its rivals, then there's hardly being sold any games, especially compared to the attach rate of the 360.

Anyway, hopefully we'll soon start seeing decent games for the Wii, I'm just kinda regretting buying it when I'm not playing SMG (Which is, truth be told, good enough to buy a Wii for, sadly )

[Sentura]

i think second and third party games for the wii will be a major problem. so far, all the wii actually has is about 10 different mario titles, while not releasing anything new and unique. this might, in fact, be the biggest of the wii's problems.

of course nintendo doesnt care, as milking the franchise will leave them funds enough still: when buying a console, the people that buy the wii dont usually buy any other games with it, leaving themselves to wii sports. after a few months or even a year later they buy maybe a few other games, get positively surprised and so keep on playing; despite only in reality having maximum 5 games at their disposal. this means nintendo aren't really pushed to making new titles other than new editions of the very traditional, and might i say, sell out franchises.

while this doesnt hurt the casual gamer much, since they follow the cycle mentioned above, it does leave out the wii as a hardcore game machine. but then again, maybe this was what nintendo was aiming for -- i bet there's a pretty big market for this these days, especially considering that microsoft wen with having the 360 remade so that one could get it cheaper and get arcade games for it. i think nintendo is pleased with what the wii does for them for now; and while they have cemented its legacy for the casual gamer, it does bode ill for the people wanting a bit more than an arcade machine with the occasional SMG-esque game.

[Erratic]

i think second and third party games for the wii will be a major problem. so far, all the wii actually has is about 10 different mario titles, while not releasing anything new and unique. this might, in fact, be the biggest of the wii's problems.

of course nintendo doesnt care, as milking the franchise will leave them funds enough still: when buying a console, the people that buy the wii dont usually buy any other games with it, leaving themselves to wii sports. after a few months or even a year later they buy maybe a few other games, get positively surprised and so keep on playing; despite only in reality having maximum 5 games at their disposal. this means nintendo aren't really pushed to making new titles other than new editions of the very traditional, and might i say, sell out franchises.

I don't know if Nintendo is really milking anything. And if they are, that's always been the case. They rarely ever introduce new franchises so I don't see that as being a surprise or even a problem with the Wii. Or maybe I just don't know the definition of 'milking it' cause I'm quite happy with playing what are consistently great games from Nintendo. Hardly sellout franchises.

Of course, Mario Party is another story

while this doesnt hurt the casual gamer much, since they follow the cycle mentioned above, it does leave out the wii as a hardcore game machine. but then again, maybe this was what nintendo was aiming for -- i bet there's a pretty big market for this these days, especially considering that microsoft wen with having the 360 remade so that one could get it cheaper and get arcade games for it. i think nintendo is pleased with what the wii does for them for now; and while they have cemented its legacy for the casual gamer, it does bode ill for the people wanting a bit more than an arcade machine with the occasional SMG-esque game.

I think as far the Wii's hardcore appeal goes, it's not too far off from the PS3. Each console only has about 2 or 3 exclusives that are really worth putting the money down for and even then the Wii is probably the best option because of its price.