Wii Spot Podcast from WiiSpot.com

You would think that as the owner of a site like this, WiiSpot.com, that I would of had a Wii system at launch. You would think that I’d of been playing and exploring every nook and cranny that Nintendo’s new system offers since the release. Well you would be wrong

I actually just managed to pick up my Wii yesterday. My journey to get a Wii is an impressive story in itself, but it’s a story that will have to wait for another time. For now I want to talk about unpacking my Wii for the first time and my experience playing WiiSports.

Since the time the first screenshots and videos of the Wii were released, WiiSports was there. It may of existed in a different form then the game that ships with the Wii now, but the basic idea of a low res model swinging a bat or racket was there. As low res and un-nextgen as it looked I knew that I wanted to play it. When Nintendo finally coughed up the launch info, and the knowledge that WiiSports was to be included in the North American launch hit, well… I won’t hide the fact that I let out a little girly-man squeal.

It was with eager anticipation that I opened my Wii box last night and hooked it all up to my home theatre system. The Wii itself was slick little machine and actually was a little bit heavier then I anticipated from looking at the pictures, but it’s nothing serious. The Wii is a amazingly small system that will fit in to most homes with little effort I would think. Even the sensor bar was cool. I was worried that it would be bigger, or ugly, but it sits up on top of my old SD television set without any problems.

After everything was hooked up I held my breath and hit the power switch. The Wii sprung to life and quickly brought up the main channel interface. Having ingested EVERY little morsel of Wii info since launch I knew that there would be some system updates needed to get up to the current version of system software and channels, so I went to the setup menus and proceeded to configure a connection to my home wireless network. I am VERY happy that Nintendo decided to support WPA and WPA2 this time around. Due to the DS not supporting this I had to maintain two separate wireless networks in my house, hopefully one day I can dismantle the second one and get onto the DS Wifi Connection through my Wii. Any ways, the network setup was quick and painless. The Wii downloaded a pair of updates without a hitch.

The Wii’s Channel interface is both easy to navigate and easy to use. There is a nice little tactile feedback system in the way of a little rumble when you mouse over a button that is clickable, this was a nice touch that was unexpected. The menus open and close quick, everything about this system just screams Apple from a user interface standpoint.

To better familiarize myself with this new system and it’s controller I decided to start up the Mii channel and create a Mii. Creating the Mii was an awesome experience in itself. My wife sat by and recommended the parts I should use, and laughed out loud when my created Mii actually looked like me! Since your Mii will represent you in the games you play (Well, games that use that feature), you should take your time and really make your avatar look like you want it to. If nothing else it’s a fun mini-game built in the Wii to pass the time. We’ve actually instituted a rule in our house. No playing the Wii until you’ve created yourself as a Mii. It’ll be cool to have a collection of friends and family represented by these quirky Miis slowly built up.

But that’s enough about the system and Miis, lets talk games. While it might not be the most imprssive game on the system, I was looking forward to playing WiiSports the most. I popped the disc in and waited… and waited… and waited… then I realized that I had the game in upside down.Doh ! So I reinserted the disc and the Disc channel quickly sprung to life and informed me that I did in fact place WiiSports into the disc drive. Whew! I thought that my Wii was broken there for a minute, but it was just a bad case of pilot error. I started the game.

WiiSports is a collection of five over-simplified sporting games: Baseball, Tennis, Boxing, Golf and my favorite Bowling make appearances in this title. After seeing Reggie and Iawata playing WiiSports tennis at the E3 Nintendo press event, I knew that I had to play this one first.

The tennis game is a strange beast. I say that because you do not actually control your tennis star in the game, only his/her swing. This took a little getting used to, but I quickly forgot about all my gripes. The ability to swing my Wiimote (with the wrist strap attached of course) and see my mini-Mii do the same thing had me grinning ear to ear. You have a certain degree of control over the ball and can execute slices, lobs and smashes by mimicking that action with the Wiimote. It looks as though you can add topspin and backspin on the ball as well, but I wasn’t able to properly execute those hits at all. I may just need more practice to get those moves down. All in all I would say that the gameplay in tennis was quite simplistic, but this was by design. The game was incredibly fun, and I am really looking forward to the day when I can secure myself 3 more Wiimotes as this game most definitely needs to be played as a 4 player multiplayer match.

After tennis I moved into baseball. Nintendo’s version of baseball is a bit different then the norm. There are only 3 innings, and no base running. You either hit a home run or you don’t. Depending on where your non-home run balls land the game figures out if you are out or if you’ve hit a Single, Double or Triple. The biggest thing I noticed while playing this game is that the balls come FAST, and this is with the computer only throwing 60mph fastballs… I can’t even imagine hitting 100mph ones when my skill level gets up there. I enjoyed this game a bit, but quickly grew tired of it and wanted to try something else. I was hoping for a better experience in this fifth of WiiSports.

Next came bowling. I have heard from others that this is THE game in WiiSports that makes it all worthwhile, and I tend to agree with that. Everything about this game reminds me of actually bowling at the local lanes, well everything except for the ugly shoes and the resulting foot fungus. Throwing the ball down the lane is accomplished by bringing the Wiimote up in front of you like you are holding the ball, then you click the trigger and make your throw. You can place a fair bit of english on the ball as well with a well timed wrist twist prior to letting the ball go. I can easily see this game coming out at parties, as you only need one Wiimote to play multiplayer. Personally I feel that this is the best game in the collection. It should be the bar that all developers try to hit when making a sports game on the Wii.

After my fun time bowling, and a drink to cool down a bit, I moved on to golf. You begin golfing by selecting the mode you would like to play. You can choose from a 3 hole course in beginner, intermediate or expert mode, or just jump in to a full 9 hole course. One little bit of trivia that made me smile is that the holes in the game are actually modeled after the ones in the old NES Golf game. I spent many a hour playing golf on the NES or the Gameboy port, so this was a nice piece of nostalgia. Golf again is a simplified version of the actual game. You have 4 clubs to use (Wood, iron, wedge and putter) and the game makes your choices for you. To hit the ball you have to hold down the trigger button and perform an actual golf swing. You can hook or shank the ball if you put too much power into it, so you have to watch the onscreen gauge for pointers. I have heard many people slagging this title due to it’s simplicity, but found it quite enjoyable. I can see myself playing holes for drinks with my buds, and isn’t all golf just an excuse to drink? No? Hmm , maybe that’s just me. I enjoyed this part of WiiSports, and even have a sore shoulder to prove it. Yes, WiiSports hurt me.. I must be out of shape.

Last up in the WiiSports collection is boxing. I wasn’t sure what to expect in this game, as of heard that people either love it or hate it. The game starts off with a little tutorial explaining how you perform the various hits, blocks and dodges. Sadly I didn’t find that I could actually choose my hits, and rounds basically ended with me flailing away like a mad man. I can see how this game would make you look the fool at parties, so it’s GOT TO come out at said parties. I’m going to have to give this game a little bit more time before passing judgement. If I can learn to pick my punches and make my avatar jab when I want him to, this may actually be fun. If not, well.. there is something to be said about flailing away in front of your friends. Right?

So that was my experience with WiiSports. I’ll tell you that I was grinning from ear to ear throughout my game session. While simple these games are just plain FUN. I can now totally see what Nintendo is doing with this system. This game will get non gamers to come out of their shells and realize thatvideo games aren’t just for the geeks and social rejects, everyone can play them and enjoy themselves. I think that Nintendo is going to have a hard time keeping these systems on theshelves until well after Christmas , as playing is believing. I think that there will be a lot of systems sold to non gamers just play WiiSports, hopefully the various gamedevelopers will release plenty of more casual titles that will appeal to these types of new gamers. One last thing to remember, the Wiimote will work with little movements just as well as the full-on movements I was doing. You don’t have to do full swings or punch like a mad man, but you will be robbing yourself some of the fun that this title will bring you.

This isn’t a full on review of WiiSports, so I won’t list a score here. Look for that in the future. I will say this to the people reading this who may still be on the fence about Nintendo’s new system; Go out and play it! Whether you seek out a Wii in a EB or GameStop, or find a friend who has one, get out these and try it. No amount of words or description can do this system justice.

Nintendo’s baseball game may not of hit a home run with gamers, but this system sure has. An upper deck, knock the ball out of it’s skin smash home run.