Wii Impressions

BSD has been slow lately for a variety of reasons… my internet being sketchy, reading of the seventh Harry Potter, my getting used to my glasses and not having as much time to write lately. With two of those problems solved, I’ll try to get writing on a semi-regular basis, though I have no word on Caleb.

Thanks to Paul, I’ve had a Nintendo Wii for the past couple of days and a whole bunch of games. While I haven’t played any of them long enough to actually “review” them, I just wanted to give my impressions on some of them and the console as a whole. I’ll probably do this again with some more games once I’ve played more. Oh, and I’m going to try to make it through this whole post without a penis joke, but I’m not guaranteeing anything.

Wii Sports
It brings me back to the good old days when my Genesis came with Sonic the Hedgehog. While really more of a tech demo than anything I guess, it really is a fun collection of mini games. There are a few different modes for playing bowling, baseball, boxing and golf as well as multiplayer action. It is also a good way to get used to the controller, which I like, though am still not sure whether it is better in the long run than a traditional one. Baseball is only three innings long and you have no control over anyone but either the batter or the pitcher. Also, the fact that there is no changeup (though you can swing your arm slower on a fastball to throw it slower, but that gives your pitch away really), but there is a screwball, curveball and a slider I believe. Boxing is incredibly fun, against either the computer or another person. There is a training game where your instructor throws tennis balls at you, complete with hilarious sound effects when you get hit in the head with one that caused everyone I’ve seen play it (including myself) to laugh so much that it was impossible not to get hit with about five more tennis balls. Another of the training missions allows you to beat the living crap out of your instructor, which is also hilarious. All of the games are fun, though I think golf is a little frustrating because you cannot swing very hard without slicing horribly, but they get old after a while. I’m really looking forward to a real baseball game on the Wii, as batting with the wii-mote as you would bat in real life is incredibly fun.

Sonic and the Secret Rings
Well, I didn’t give this game much of a chance, but I’ve been giving Sega chance after chance with their damn 3D Sonic games and none of them are any good. They never got the switch from two dimensions right like Nintendo did with Mario. It’s sad because Sonic was always my favorite game as a kid. Anyhow, you hold the wii-mote like a normal controller and tilt it either way to move sonic… he jumps and collects rings and there are barriers or something. I didn’t even get past the first level, but it was just boring… I should probably give it another try, though.

Elebits
Um… you’re some sort of little kid who has a “sob story” about hating Elebits or something because his parents don’t pay attention to him… All the characters look like “those precious moments” things according to Paul. So you run around with some sort of weird ghost buster’s like gun and shot little bunny rabbits with antennae on their heads to create electricity or something. I honestly wasn’t paying any damn attention to the storyline after the kid said “I hate Elebits!” in a really whiny voice. The fact you can open cupboards and pick things up with that gun kinda like in Destroy All Humans is cool. It’s neat to hurl objects about for a few levels, but after that it’s just very boring. Caleb enjoyed it a lot, but then again, he would. It just made me want to play Pikmin.

Trauma Center: Second Opinion
This game is pretty awesome. You’re a surgeon and get to slice people open with the wii-mote and stitch the slices you made back up. You remove tumors and fix broken arms and inject some sort of magic drug into people that makes them not die on you. Using the scalpel was hard for me, and the storyline is sort of weak, but it’s a blast to play. Hearing Paul try to give the main character a Shaggy impression was pretty damn hilarious, but it’s hard to operate when you’re laughing.

Hopefully there will be more to come… I’ve been playing Super Paper Mario, which I like a lot so far. I’m really looking forward to the new Smash Bros., Metroid Prime Corruption and Mario Galaxy, but those aren’t coming out for a while.