Ray returns and has a WiiGasm!
Phew I made it! Life has been hectic of late and I apologise to all my readers (read: nobody) for my absence. I have had a lot on my plate:
Doing the graphics for my 5th Season of Animal Planet's - The Most Extreme.
Starting up a video games company with a good friend of mine (which I will post about in more detail, possibly at a new blog site).
Planning my Wedding in 2007.
And most importantly: Playing my Wii!
In fact the Wii is the reason I'm here writing again, I simply feel compelled to share my experience with the Wii as I find the majority of reports and reviews fail to get across the true impact of the "Wii Experience".
The Nintendo Wii:
Holy f**king crap... This thing rocks! Anyone who is on the fence about getting one, pull that fence post out of your ass and run down to your local video games store and buy one now! I understand that may not be possible depending on where you are in the world as the Wii is selling out like crazy. So instead you might want to look for a small boy nearby who was lucky enough to get one and creep into his bedroom at night, bludgeon him to death with your Xbox and steal his Wii. It doesn't matter if you break the Xbox into 30 pieces and get bits of his brain in it; you are NEVER going to use it again anyway.
I haven't been excited about games or consoles in general for what feels like 10 years or so now. When I came home with my Xbox (the first one, not the coma-inducing 360) I could barely raise a smile. How can one get excited when what you are bringing home is essentially an old PC in a big ugly black box, or in the case of the 360; an almost-up-to-date-PC in a white-curvy box?
When my friend and I got our Wiis (and our WiiPlay pack also of course) we practically ran home! Once there we sparked up a large "herbal cigarette", cracked open the champagne (at 10:00am) and had a toast... the anticipation was palpable! When we opened the beautiful box we were meet with the most gorgeously laid out packaging we'd ever seen (trust the Japanese to deliver on this front, their aesthetic taste never fails to impress), once we pulled out the console and the WiiMote we just couldn't believe how bloody small they both are! What incredible engineering... Then when we fired it up it was almost completely silent (unlike my old Xbox which sounds like a Harrier Jet taking off). After struggling with the incredibly simple set-up instructions (because we were so smashed), we finally came to the -once again- aesthetically pleasing WiiChannels screen and set-up the sensor bar etc... Then it was time for what we'd been most anticipating, WiiSports.
WiiSports:
Eat my crap Gamespot! I don't know what's wrong with you guys, maybe you just play way too many games and have totally lost perspective on things, but giving WiiSports a 7.8/10 is totally-f**king-bonkers! WiiSports is hands-down the absolute most fun I have EVER had playing games, and easily the most magical gaming experience I've had since I brought home my Amiga500 when I was 12 and played The Secret of Monkey Island. It doesn't matter that every aspect isn't perfect, what matters is that it is completely innovative and unlike ANYTHING that has come before it. In my opinion, this simply must be taken into consideration when reviewing it. Anyway...
WiiSports has layers and layers of complexity. On first impression it may seem simple because the user-interface and the graphics are purposefully stripped back and the controls are so incredibly intuitive (except perhaps Boxing which I still struggle with). But under this deceptively uncomplicated facade are layers of complexity which only many, many hours of gaming have now revealed to me (and I'm still only seeing the tip of the iceberg.)
Suffice to say I am completely blown away and I am overjoyed that someone in the scarily-unimaginative-risk-adverse-gaming-world has had the balls to do something different and actually be innovative! Nintendo have always thought outside the square, but never before have they done it quite this impressively (though my friend would argue that the DS is as impressive and innovative, if not more so. I don't have one yet, so I can't comment).
We were deep into a Tennis match when a mate came over with his girlfriend. Now in general I think it isn't unfair to say that girls are crap at video games (outside of perhaps Tetris and The Sims), but this rule simply doesn't apply with the Wii. She picked the controller right up and asked "how do I play tennis" and we replied "just hit the ball". Ten seconds later she was beating us because she had played Tennis in real life and we hadn't. Now how many times has that happened in your life! Normally you pass the controller to the girl and explain that "A is accelerate, B is brake, X is Turbo, Y controls the camera, and that stick there turns the car"... Watch as her eyes glaze over and she passes the controller back to you in disdain and reads a magazine instead.
The Wii has opened up games to everyone, young and old, male and female, and most importantly to the elusive non-gamer. In doing so Nintendo have effectively quadrupled its appeal. Not to mention the fitness aspect... After my first gaming session (which admittedly was far too long and without breaks) my body felt like I'd run a marathon; getting fit by playing video games? Now there's another first!
P.S. To all you special people who are throwing your WiiMotes through TVs and windows: You are total-utter-dribbling-retards. In hours, upon hours of frantic gaming the controller has not slipped out of my hand or any of my friends' hands either. So are we just extraordinarily coordinated or are the people destroying their lounges just muppets? I'll let you decide.
Doing the graphics for my 5th Season of Animal Planet's - The Most Extreme.
Starting up a video games company with a good friend of mine (which I will post about in more detail, possibly at a new blog site).
Planning my Wedding in 2007.
And most importantly: Playing my Wii!
In fact the Wii is the reason I'm here writing again, I simply feel compelled to share my experience with the Wii as I find the majority of reports and reviews fail to get across the true impact of the "Wii Experience".
The Nintendo Wii:
Holy f**king crap... This thing rocks! Anyone who is on the fence about getting one, pull that fence post out of your ass and run down to your local video games store and buy one now! I understand that may not be possible depending on where you are in the world as the Wii is selling out like crazy. So instead you might want to look for a small boy nearby who was lucky enough to get one and creep into his bedroom at night, bludgeon him to death with your Xbox and steal his Wii. It doesn't matter if you break the Xbox into 30 pieces and get bits of his brain in it; you are NEVER going to use it again anyway.
I haven't been excited about games or consoles in general for what feels like 10 years or so now. When I came home with my Xbox (the first one, not the coma-inducing 360) I could barely raise a smile. How can one get excited when what you are bringing home is essentially an old PC in a big ugly black box, or in the case of the 360; an almost-up-to-date-PC in a white-curvy box?
When my friend and I got our Wiis (and our WiiPlay pack also of course) we practically ran home! Once there we sparked up a large "herbal cigarette", cracked open the champagne (at 10:00am) and had a toast... the anticipation was palpable! When we opened the beautiful box we were meet with the most gorgeously laid out packaging we'd ever seen (trust the Japanese to deliver on this front, their aesthetic taste never fails to impress), once we pulled out the console and the WiiMote we just couldn't believe how bloody small they both are! What incredible engineering... Then when we fired it up it was almost completely silent (unlike my old Xbox which sounds like a Harrier Jet taking off). After struggling with the incredibly simple set-up instructions (because we were so smashed), we finally came to the -once again- aesthetically pleasing WiiChannels screen and set-up the sensor bar etc... Then it was time for what we'd been most anticipating, WiiSports.
WiiSports:
Eat my crap Gamespot! I don't know what's wrong with you guys, maybe you just play way too many games and have totally lost perspective on things, but giving WiiSports a 7.8/10 is totally-f**king-bonkers! WiiSports is hands-down the absolute most fun I have EVER had playing games, and easily the most magical gaming experience I've had since I brought home my Amiga500 when I was 12 and played The Secret of Monkey Island. It doesn't matter that every aspect isn't perfect, what matters is that it is completely innovative and unlike ANYTHING that has come before it. In my opinion, this simply must be taken into consideration when reviewing it. Anyway...
WiiSports has layers and layers of complexity. On first impression it may seem simple because the user-interface and the graphics are purposefully stripped back and the controls are so incredibly intuitive (except perhaps Boxing which I still struggle with). But under this deceptively uncomplicated facade are layers of complexity which only many, many hours of gaming have now revealed to me (and I'm still only seeing the tip of the iceberg.)
Suffice to say I am completely blown away and I am overjoyed that someone in the scarily-unimaginative-risk-adverse-gaming-world has had the balls to do something different and actually be innovative! Nintendo have always thought outside the square, but never before have they done it quite this impressively (though my friend would argue that the DS is as impressive and innovative, if not more so. I don't have one yet, so I can't comment).
We were deep into a Tennis match when a mate came over with his girlfriend. Now in general I think it isn't unfair to say that girls are crap at video games (outside of perhaps Tetris and The Sims), but this rule simply doesn't apply with the Wii. She picked the controller right up and asked "how do I play tennis" and we replied "just hit the ball". Ten seconds later she was beating us because she had played Tennis in real life and we hadn't. Now how many times has that happened in your life! Normally you pass the controller to the girl and explain that "A is accelerate, B is brake, X is Turbo, Y controls the camera, and that stick there turns the car"... Watch as her eyes glaze over and she passes the controller back to you in disdain and reads a magazine instead.
The Wii has opened up games to everyone, young and old, male and female, and most importantly to the elusive non-gamer. In doing so Nintendo have effectively quadrupled its appeal. Not to mention the fitness aspect... After my first gaming session (which admittedly was far too long and without breaks) my body felt like I'd run a marathon; getting fit by playing video games? Now there's another first!
P.S. To all you special people who are throwing your WiiMotes through TVs and windows: You are total-utter-dribbling-retards. In hours, upon hours of frantic gaming the controller has not slipped out of my hand or any of my friends' hands either. So are we just extraordinarily coordinated or are the people destroying their lounges just muppets? I'll let you decide.
posted by Ray_Tango at 10:12 am
2 comments
