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Slate Pans the Wii, Slate Loves the Wii
thatguywhoiam writes "Slate's Eric Sofke takes a few considered shots at Nintendo's latest console. He claims the Wii Remote has major accuracy problems, which are compensated for by too-easy games. Meanwhile, just next door, Chris Suellentrop says the Wii is even better than the PS3. Check out both sides of the issue." From the Sofke article: "The new Nintendo's flaws make me question who the Wii's audience will be. Kids don't want embarrassingly easy games. Casual gamers of any age will bail out the first time their crosshairs go AWOL. And hardcore gamers like me aren't going to bother with a magic wand that makes us less efficient at killing aliens. For a console that wants to start a revolution, making users doubt their reflexes is a serious design flaw."
I ran into some accuracy problems for the first maybe 30 minutes when I got my Wii home. If you just take it out of the box and expect it to work with no tuning, you will definitely have problems. Of course, if you RTFM and follow the instructions, things are much better.
Basically, you have to be really careful about how you position the sensor bar in relation to yourself and the TV. I'm not sure there is much science behind it, but you have to make sure to get the sensor bar centered horizontally and at the front of the TV, but it also needs to be perpendicular to the way that you are aiming the controller. If it's a little angled, then things get a little messed up. The other big thing is that if you have other sources of IR than the sensor bar (like the sun, or anything that is going to reflect the IR from the sensor bar) then you need mess with the sensitivity of the wiimote and possibly cover things up (a lot of people on the gamespot forums recommend covering up any theoretical glass coffee tables that are between you and the system).
As for games being easier, yeah- some of the games do seem to START OUT easier, they get harder though (you wouldn't realize that if youre a typical sort of reviewer who only plays the first 30 minutes of a game though). You also have to remember that A: Nintendo is trying to rope in people who might have NEVER played a console game before in their ENTIRE LIFE. You have to make games easier for those people. B: Even hardcore gamers have never used something like the wiimote before, so everyone needs some time to get used to it. Look at how easy the first few levels of Super Mario 64 were- nobody was used to fully 3D analog control then either- but the game ramped up in difficulty toward the end.
I'm no blind nintendo apologist, but the Wii is a really fine system, and it seems like there are a lot of people who are either having legitimate problems with it because it's something new, and need to be set strait, or are just trying to set the console up to look like a failure, since it's doing something new.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Isn't it also true that one can adjust the sensitivity of the controller? I wonder if this will help with the issues mentioned.
I agree completely, although besides user error, the setup of your sensor bar and other objects around your system is a factor too, and takes some trial and error. I moved my sensor bar from below my TV to above my TV and found that I had much more success with it, and aiming it felt more natural too (especially when standing). As for other objects, some fairly innocuous things like bright lights or heat source (candles, laptops, etc) between you and the system can cause problems if you accidentally point in their direction.
slate is owned by microsoft
conflict of interest?
The sensitivity option controls how sensitive the remote is to infrared light, not how sensitive it is to motion. I saw several sources get it wrong pre-release.
Username taken, please choose another one.
While the Wiimote is pretty good, game companies need to understand its limitations - and this includes Nintendo. Wii Sports is a lot of fun, because it uses mostly relativistic movements of the controller. By contrast, Super Monkey Balls includes a lot of games that require precision aiming, like a gun. This does NOT work well. It was frustrating. So it depends what you use it for. It's a great controller, great functionality - but its limits need to be understood. Furthermore, I don't want to put as much energy into my game playing as many of the games such as Wii Sports makes you - usually I want to relax. Wii Sports/etc are GREAT fun, but I don't want those most of the time. So I hope that companies realize that that functionality should be supplemental, in most cases, to the game play, and not the be-all end-all of control.
-Daniel
You're obviously not a parent of a baby who is being breast-fed. trust me there is a learning curve.
Self proclaimed wannabe geek. You know how it is. Most of us who read this stuff probably fit in that category.
The Rayman plunger shooting games are perfectly done. They are more accurate than anything else I have played so far - Red Steel, Call of Duty 3. If you play Rayman and Trauma Center, you won't have any gripes about the accuracy of the controller. Those two games are perfectly fine.
I dont have super monkey balls but I have CoD3 and Rayman Raving Rabids and both feature FPS. So far I have had no trouble shooting or targeting. Honestly I think its easier to play FPS with the Wii controllers. I gave up on the Genre long ago because play on consoles sucked with dual analog. Perhaps Super Monkey Balls just implments thhe hardware badly.
"Don't mess with him, he taunts the happy fun ball."
My friend's suitemate got a Wii the day it was out, and I got to play Red Steel and Zelda. It was flawless. I could easily aim wherever I wanted and actually enjoy playing the game. Of course, I'd do it much faster and more precisely with a mouse, but it would be less fun , that's why they don't have mice on arcade machines. Also, last time I tried playing Halo or any other FPS on a PS2 - I couldn't play, because I just couldn't use the controller. For a first-time user, Wiimote is much easier to learn than dual-stick; it's faster to move around - and has the fun level which dual-stick will never achieve. In my opinion, he must have been clumsy or slightly impaired if he had too much trouble. Or maybe he was so used to dual-stick that he cannot accept anything else.
Ubisoft sucks.
Let's start at the begining. Play a nintendo game. Don't want to pay for it? Play Wii Sports. Wii sports is suprisingly spot on with it's controls (Zelda and excite truck is too). So that means the controller is good and the system is amazingly responsive.
Now let's look at the problem with the controller. Point the controller at the screen, can you hold it there for 3 minutes. I can't either. Know why? Because it's a new system. You're not going to completely master the wii mote in the first minute. It takes a couple hours at least. I'm pretty good with the control now, and I expect to get far better. Try holding up a hand and not moving it for 3 minutes, can't do that either right? Again it takes time and practice with it.
Now let's look at the games being too "Easy"? They might be simple (though Again zelda is far from simple) but they arn't "Easy". And why is that? Because companies didn't know how far they could push the new control scheme. You could program a Xbox 360 game years before it came out, because of a simple fact. It's the same as a Xbox control scheme with minor changes you tweak when you get the final dev kits.
As for unresponsive? Out of 4 games (including wii sports) the only unresponsive game was Red Steel, and that was hardly the only problem with that game. There was numerous problems with ubi's launch titles, either being graphically inept (both racing games). Being minigame, with out a real game (rayman) and being Red steel (with a number of problems). So the system sucks right? Well excitetruck showed that the system is more than a little good with racing games, Monkey ball shows we can have full games with mini games, and Call of duty 3 which looks weaker, is said to have the best controls out of all three systems.
The bottom line is that this is a NEW console, with radically NEW control schemes, just because reviewers have had it a week doesn't mean you'll master it in that time. You should already be better at it, and just like us, developers should be getting better and better at it. Just don't blame Nintendo for Ubi's crappy titles when Nintendo and Activision both prove the Wii is more than capable at holding it's own.
you must not be a redneck hunter then. They all hunt from couches in the back of pickups, dontcha-know.
jason