Hands-on with the Wii

Today I was lucky enough to have the chance to enjoy a hands-on session with the Nintendo Wii as part of its UK ‘Wii Experience Tour’. Nintendo is clearly going all-out on the marketing front for its newest home console (recent $200 million ad and marketing campaign not withstanding), and is travelling all over the UK with a full working ‘Wii booth’ in order to give eager and impatient gamers—just like me—the chance to have a taste of the action before the Wii’s official UK release on 08 December.

The Wii Experience in Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries wasn’t especially difficult to locate, and long before noticing the large white Wii booth, the most visible sign that the Wii was around could be attributed to the lengthy line of complete geeks loitering with intent amongst a large audience—all of which were standing and staring at the Wii with drooping jaw lines. If there was ever any doubt that gaming is still truly stuck in the realm of the geek, then one look at this collection of greasy spot-addled males soon put an end to that. Of course, this comes from someone who’s also a self-confessed geek, and I speak as one of those who were struck with giddy excitement at the mere thought of a hands-on play test with a Nunchuk controller.

As one of only three females in the queue (myself and Angela along with a geek’s girlfriend), I felt it was my duty for the sake of all female gamers to test the Wii to its full capacity—especially since I’d waited well over an hour for a shot at the damn thing. So up I went, in front of around 50 people of varying ages, all staring intently at what I was doing. The most amusing aspect of waiting in the queue was to watch the older generation simply passing by, openly confused as to why and how the person playing was controlling the on-screen action just by flailing their arms about like a loon. In fact, one old dear even leaned right over the barrier to get a closer look at where the trailing wires were—bless the uninformed.

Anyway, back to the action, and the important aspects of the Nintendo Wii. Firstly, it doesn’t matter whether you already know that the Wii is around the size of thee DVD cases or not, its actual physical size will still shock you. It’s small, and it’s perfectly formed, but what’s truly weird about the hardware set-up is that the sensor bar is absolutely tiny! It’s far smaller than you’ll have imagined, coming in at around 20cm or so in length. The Wiimote controllers are also small and extremely lightweight, so they’re certainly easy to move and manipulate. Perhaps the most common question surrounding the Wii tends to focus on whether the controllers truly are as responsive as Nintendo claims and as the current wave of advertising would have us all believe. I can verify, here and now, that the Wii controllers are VERY responsive, and there was no noticeable lag at all in the on-screen response times. In fact, the sensor bar is so impressive that it didn’t need to be calibrated constantly for each individual who was trying out the console. It easily picked up all movements of everyone who ventured up to play.

The Wii game titles on show were changed on an hourly basis, but I was lucky enough to check out Wii Sports and also The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess during my stint in the booth. To put it quite simply, Wii Sports is absolutely brilliant fun. The tennis game alone is highly addictive and really does seem to work in-game in direct relation to the way you swing and hit the ball. The same can also be said for the bowling game and Nintendo has definitely gone down the right route by including Wii Sports in the overall Wii hardware package at release.

The Wii Play was also on show, and that included extra games such as ping-pong, air hockey, billiards, and others. Again, they seemed like a lot of fun and certainly made their mark in suggesting there’s a lot of party game fun to be had with these kind of titles. The menu screen—where you can create your own Mii (on-screen character) in the image of yourself—is yet another nice addition and seeing your avatar self run around on screen also adds to the sheer joy of playing the games.

The most graphically impressive game on show was, of course, Twilight Princess, and it looked truly interactive with much Nunchuk ‘swooshing’ on offer to represent Link’s sword movements during battles. Players can also aim Link’s bow by using the controller and, although it takes a little more practice when using a remote in each hand, it certainly appears that control movement will soon become second nature and not overly frustrating.

Overall, the Nintendo Wii looks to be everything that has been promised. The console is aesthetically spot-on, the controllers are responsive and well designed, and the games look set to deliver extreme helpings of interactive fun. The Wii is clearly going to exist as a very addictive home console—from a personal standpoint, my time with it simply wasn’t long enough—and it was in no way surprising to see people rejoining the back of the queue to have another go.

Should you get the opportunity to sample the delights of the Nintendo Wii before its official UK release on 08 December, then do so, as it will make the time until release all the more exciting. The Wii is simply brilliant.

Article by Gadget Girl for Thumb Bandits