I got a Wii...and it's...

amazing!

Camped out 10 hours in front of a Walmart today in 30 degree weather. Me and my g/f were about 24 & 25th in line out of a total of 29 spots.

Altogether, due to my normal 3rd shift schedule and camping out all day I've been up something like 30+ hours, a third of which I spent freezing my ass off.

It was worth it.

I've *never* seen my g/f have so much fun playing a game before. She picked up Wii Sports Tennis in a matter of seconds. She beat me in the first game too, something which doesn't ever really happen on normal console games (when I could coerce her into playing, that is).

Everything about the Wii is polished, slick, intuitive. Now, before I pass out of sheer exhaustion I'm going to try a little bit of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Life is good.

You lucky chap!

Sounds like GREAT FUN which is what gaming is all about. Glad you managed to get one, was there enough stock generally across the USA ? The launch here in the UK is in a couple of weeks - It's getting exciting so thanks for sharing your story!

IPete2.

I'd say that the demand in the local area is outstripping the supply. Our line was full about 8 hours before midnight. I don't think that this means that it is in any less demand than the PS3 though. I think a lot of people just thought that there'd be enough that they could walk right in and grab one. I don't know, but I don't think that'll be happening.

The Walmart where I got mine said they *might* get one more shipment in before Christmas. That was kind of shocking to me. I thought they'd be getting new shipments in every 2-3 weeks.

Anyhow, I've only had a chance to play Wii Sports, but as I said - it *is* fun. Basic? Yes (well, the golf is pretty difficult!). Fun? Hell yes.

My stepdad just got on the internet for the first time about a year ago, and has just started to pick up some basic gaming (Online poker and such.) He used to be an avid bowler, and he loves golf. Unfortunately, he can't do much of either do to a work injury that left him with a pin in his wrist. I just *know* he'd love the golf and bowling games (I'll be introducing him at christmas when I see him! :), and I'm not sure but I think he'll be able to enjoy these games once again without hurting his wrist.

I've got to try and stay up another 4-5 hours so I don't totally botch my third shift sleeping pattern. With the aid of Zelda, I don't think that'll be nearly so difficult. :)

wow sounds cool. I'd really like one. If Oz sales rocket then I'll treat myself and the kids.

Sounds Great, I hope the wii does well, and sony gets a boody nose, for the way they are acting!

I probably wont buy one (I love my PC too much), but as long as your enjoying yourself, that's all that matters! :D

Dabz

I know why I preordered my Wii on Nov 05 ^^

Can't wait to get mine ... sadly Europe has to wait until Dec 8 ...

Nothing unusual there then!

Dabz

How is Zelda???

I saw some pics for that Zelda game and the graphics looked close to Oblivion's

have you ever heard the saying good things come to those who wait ;)

Regarding stock...

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/18/live-from-nintendos-wii-launch-in-new-york/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/19/wii-launch-wrap-up/

The launch went well. They managed to pull off an event without any drive-by shootings ;)

It stole my GOTY vote away from Okami.


Was really not expecting the number of people in line for the Wii at my local WalMart....I got there 20min before it opened, and I was handed a ticket stub saying "Wii #24", thank god they didn't give out more stubs then they had systems, as was apparently the case with their PS3s.
(as to which they only had 4 of)


It's ages better looking than Oblivion even with all the eye-candy effects Zelda *doesn't* have in comparison. The art direction is superb, detailed characters, frame-rate never skips a beat, aesthetically pleasing to the eye, etc etc...


Just wish I had the cash for a 2nd Wii game, needed me something with multiplayer (was looking at Rayman), but the fact I couldn't get a second nunchuk (they ran out of them about 5 people before my turn came up -.-, least they had lots of Wiimotes) would kill that fact since it appears to demand the attachment.

I've been playing Zelda for the past three hours, and it's as good or better than Ocarina of Time, and far better looking that that was.

My only complaint is that it feels very much the same as Ocarina of Time. Swinging the controller to swing the sword adds something to the battles, but pointing with the wiimote to aim the slingshot isn't really any easier than it was to use the analog stick in previous versions. Maybe if I had a really large TV it would be easier to aim. I don't mean that it's super hard to aim, but you certainly can't just point and hit your targets.

Mouse control is still more accurate in that sense. :-) I can snap my hand and snipe someone's head with a mouse but I can't do that with the Wiimote. Yet. I'm not sure the cursor is responsive enough to do that actually. The motion of the cursor feels like it has been smoothed out a lot. It may be possible to adjust this, some of the instructions mentioned using the + and - buttons on the controller to adjust sensitivity.

The only Wii sports title I've tried was tennis, and that's pretty fun actually. With zelda you want to sit down to control the game, but with tennis it's better to stand up and swing your arm. I can't say how accurate the game is regarding relating your motion to the tennis racket's, but it feels satisfactory, and after a little practice you get good at keeping the ball in-bounds.

The Wii needs more games like that. I think the problem with Zelda is that a lot of motions in the game like climbing ladders, spurring the horse, and throwing pots don't use controller motions, they are just button presses. Even fishing... To cast the line, you first have to press the Z trigger, and only then can you cast by flipping the controller. But other than that, it doesn't seem like the controller really controls the rod that well after you cast it. Maybe I just don't have the hang of it. I didn't bother reading the manual before I started playing because Zelda games usally explain the controls in great detail as you go along, and they do that here, but they don't really explain it very WELL.

Anyway, I give it a thumbs up. I think people will enjoy the system. As I said, Zelda is a lot of fun... It's just... Zelda. Wii Tennis is a more compelling use of the controller. I'll let you know how the other sports games fare when I get to them. From what I've heard, Wii Bowling is a lot of fun too.

Maybe part of the problem with Zelda is that it is a dual title (Gamecube and Wii). The Wii controller, being so new, will take some time for developers to design for effectively.

[EDIT] - Quake and Quake2 are examples. Quake's mouse control was kind of a pain, by Quake 2 they seemed to have ironed it out quite nicely

I would only be able to do that with the WiiMote if they introduced that zapper shell I've been looking at and use that for pin-pointing where the hell my crosshair will actually land, since the device works in 3d-space, it's not as simple as moving the thing horizontall/vertically as the mouse, as it's impossible to do so with the human hand without adjusting the tilt or the current depth (for lack of better term) to change the overall target....

My main problem with the pointer is knowing exactly where I have to aim it to *see* it on the screen, most of the time playing Zelda I play with the remote on my side, pointing away from the sensor, and whenever I get that slingshot or boomerang out...3 seconds blown trying to get the little cross-hair onscreen.

Well, at least games won't be needing some form of built-in sway for the snipers in FPS since my shaky hand already kills my precision factor a fair bit in the head-shot department.

I found out that in Zelda you can go to the + button screen and set up the pointer in a number of ways. It has you set the size of the sensor bar relative to the screen, and you can set an offset for the pointer to account for the location of the sensor bar so you can hold the controller the way you expect and have the crosshairs in the center of the screen.

The control is a little less touchy now, but it's still not super responsive. What I mean is, if you snap the controller to the side, it takes a moment to go there and then it corrects it's position after it stops for a moment. I suppose this behavior could simply be controlled by the game and the menu system... The config screen after all is within Zelda itself, not the Wii control panel. So I dunno. As I said, the system is fun. And the Wii controller is 1000x better than the crappy Powerglove was, being that it is actually usable. But it's not the amazing controller that knows its exact position and rotation in space instantly as I'd initially hoped it would be and only learned it was not in the past month or two.

Still better than playng the same old crap on the playstation or xbox though.

It was sold out at my local Best Buy, Target, and Circuit City....i didn't get it in time and this was at around 8:30 in the morning ! I shoulda did that wait in line crap.... :(

I'm just waiting for EB Games to finally get some back in stock (I was told within the next couple of days they'll restock their consoles). Probably by then, I'll consider trading in my GameCube and getting in on the next-gen console from them. I already picked up on my games from EB (LoZ: TP, Red Steel, and Tony Hawk Downhill Jam). Now, all I need is for the console to come back in stock, so I can trade up, hoping that EB will confirm an upgrade trade special when I do bring in my GameCube to trade up.

I'm so bummed! I got to Wal-Mart and there was a list to sign into. There was 14 of 22 spots filled up. I decided not to wait at that moment because I had pre-existing dinner plans. When I came back there were still 2 spots left so I signed in at number 21 and began camping out with my GF. I pulled out the laptops and had people playing Aerial Antics with 360 controllers which was cool ... what wasn't cool was a few hours into it the store manager came in and said someone screwed up and that there weren't 22 ... but only 20 putting me just one shy of getting one :( Still dinner was great and I wouldn't trade those 2 hours for 2 more hours and hanging around in Wal-Mart with my GF ... but man it wouldn't been nice if they had the 22 they said they had on the list!!!

I still haven't really gotten a chance to play Zelda. I didn't get to play much today but the time I did spend playing I was playing Wii sports w/ my g/f some more.

I've got to say, there really is a lot of sensitivity in the controls. At first tennis seems as easy as swing to hit. But your timing plays a huge role where the ball will go. Also, you can even control the spin of the ball by tilting your remote forward or backwards a bit (with the remote positioned perpendicular to your body - at your side - that is.) Lastly, it definitely takes into account the horizontal motion of the wiimote when you swing. If you swing completely level, you'll get a standard shot. Any degree of an upward motion will cause a lob (and it's not just a pre-coded gesture response as far as I can tell. The amount of upward motion is directly reflected , a little upward motion and you get a low flying lob, a lot of upward motion = high lob...and there are tons of level of inbetween shots). Swinging downward increases the velocity of the ball, but swinging to low will usually result in your ball clipping the net or worse, hitting somewhere like mid net.

For those who've got a Wii already, you should check out the boxing training modes. The last mode, where you try to hit the trainers pads, really shows off how much difference a small adjustment in your motions can make. At first it was frustrating until I realized that tilting the wiimote and nunchuk forward and backwards made subtle to drastic differences in the height of the punches thrown.

Hopefully I'll get to check out Zelda soon. On the other hand, I can't stop coding entirely. I was just getting on a roll w/ my project and really don't want to kill my forward momentum.

Actually, for those who only have Wii Sports & Zelda, I'd recommend putting a good hour or two into Wii Sports to get a better impression of how responsive the remote can actually be.

Some of the training modes especially demand some pretty precise actions on your part. At least w/ Wii Sports (tennis and boxing especially) I can't really imagine any other control scheme offering the level of versatility that is offered w/ the Wii. And even if such level of versatility and responsiveness were offered, it would require much more difficult input with any kind of standard control. I mean, how do you generate an mild upward back-handed lob with a counter-clockwise spin timed to go to the opposite side of the court w/ a regular controller? While I guess it could be done, I'm pretty sure my mom would never be able to pull it off. With the Wii though - no problem.

It says something about the quality of Wii sports if people are leaving Zelda to one side. I suspect these games will be looked back on as the strongest launch titles ever.

I'm hoping to recieve my Wii by the end of the week. Cannot wait.

As long as you've got someone to play it with, Wii sports is a blast.

I'm not trying to paint the impression that it's better than Zelda (I doubt it, but can't honestly say.) It was a masterful move by Nintendo to include it, imo, given their target audience.

So does the remote read movements and execute a pre-recorded animation, or does it move objects inside the game precisely.

Do the remotes really work or are they gimmicky? How well to they read 3d motion?

Read the above post by Scupture.

>So does the remote read movements and execute a pre-recorded animation, or does it move objects inside the game precisely.

It depends on the game. The wiimote has two functions, pointer (like a laser pointer) which can be used for mouse like stuff and very accurate tilt (and accelleration)sensors. Stuff like tennis and bowling just use the tilt sensors. Zelda's aiming will use the pointer.

Some games will recognise gestures others will use a more direct mapping of movement.

I'm a little sceptical of the controller.

I mean, isn't the success of consoles down to the fact you can slump on your couch, where your TV is at eye level? After a hard day at work, the last thing I want to be doing is jumping about waving a white stick around my living room.

Just my opinion of course. I am all for new controller devices.

> I mean, isn't the success of consoles down to the fact you can slump on your couch, where your TV is at eye level?

There will be a lot of titles where you can do just that, Excite Truck certainly fills the bill. The genious of the controller is that it allows different types of gameplay all in one unit. (rather then needing joysticks for Flight Sims, Mouse and Keyboard for FPS games, Gamepads for 3rd person style games, etc...)

*all of this based on the assumption that the controller works, with the little time I've had on the Wii it does appear to work*

How the Wii remote speaker? One reviewer said it sounded fine whilst another said it constantly cuts sounds short and sounds like a musical Christmas card.

Jason.

I heard it at a game store It sounded fine Some guy was playing Super Monkey Ball (he was playing a shoot the asteroids game most of the sounds that came from the controller were collisions and they sounded fine)

"So does the remote read movements and execute a pre-recorded animation, or does it move objects inside the game precisely."


The remote has rotation sensors, acceleration senors, and an infrared sensor.

The rotation sensors sense the controller's rotation in realtime.

The acceleration sensors sense what direction you're moving the controller in.

And the infrared sensor, going by the configuration screen I found last night, appears to be like a like a little camera. It takes video of the infrared led's on the sensor bar, two of which are lit up at once, and using the position those two points of light appear in the infrared camera's view, it can calculate where you are aiming on the screen, and the roll of the controller relative to the screen. Ie, the average of the two points is the position you're aiming at, and the angle of the line between them tells you the roll angle. (I still have not figured out why photos taken of the sensor bar appear to show far more than two LED's though.)

So the controller has two elements to it. A rotation/acceleration sensing element, and a light-gun style element. These are what the controller can sense in realtime. It cannot tell what position it is at in space, but it can tell where you are aiming it on the screen, what rotation it is at, and in what directions you are jerking it about.

Now some things you do in some games read movements then execute a prerecorded action. Some things move in realtime.

For example, when swinging a sword in zelda, you shake the nunchuck side to side to execute a spin attack. Or you push the A button and swing the controller down to do a jumping slash.

However, you can also run about while slashing your sword side to side to cut grass and slash enemies that pop up in front of you suddenly, and this feels more like you're controlling the sword because it's closer to realtime. But it's still prerecorded motions. The same goes for Wii Tennis. Feels almost like you're really doing the motion, but you're not.

Other games though, like excite truck have you say, steer by tilting the remote. You can consider this to be realtime control. I don't know yet if there is a delay in it reponding to these inputs but the game seemed to work well enough.

Sonic:
You can sit down to play Excite Truck, or Zelda. You can probably sit down to play tennis too. It's just more fun to play tennis standing up. Also there will be plenty of games on the Wii which use the classic controller which is like a gamecube controller. Metal Slug for example.

You don't have to play it that way. It's just more fun.

Is online multiplayer free?

Can people from all over the world play against each other?

There is no online multiplayer yet - but yes it will be free and worldwide. Same as DS except you only have one friend code not a different one for each game.

In games that support multiplayer: yes
Unless the game wants a fee. But Nintendo is not going to force you to buy something, just to play general online modes as MS does.

Does anyone know if the ability for two local machines to play the same game with only one disc made it into the finished product.

Rephrase...

Can two Wii units share a single copy of a game? At least locally? It was one of the cool features I saw listed a few months back.

I've never seen that feature listed anywhere. Massively unlikely unless the game only loads once (Animal Crossing GC did this).

Think the Wii itself would know though via coding? Or by space do you mean as is, the remote can't tell if it's on its side, front, etc, from startup?
(unless the accelerometer gets affected by gravity.....)


Anyways, getting much better with aiming now, seems there was just a learning curve as to where you're general aiming space is, which I assume will be different depending on your TV screen/type size, and it appears it was more accurate then I thought, as the crosshair lined up nicely when I looked down the remote while aiming it as if I were using the sight on a gun.

Only thing that bugged me was that the system froze on me once while I was playing Zelda, hope that was just an error on the game, and not the system itself...



Aside from all that, I'm curious as to when we're getting some online-based goodies, as it is, all we got is the News/Weather channels on the works (a good month away), a small selection of Virtual Console games, and a web browser coming out "sometime".....

I recalled hearing stuff that the Wii will eventually have connectivity with the DS, do things like download demos, trailers, stuff of interest, etc......would like to hear more about that from Nintendo soon.

Of course it's affected by gravity. The controller knows it's orientation and how fast it is moving and in which direction. What it doesn't necessarily know is where it is. Games using the pointer function look at the sensor bar to work out where the control is relatively - but this only works if the controller can see the sensor bar (no use for stuff like Tennis & Bowling).

Haha, my friend already has his opened: http://www.wareu.org/

Genexi:
Well, in theory, if the accelerometers and rotation sensors were really really accurate, then yes, through code, using the rotation of the controller as well as the acceleration, you could calculate the location and orientation of it in space.

But I doubt very much that the accelerometers are that accurate, or that the rotoation sensors have no lag time.

So any attempt to calculate the position in that way would probably be subject to a whole lot of drift and accuracy of no better than a foot, making it worthless information.

Of course I'm making some wild guesses here, but from playing with the controller, and looking at how the crosshair moves and how fast the infrared camera on it seems to update, I feel pretty safe making these statements.

I _am_ dissapointed that it's not the amazing little device I thought it would be that knew its exact position in space, but there's still tons of new and innovative stuff you can do with it. It's not useless like the Power Glove.

Oh and while I'm at it I would like to make a prediction.

The Wii has two USB ports on the back. I strongly suspect that you will be able to plug in a USB keyboard and mouse. Not only because the ports are there are all, but because otherwise it would be a real pain even with the pointer to browse the web, or chat with people.

And if they're going to expect a lot of people to add keyboards and mice to it, it is not a long stretch to think that they might also allow one to program it. Also, because it is connected to the net, it is concievable that one could upload information onto it from one's PC.

Just whack a gyro into those controllers and your away.

Regardless though, I gotta say I love having the nunchuk & remote as seperate devices, no having to keep my hands cramped into a claw-like position like the DualShock-style controllers no more.

504 skill in Wii tennis.

Damn, the opponents are getting *tough*

Yes!!! I managed to snag one a K-Mart in a not so great area of town ;) Seems like they didn't get their systems until today possibly! I wasn't even going to ask the guy at the counter because after searching all day yesterday after getting shafted in the line I waited in I was tired of people looking at me like I was an idiot. Then suddently a kid and his mom are at the counter and the guy pulls out a Wii ... I just about wet myself. I asked if they had any more and he tells me they have one left! The rest is history ... I am now signing into the online service!!!

:(

There is "The Source" (now pretty much the same as Circuit City except that the people who deal with stocking video games are complete morons) that nobody goes to right near my house, but it happens to be just about the worst one out of an already poorly done (see brackets) store.
They miraculously stock Wiis and have a solid game selection (their DS selection has actually not changed whatsoever since launch and I have a strong suspicion they don't even order new copies of anything), except for the single location near me.

BLAST!

Oh well, I'll keep an eye on those shipments. Everyone knows when the first shipment is available, but from that point forth it is a battle of wits.


Happier thoughts:

It's interesting that people are liking that scheme now. Earlier, there was a lot of uncertainty about the 1-handed controller thing.

Do any of you know what they've done about DS->Wii connectivity?
I would have liked to see the DS acting as a controller for consoles like Genesis (possible via a download play thing and Wifi), but there has been nothing mentioned about such possibility (or any Wii->DS stuff) in ages!
I'm hoping they add it with a software update, because it would be a big shame if it didn't happen.
There is a lot of potential here for such a thing, so they'd better not waste it like they did with the GC and GBA. (Where the GBA occasionally did pointless little things in particular games, in such a pitifully useless way that nobody seemed to care enough to spend $25 on another link cable).

What with all the fuss about Zelda, I'm not hearing much about Wii-specific titles (developed from start to finish for the Wii, graphics, gameplay and all!) aside from Wii Sports.
Has anyone tried Rayman Raving Rabbids? It looks pretty nice, it has good reviews, and it appears to be pretty fun. The IGN people say it's hilarious, in fact.

Anyone know how long it usually takes for rental stores to start stocking games for a new console? I've never really partaken in a launch before.

Not until the console has a larger userbase so not for the next few weeks for quite sure.

I just pre-ordered mine on amazon. Now I need to look into working out how to connect it to my monitor, I'm thinking about maybe doing it through a TV card, anyone got any experience with this?