wii=weird...

Ok, got a wii yesterday, and I can't say I'm impressed.

After setup, first impressions were mixed - the sports games were kind of fun, but looked pretty rough. In particular, baseball looked 'bugged' - some characters had no legs, which may have supposed to looked cute but was just ugly.

Then it was into Zelda, and I was initally quite surprised by just how bad it looks - indeed, kind of 'pre gamecube' in some ways. Muddy colors, low res textures etc.

But of course, the game rocked so all was pretty quickly forgiven.

Eventually reluctantly put the game down and went into work for another enjoyable day wrestling with the awesome power of DX. Come home to find the wiimote doing very strange things.

The cursor moves, but anything requiring motion does nothing - the sports games, fishing in zelda, all broken. In addition, the -,+ and home buttons in Zelda no longer work, so you can't save anyway.

Quick internet search reveals I'm not alone, and the cure is to leave it alone for a few hours. Decide overnight should be good enough.

Oddly, I am awakened at 4am by the TV - it appears to have turned itself on. It's never done that before. Very strange. Turn it off, back to bed, same thing at 7am. Check for little green men under couch, no joy.

Up at 8am, have some stuff do this morning so decide to de-battery-ize the wiimote, come home a few hours later and the tv's on again!

A quick internet search doesn't help this time, although I do find out the wii 'sensor bar' is really just a couple of infrared LEDs so the only theory I can come up with is that it's transmitting a 'tv power' pulse at regular intervals which are occasionally getting bounced back to the TV.

Anyway, the wii's going back to the shop now, so if there are no more random tv turning ons, I'll consider that theory validated.

But all-in-all, the wii experience has been pretty disappointing.

The hardware seems flaky, the graphics grunt seems sub-gamecube, and the package is more expensive than I was expecting - 600NZD for a wii+game.

This is opposed to 800NZD for an X-Box360+game. I was kind of expecting something about half the price, not 3/4.

I guess given the wii's lack of graphics power, a lot is riding on the success of the wiimote. Is it really that great? Given I didn't have long with it, it's hard to say. It certainly never felt necessary for playing zelda, which is the main reason I got a wii anyway!

I guess it really depends on what you're looking for in a next generation system. To me, games such as Wii Sports and Zelda are not dependant on graphics. Wii Sports could have realistic models for characters, but then that would defeat the whole Mii concept of having your created characters in the game. Zelda on the other hand, was originally written for the GCN, so you can't fault it for its looks, it's not using the full potential of the Wii hardware which is at least two to three times that of a Gamecube.

After playing through 10 hours of Zelda, I can't say that I'm disappointed with the graphics, the improvement from cel-shaded to the new realistic and mature style is enough to suit me. Some of the cut scenes and open expanses are really beautiful, I don't see how more shaders, bump mapping, or whatever could add to what is at the core of Zelda's charm, its puzzle/dungeon exploring gameplay.

Enough rambling... but anyway, if you had those kind of technical problems I don't blame you for returning the system.

I went into town along with one of my co-workers a few hours ago to see if I could pick one up during midnight opening.

When we got there a small crowd of people had gathered, so we checked with the guys in charge if there were still some left. My friend got ticket number 100 out of 100, I didn't get one. But what the heck

So we waited around to see how fast they would let people in. It was really slow, so we decided to go out and grab a beer, and returning one hour later they had reached number 50. Then we hung around a bit more in the cold rain, but after a few minutes of waiting we figured bugger to that. It would still take at least an hour to reach number 100, the clock was closing in on 1:30, and we have to get up tomorrow and finish some work.

Still it was a good beer though :) And we can always pick one up when holiday kicks in in a weeks time.

(And I still haven't finished Majora's Mask which I wanted to do before getting a Wii)

I never buy the first release of anything. This experience is why they call it bleeding edge.

I'll bet the muddy colors, low res textures come from connecting to the TV's composite video, so you could probably fix that.
But the gremlins turning on the TV are a deal breaker, too annoying to be worth the trouble.

You got to try Zelda. If you can return the Wii for a full refund then it's not such a bad deal. Count your blessings and move on.

My favourite is the duck / balloon shooting game. The pointer was working flawlessly, onscreen keyboard entry was suprisingly fast, TV control of the future stuff, just needs a pistol grip.

But no, most fun was plugging in mario smash football and some gamecube controllers the next day, oddly the colors are extremely dark also (on gc emulation compared to gc) so I think the composite output in general is borked, probably part of their power saving plan.

Also felt completely ripped off as the Warehouse had 360's for NZ$469!!! Oh that's right, I went halves, not so bad.

The sensor bar trouble sounds pretty funny :b
(Although I'm sure scary and annoying!)

I guess they could fix it with a firmware update. Assuming the Wii can control via software whether the sensor bar gets power, it should be turning the thing off when it's not in use anyway, right?


There are definietly a lot of kinks that need to be worked out. For example, the WiiConnect24 thing seems to not really be very connected at all. There are way too many "Connecting" screens in that interface, especially considering that the system is always connected!

For example, it looks like it takes about 20 seconds to connect to the Shop channel. Since that the thing is on 24/7, one would expect it to maybe download that kind of information when the system clearly has nothing better to do.
Same with updates, sort of. Why does the user need to be there to install an update? Why not just do it automatically when in sleep mode?


Note: The above is speculation based on what I have seen, not what I have done. Feel free to prove me wrong, and please do not believe me.

Heh, you should of gotten a GBA (if you can afford one...)

Good thing I cancelled my order then :)

Just a little curiosity regarding the sensor bar Mark, you don't by anychance had any mirrors in the room that may have managed to reflect the iR back against the TV by anychance would you?
(that's assuming the sensor bar does have the capability to actually manage to turn the TV on with its setup)

No idea what's with your Zelda issue, it looks perfectly like a 3rd-generation Cube (read: Gorgeous considering the target system) title to me, and not muddy at all, but then again I'm using composite cables on an older TV, so it may look so on a newer setup that's properly calibrated?

"Then it was into Zelda, and I was initally quite surprised by just how bad it looks - indeed, kind of 'pre gamecube' in some ways. Muddy colors, low res textures etc."


Yes! I can see how you might think this:








Resembles this!







Also consider that the game was originally made for the Gamecube, (and will be released for it), so of course it's not going to be pushing the Wii to its limits.

As for the sensor bar issues, the sensor bar does have infrared led's. If it is turning your TV on and off, then all you need do is unplug the bar from the back of the TV when you're not using the system. You can also try moving it to the top of the TV if you have it at the bottom, or vice versa.

As for the Wiimote issues, you could have tried just getting another Wiimote. That the motion sensing stopped working is odd.

Did you update the Wii when you got it? The Wii has wireless net access, and when you connect it to the net the first time it automatically updates the software. I did this when I first got it, so I cannot say whether these issues would have cropped up if I did not. But I have not had any of these issues you speak of.


"It certainly never felt necessary for playing zelda, which is the main reason I got a wii anyway!"

Zelda was made for the Gamecube originally. So the gameplay was designed around that. I'm sure there will be more games that don't utilize the controller in the best of ways, but there should be plenty which do use it in creative ways that work well.

What's sad is that the console makers are giving up one of the big advantages of console gaming: That it's just running and you don't have to install patches or pray that will work correctly.

Things are getting more and more complex but as a consumer i don't care. I just want it to work. It doesn't seem like a single console from this generation is able to succeed in this field and i have the impression that they act under pressure and rush out the stuff more and more.

I think that's why i will wait for a rev2 of the ps3 if there won't come up any must-have game in between.

Leaving your TV on standby for any length of time is a bad idea, anyway - just turn it off properly. ;)

The power of the Wii is supposed to be x2 the GameCube, which is a little disappointing considering the GC was released 5 years ago.

I'm still undecided about how well the Wiimote works. It's a lot more comfortable to hold and use than I expected, but Wii Sport's translations of your hand motions seems a little iffy to me.

Zelda rocks though. And it is kind of cool to be able to have your arms relaxed at the side of your body to control a game, rather than hunched in front of you.

Well, seeing as I don't have a wireless router I've not been able to update my Wii yet. I definitely haven't had any problems like Mark was having, although occasionally the Wii freaks out and an error screen stating "The system files are corrupted" will pop up. This only happens in the Wii menu though, and a simple power off/on fixes things.

Reminds me of an odd experience I once had, about 18 months ago.

I was awoken by the burglar alarm going off at 3:30am. I ran downstairs, half asleep, bare-arsed and unarmed, not even stopping to consider the possibility of an actual intruder! Reset the alarm, back to bed.

I was just beginning to doze off some ten minutes later when I was suddenly aware of the room becoming very bright. I was... shall we say, more than slightly startled when I opened my eyes, to see that the TV in the corner of the room had switched itself on! As the screen became brighter and a picture started to appear, it suddenly went off again! o.O

Anyhow, only a few minutes later from beneath the safety of the duvet, the burglar alarm went off again. After much cursing I plodded downstairs again and reset the timer - noting that it was again motion sensor #3 in the hall at the bottom of the stairs that had triggered the alarm.

Alarm people came a couple of days later, could find no fault with the alarm or the motion sensor.

I wish I could blame Nintendo for this. Unfortunately I can't. To this day I don't know what to blame. It was a very strange night.

Anyhoo, glad you've decided to return it. The people in the Wii ads on TV look like right prats waving their arms about in front of the TV.

[edit] oh, one more thing; I had to disable the i/r port on my laptop. The TV went bananas every time the laptop was on - all of a sudden it would just change channels by itself, or turn the volume right up to the top. :/

I haven't bought a wii yet.

Maybe I should get a geforce 8 instead. This should be more fun.

Anyone using the wii on a 42" plasma TV?

Could someone who lives in NZ please stop by Mark's house, take that Wii away from him, tighten the ankle shackles and push him back up to his Mac. Zelda is cutting into our Max3D development schedule! :)

Seriosly, I am going to get a Wii when one comes available here (sold out just about everywhere in the USA right now). I agree that it seems a bit overpriced for what is essentially a GameCube 1.5 with a fancy controller.

I played Gears of War for awhile and liked it. Played Zelda for awhile and was absolutely hooked (after the initial "UGGH! the graphics suck"). I am not planning on getting a 360. Chalk one up for Gameplay and design!

Apparently, Nintendo was pushed by retailers to up the price a bit, I wish they would have put more stuff in the box though (like an extra WiiMote+Nunchuk) to warrant the $250 USD pricetag.

anyway, they ARE sold out here so they seem to be doing something right.

I buy games, not systems. The Wii is doing alot of stuff right in this department. Developers don't have to spend as much money or time to get a Wii game on the shelves.
Keeping up with the "HD" Joneses is extremely difficult. Wii sidestepped that battle altogether.

I hope there is a wee-bit more horsepower in there to play with.

UK ears only:

Heh, I see Steve Wright is still stuck in the 80's - he's just referred to the Wii as "Nintendo's W2 console". XD

Maybe mark got a dud one, a whole bunch of Wii were not working after updating the software and Nintendo are replacing those for free. At least here in the US they are anyway.

I thought Zelda looks good. Some textures are pretty low resolution.

Strange. I take one look at those screenshots SSwift posted and the first thing that jumps out is muddy colors and low res textures. Yes, it was designed for GC and then bumped to Wii because they desperately needed something to sell the console, but it is what it is, regardless of why it is what it is. Zelda is one of the only games that could have interested me in a Wii and from the videos I've seen it's Ocarina of Time / Majora's Mask Zelda - the Zelda I loathed - and not the Zelda I thoroughly enjoyed on the SNES.

Very strange! My experience has been great so far! The graphics are Gamecube level but for me the virtual console and party/social game mentality more than makes up for it. Of course if you're planning on playing alone then I'd recommend something else. Zelda is great but I've actually taken to Red Steel more for some reason ... it seems like a guilty pleasure considering how bad the reviews for that title were. I get a kick out of it though. Zelda is really just a cube port and playing with the Wiimote is barely distiguishable from playing with a controller ... also the sound effects coming from the Wiimote in Zelda are too loud and come off distorted whereas other games don't exhibit that trait. Overall Red Steel is a better use of the Wiimote and feels a bit like playing an Arcade game or something where you've got bigger interactive bits rather than just a gamepad.

I am having a blast on the Wii so far. I will however most likely purchase a Xbox360 next year, as there are some awesome games, and incoming games I just dont think I can miss.

Yes just what I wanted, the 360 to take over! Anyways, I get a similar kind of thing with the XBOX 360 Media Center Remote. I have a SUB / Surround System for 5.1 DVD watching. The 360 remote forward button turns the sound unit on and off. Each time it turns on it makes it slightly louder. Its a pain in the ass though.

I played on one today and I thought it was great fun. Someone set it up in the rec-room at work, and we all had a great laugh. Wii Sports Tennis and Golf played particularly well. I was surpised at how well the whole thing worked.

I sold my pre-ordered Wii on ebay yesterday (I know, I know). I genuinely intended to keep it for myself and my family but, when I saw them reaching £400 (on average), I decided I'd be foolish not to sell up. When the panic has died down, I'll just buy another one that will effectively be FREE.

You, my friend are in the minority. I myself have some great
Snes Zelda memories, but the N64 Zelda sure doesn't deserve to
be loathed!

Ocarina of Time was one of the highest rated games of all time
for good reason. It was really that good.

My preferred place to be. If I find myself in the majority, I invariably start second-guessing myself because I'm probably wrong.

I kind of liked the look of octarina of time, but always wanted the graphics to look more like this new version. Unfortunately I prefered how the game looked than how it played.

boxing is just fun, im gonna upload a clip to youtube of our gf's going mad for bout 6mins on it trying to knock 10 bells of crap outta each other, you can't get that fun on any other console.

A clip of their TV action of a clip of them half naked swinging wiimotes around the room?

Muddy textures? You want muddy textures, look at a Quake game, or Gears of War. This is just a LOOK. They chose to use muted colors to convey a feeling. The world has been taken over by darkness. I think it looks perfectly fine. You should see the shots from 2004 and 2005 before they brightened things up a bit! Everything back then was much more greyish. For example, there was no blue fountian in the city center, just gray stone, and the fog in the city was grey instead of a tan color.

As for Ocarina of Time, you can't compare Ocarina of Time to Majora's Mask so if you're saying this game is like both of those you're wrong right there. Ocarina of Time was much cleaner graphically and felt much more open. And Twilight Princess takes that openness and opens it up more with multiple large fields/deserts and combat on horseback. Name one other game where (Sorta SPOILER! LOOK AWAY NOW!) you have to follow a flaming wagon on horseback while shooting enemies with exploding arrows and putting the flames out with your wind boomerang!

I think he's being thrown off by the quality of the screenshots.

IGN's screenshots have been compressed horribly lately, and now they make anything look bad! It's very misleading.
Considering their recent review of Flight Simulator X ("err... it hardly runs on our hardware and it's actually built for DirectX 10, not 9 which we're running -- but I'll give it a final judgement anyway. So what if the people 5 years from now look back at this review and call me an idiot! What, hardware actually is meant to improve or something???".), I really do wonder what has gotten into them.

I saw some video of the PS3 games that were released on launch and the robot game looked even worse than a PS2 game.

So maybe the graphics will get better later.

The microchips that sense movement in the WII controller are extremely small and have tiny moving parts - maybe they are fragile?

I guess I'm just not a graphics whore, I could never imagine calling Zelda:TP's graphics *bad*. The art direction is amazing. Sure, it's not as crisp and clear as some 360 or PS3 games - but I just can't imagine anyone thinking that the game is ugly.

Of course, most of my favorite games are 2D and/or 5 or more years old. Except Shadow of the Colossus - that might still be the best looking game I've ever played (perhaps not technically with the graphics, but the combination of graphics, art direction, atmosphere, environment design,etc).

"I think he's being thrown off by the quality of the screenshots."

I think he's being thrown off by the fact that colors and brightness are way different on an HDTV than a PC so of course the shots will look dim and a bit dull on the PC. :-)

Maybe the duller colors actually improve performance. A lower pallete uses less video memory right?

If Gears of War had bright dazzling colors, it wouldnt feel right. I was impressed by the usage of HDR. How it made the Immulsion have that cool glow.

> I saw some video of the PS3 games that were released
> on launch and the robot game looked even worse than
> a PS2 game.

I had a play yesterday with a PS3 in a shop and I thought the gfx were incredible. That robot game, is that the one with Mechs in it? I thought that was good too.

I still think the wii will go the way of the gamecube after about a year. Yes I too think wii=weird, it's all yellow and runny, it's a wonder why it is like that.

My brother got the Wii yesterday, and we've had great fun with it. The Tennis game rules, and Golf and Bowling are pretty good too. We haven't really had any problems with it, though we found the Boxing game is pretty flaky in terms of response to players' moves.

I'll be getting one at some point, probably sooner than I intended to before playing it.

At least now with the funky controller we have the technology to have home conversions of old arcade classics such as this game:-

http://www.syberpunk.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?page=boonga

In other news, NTDOY is up over $30 and I've made $600!

SELL! SELL! SELL!

Okay...i just came back from a shop where i was able to play an hour with the Wii.

My impressions are:

The graphics are really well hmm okay they are working. For cute/comic stuff this works out although i think that the look they have choosen doesn't really look cute or comic like. It looked a bit unmotivated to me. I would have choosen a slightly different art direction. It's not bad but it's also just not good.

I've played through the Wii sports titles and it was fun to play - some more some less - and without a doubt it seemed to attract people who didn't look like they would have something in common with video games a lot. So a big plus for nintendo on this side.

I found the quality of the Wii and the controllers very good designed and manufatured. At least in the sport games i found the loudspeaker and the rumble pretty useless.

What i disliked was the games difficulty. Everything was way too easy. It felt like some party games were half drunken people want to have some fun and i missed a little bit an higher accuracy making it's way into the gamedesign. I hope that the controller is able to support this. This would be important if you want to play games on a longer run with the Wii. You know, games where you feel more in charge.

Anyway a fun experience with a nice crowd of people and a boy next to me screaming "this is unfair" all the time i beat him in tennis (by the way the zooming textures in the background looked horrible). But it's not a must have in my opinion at the moment.

Well I origianlly planned to sell around $30, but I'm gonna hang onto it a while longer. Least until Christmas. Nintendo may yet win this war, and that can't be bad for their stock.



See how the curve is steepest there at the end, and how that's over a fairly long period of time? That says to me that the stock is going to either continue to rise sharply for a while longer, or slowly level out, stay level for a while, and rise again a bit each time Nintendo releases a big game franchise like Mario Galaxy or Metroid. Those low points in previous years were due to the failure of the N64. They'd probably be much lower in those periods if they hadn't had the DS to buoy them. It would be interesting to mark out on the graph where certain events occurred and see how those affected the stock. I might do that sometime. I'd like to see how the stock rose or fell upon release of the N64, the Gamecube, the DS, and some of their games like Ocarina of Time. Would help me predict how it will react to other events of that nature.

Yeah, I was joking. I'd keep hold of them until the Wii has been out for a bit longer, at least. :)

I can't possibly be wrong to say that these games are like each other. They have one huge thing in common. I hated both of them, and for the same reasons. They just don't have anything of what I loved about Zelda on the SNES. Since I can't really put my finger on what it was I loved about Zelda on the SNES, I can't very well tell you what's missing in the other two, but they don't have it. I suspect Windwaker and this new one would leave me equally cold.

I do tire of explaining that opinions can't be wrong though ;)

Hmmm... I loved all the Zelda games. I don't know what could be missing from Ocarina for you. At the time ('98 for me) it was amazing! Wind Waker took it to another level as far as combat is concerned and the newest version ... well I haven't played it enough to say but so far it's pretty good.

i love my Nintendo Wii, it is perfect.

also remember zelda was original supposed to be a gamecube game and not a wii game. red steel takes pretty good advantage of the wii's graphical power.

i have never gotten any sensor bar issues or anything. totaly worth the money

Yeah Red Steel has a few shaders and what not it looks like. The biggest issue with Red Steel is the low resolution of the textures and of the screen. However, it doesn't look too much worse than something like Perfect Dark Zero in 480i. I wish Nintendo had gone the extra mile with the graphics though. It looks like they added some shaders but kept the texture memory low to reduce cost. The graphics even in Red Steel don't look too far beyond Gamecube level.

Neither one of my TV's will turn off completely unless you physically unplug it from the wall. I mean, it *looks* like it's off, but I can still turn 'em on using the remote.

so you can turn it off at the wall.... or is the wall really far away ? <grin>

You mean it has no physical on/off power button?! Wow, not seen a TV like that before.

> You mean it has no physical on/off power button?! Wow, not seen a TV like that before.

Most TV sets these days do not shut off completely when the power button is pressed, any with a remote control have to leave something on in order to sense the remote control being pressed.

So, the button basically just works in the same way as the 'standby' button on the remote, then... Hmm, that's a bit rubbish, IMO. I wouldn't want a TV like that - when I hit the power button, I want it to turn off completely, and not be using and power whatsoever.

TV standby buttons will be outlawed
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19509-2266159,00.html

That's rubbish. Surely they realise that people will just keep their appliances turn on all the time, resulting in MORE wastage. This has to be one of those sarcastic articles that just sounds real because politicians are just that stupid. Like that one about the MPAA charging people for having home theatres.

I think its a good idea. Do you really think people will leave the TV (or whatever) on all night, incurring higher fuel bills?

I love my wii, And it loves me. Wii is fun unless you have crazy high standards. I have had NO problems with sensor bar or anything. Guess I'm just lucky

Is that with the standard controller, or is a special one required? ;)

How many dig 2 months back in thread topics just to contribute to an old conversation :-/

Glad you love it.

All of a sudden it's like dawn of the dead over here.

I thought these threads were finished!

QUICK! Grab yer shovels and wooden planks everyone!

LMAO! I'm guessing you're not English or Australian? It's a cricket bat, not a wooden plank.

Canadian actually. ;/

But yeah, no Cricket over here.
(and if it's anything like curling in terms of pacing, I'm not giving it a second glance >.>)


Anyways, regarding the Wii and the thread, I gotta say I'm surprised that Nintendo pretty much had a near flawless launch (minus the remote strap issue) in terms of faulty hardware, where-as the 360 & PS3 had their fair share of user complaints...

Actually, i think the wrist strap thing is the most serious issue (well aside from that one 360 burning down a house). I don't recall the PS3 having any issue aside from that compatibilty issue with certain HDTVs which they fixed already.

I never quite understood the wrist strap problem until the control nearly did flew out of my hand last night after playing that cheesy baseball game...good thing Nintendo is sending out the new straps.

And creating a black market for criminals to profit from the misery of others. And here I was thinking Jennifer Government was being satirical.

They don't work unless you actually wear them you know. The Wii strep can endure at least 25 Newton worth of force. With the relatively small mass of the Wiimote, there is no way you could accidently transfer that much force to the Wiimote.

People are still pegging overpriced Wii's on ebay and craiglists to profit from the misery of others. No one seems to complain about that.



Obviously it does if Nintendo has to send out new straps (unless you're talking about the new straps, then disregard...:p)

I'm a few days away from just taking my wrist strap off... If you are so retarded that you'll swing the damn thing around like a "real" golf club... you deserve to have your Plasma cracked...

I barely move the darn thing. Which makes me very happy.

However.. I do feel markedly stronger in my right hand than I did 2 days ago.. (Been playing damn near non-stop)

If you ask me, regardless of it or not, it was a good PR stunt (albeit at a cost) for them to replace them, even though it was the extreme minority that was incapable of using the remote properly.

Yeah really.. I can't imagine what kind of over-grown steroid-freak beef-cake was able to fling this thing so hard it broken this strap... I can't even break it pulling it as hard as I can.... I'm afraid the plastic will break first. Course.. anyone that can swing it that hard, likely didn't realize it was the plastic bit that broke... So I'm going to go with that.

I imagine it's not the "over-grown steroid-freak beef-cake"'s that were having so many problems with it, but instead little kids.

I've seen little kids get freakishly hyper playing boxing and stuff, and I could see it being an issue.

Well.. I can't see a little kid being able to put enough force on a wiimote to break the cable.. Seeing as I can't break it no matter how hard I pull on it.

If you just picked up a Wii, I'd imagine you've already got the new and improved straps. It's not like you might have grabbed a Wii that has been sitting on the shelf for weeks. ;)

While I agree that it is unlikely that a kid would break it, I don't doubt that it's possible.

Actually, now that i think of it, I imagine most of the damages are being caused by people playing it when they're drunk.

Really? I didn't see any news repports about people getting shot or beaten up over their Wii's.

They don't "have to" send out new straps. They have made more robust straps available to people who are retards.

It's probably a requirement from the insurance companies, more than anything else to prevent people from commiting insurance fraud.

Listen. If Captain America can't break it, what chance is a little kid going to have? Regardless of how hyper it is. The only way you could possibly have a Wiimote flying any significant distance is if you do not wear the wrist strap. If you're not wearing the wriststrap it doesn't matter at what amount of force the wriststrap breaks.

I imagine most of the damages are being caused by people not wearing the wrist strap at all, and then after they've just busted their new 72" plasma, they intentionally break the wriststrap (with a dull knife or something) so the insurance company is going to cover the damages.

If this is the upgrades strap.. I really hate to know what the first one looked like... Friggin cotton thread?

"I imagine most of the damages are being caused by people not wearing the wrist strap at all, and then after they've just busted their new 72" plasma, they intentionally break the wriststrap (with a dull knife or something) so the insurance company is going to cover the damages." More than likely.

Bingo! I never got how people could miss this little fact.

Whats there to get beat up for? Wii are family friendly!


Who says little kids are the only ones breaking it?

I'm still a little stumped what the big deal is with the wii? surely it can't be the motion sensing remote, as this could've just been released for the gamecube. And I've played through zelda on the gamecube and it's excellent, I can't see how the wii version looks any better, and from what I've read it doesn't benfit at all from using the wii remote.
Please don't tell the retro games thing is worth the money, I'm really not happy to pay to download twenty year old games when I already own them on the original consoles.

> surely it can't be the motion sensing remote, as this could've just been released for the gamecube.

Having it as the standard means it will be supported.

> And I've played through zelda on the gamecube and it's excellent

I have not played it, but my kids have on the cube. I thought it looked pretty muddy, then I saw the game running on the Wii and it looked much better. Although I was not studying for any differences, it was just a first impression.

It's fun.

I guess that in your playing through the game, you didn't get the bow?

It doesn't. Matter of fact, its the EXACT Gamecube version with Wii controls tacked on - for some people, it makes all the difference. Which is why I'm not so overly hyped on it and I don't consider it a perfect representation of the Wii quality. I'm actually considering getting it for the Cube instead. Now as for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, from what I understand was design for Wii straight up and actually makes use of the Wii's graphics capabilities (then again, i could be wrong on that too...)


Its not. Its for folks who haven't discovered what emulation is.

The Wii is overhyped. It's the usual "Nintendo is sooo innovative" marketing lies that gullible gamers always swallow. Nintendo is not innovative; it is in turns gimmicky and unoriginal. Wii remote? Gimmick. Endless Zelda and Mario sequels? Unoriginal.

Of course, it's taboo to dare suggest that Nintendo consoles and games are not actually up to much any more.

I think I will play with my GF instead of buying one.

Justluke: "gimmicky and unoriginal" = oxymoron.

lol JustLuke, let's be fair now. You seem to think gimmicks
are bad things. Name one single fun thing about games today
that wasn't a "gimmick" at one time.

Plus the comment on the "Endless sequels" is a bit off. What
do Mario 3, Mario 64, Mario Paint, MarioKart, Mario Tennis,
etc have in common? I won't answer, I want you to tell me.

Did you miss the "in turns" part of my statement? It would only be an oxymoron if I had identified a single object as being simultaniously both "gimmicky" and "unoriginal". As it is, I was applying these terms to different things at different times.

Read more carefully, my friend. :)

Also, naming games that are not sequels to each other as proof that Nintendo doesn't make endless sequels is a poor counter argument, and I think you know that. :)

The existence of seemingly neverending, almost identical Zelda sequels, Mario platformers, Mario Karting games, and Mario sports titles (to name but a few of the brand sequels that Nintendo churns out) would seem to make my point quite nicely. Of course, if you wish to continue to deny it on the basis of Mario Paint not being a sequel to Mario 64 then by all means go ahead. ;)

Marios?

JustLuke, you edited your post. The only reason I missed the "in turns" part of your statement is because it wasn't
there when you first posted. lol. Sneaky sneaky.

Try to argue without using cheap tricks.

And you didn't address this:


And my point still stands about the Mario business. To make it easier for you, I'll stick with a single string of sequels.

Marios 1 to 3 - the play mechanics and style significantly changed from game to game. You cannot refute that. Don't try.

Mario for snes was admittedly only a moderate advance in gameplay, even though the game was new from the ground up.
Introduced were entirely new play mechanics (ie Yoshi), art/play style, objectives, enemies, and general ways of interacting.

Mario 64 needs no description. You already know how different that one was when it came out.

Mario Sunshine has been the worst of the bunch I've played, but still, new spins were put on nearly everything and more
crazy new play mechanics were attempted (ie That water gun backpack thing)

I don't know the name of the upcoming Mario, but it's essentially Mario in space walking around asteroids or
something. Watch the videos. Once again, Nintendo has boldly created an entirely new way of playing the game
(flying from planet to planet, no single direction = up, etc). And those are only the things I know about.

In terms of variety and innovation between sequels, the Mario series is on par or better than the Final Fantasy,
Resident Evil, or Madden franchises et al.

So please, all I ask is that you be fair, because so far, you've made unfair and untrue generalizations, cheap strawman
fallacies, and edited your post so you would not be wrong. Tsk tsk.

I'm coming back to check on this thread after I run a few races in GT4. That should give you ample time to edit your post further.

Later

Well... actually.. Mario 1 and Mario 2 were identicle games... but mario 2 didn't come out in the USA until it was released as "The Lost Levels"

Mario 2 in the US didn't star mario in japan.

Ah yes, good point. But remember, I'm not saying that every single game was significantly different than the last, just
that the franchise changes enough over time to make calling it "unoriginal" untrue.

No I didn't.


You, Sir, are thrice the sneaky one!

NO.. Zelda is unoriginal.. But friggin fantastic! You can't get sick of 'new' content in a perfect gameplay model. Seriously. TP has about 5% new content 15% 'mod's of old content and is 80% the same as everything from the N64 and up.

I'm not taking a jab at you, Dampe, but I'm wondering something.
You know the people who say these games are unoriginal?
Could they be the same people who complained when Link
sailed a boat and was cel-shaded? Or said that Mario "should
never have been made 3D"?

Maybe not, but you guys have to remember that there are
pushes from both sides.

And there are also people who will hate and bash nearly
everything new or old for no logical reason. They're the worst!