Wii Party Pt 1

So here we go..... I'm going to try to keep the buildup to a minimum, since the games are what I'm sure everyone wants to read about. like i said in the earlier post, pics will be available to attendees on Tuesday.

So, were were picked up at about 6:30, by Megan and Catherine from Nintendo, and after sweating the last 10 min, for Bethany and Lara from GoNintendo.com to show up ( traffic on the Ryan) we were taken by 3 vans to a location in wicker park. like the other Wii party's I've been blogging about, it was decked out in retro paintings. i remember backgrounds from Mortal Kombat, Desert Strike, Pole Position, Outrun, and Metal Slug ( i think). The 2x2 Mario blocks were here also....

They had drinks ( beer and pops) and six Wii units, hooked up to Samsung 36"(?) LCD monitors. If they were all set the same, the displays were running at 480p. (when they swapped games out, the display flashed the resolution)

Games

Of course, as soon as i entered, i made a beeline to The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess. When i first picked up the Wiimote, the first thing i noticed was how light it was, and how the Nunchuck analog stick was ( thankfully) loose. i was worried that the analog stick would wear my thumb out ( like the N64 did) but it felt responsive and.....right.


The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess

I'll be totally honest. I preordered my Wii yesterday, with the full intentions of picking this game up at launch. But after yesterday, my unwavering faith in the Zelda franchise wavered.....just a bit. I had a bitch of a time getting the aiming right as i played through the demo ( apparently the same demo from E3) Swinging the Wiimote to slash felt good, and was easy to get used to. Auto jumping returned, from the last few Zelda games. the trickiest parts were aiming the Boomerang and Arrows. It felt a tad too sensitive, and i kept losing track of where i was aiming. i had a hard time fighting the camera too, till i noticed the C button above the Z on the Nunchuck controller. that gives you a FPS view, and makes it easier to see what you're doing. Most of my problems seem to stem from the fact that i had no idea what the button layout relative to the controller was, and also from the fact that 15 people were waiting to play. Joel from 2Old2Play.com finally got me over a tricky puzzle involving the Boomerang, but the demo timed out, and that was that. Now, everything I've mentioned so far didn't faze me too much, I know I'll get used to the controls with a few hours of practice. what disappointed me was the Jaggies. Zelda had Jaggies everywhere, and it was a bummer to see something i thought the next-gen systems had pwned come back with a vengeance. maybe it was the fact that the Wii isn't kicking HD graphics, and on a 480p screen the Jaggies were more obvious than ever. The only reason for Zelda looking wayyy more jaggie than any other game we played that night was the fact that it was a Gamecube game for so long in it's development, and just this year (after a delay of almost a year) it was announced that it would have Wiimote functionality. the focus must have been on getting the controller's feel right, and not overhauling the engine built for the Gamecube.

Excite Truck
Ah, now THIS is what i was expecting. Excite Truck a extremely simple driving game with a fun factor that surprised me. the 2 button is the gas, and holding the Wiimote sideways and turning like a steering wheel is intuitive, but a bit too loose. Most of the games felt like that, but since it was such a new experience, it's to be expected. Jumping through icons make the ground distort in front of your truck, give you the chance to make HUGE jumps. up on the cross pad is the turbo, which can make your truck overheat, ( the only obvious connection to the NES classic, Excitebike) This was the second game i played, after the Zelda Wiimote was ripped away from me. It felt like a really fun tech demo, and the sense of speed was definitely there. but crashing into invisible walls and the strange recover from a crash mechanic ( you have to shake the wiimote like a madman) was weird. It's got potential, fer sure........

Wii Sports


The most played and the game of the party was Wii Sports. Everyone that played it had a goofy I'm-having -a great-time look on their face as they played the most intuitive motion based game EVAR. Wii Bowling was as easy as pie to control, and i saw more than a few heated matches being played. the controls are as simple as holding the B button to begin your approach, and releasing the b and swinging your arm like you're bowling and releasing B in the natural motion. ( i.e. as you would release a bowling ball in real life) Speed and trajectory are determined by your movements, and everyone quickly learned to adapt to the control style.
Wii Boxing was my personal fave of Wii Sports, since i was a HUGE fan of the PS2's Eyetoy Play 2's boxing game. this takes the cake in that you really are punching and blocking with the wiimote/nunchuck combo. holding the both controllers vertically in front of you, each one becomes your virtual boxing glove and hooks, body blows, and uppercuts come just as naturally as you can imagine. to block, you either cover your face with the gloves, or lean back. After i knocked my brother-in-law out, ( heh.....) i watched people as they played, and it was the same with each pair. for the first minute, both fighters would flail around, and punch like maniacs, till they started getting tired. then, once they calmed down, the real tactical boxing started. it's impressive to see total non-gamers look like pros after 2 rounds, and is a testament to the Wii's accessible controls. the game even had a Fight Night Rd. 3- like pseudo-knockout mode where if you got your opponent's energy bar low enough, it would go into slow-mo and the screen would look blurry as you tried to land that KO punch. this game is the reason I'm sooo sore today. If it wasn't included with the wii, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I didn't get to play the golf game, but the kids were having a ball with it. Wii Tennis was strange, since you don't actually control our character's movements across the screen, only their racket's movements. I noticed something while playing WiiTennis. Kids are WAY better at playing it than adults. I was trying to make precise movements and forearm or do backhanded returns, and hitting it out of bounds. my 5-year-old nephew was swinging away like a drunken sailor and getting baseline smashes,and volleying like a champ. Maybe THIS is why I'm sore today. or maybe it was WiiBaseball, which was a blast, with a picher and a batter going at it. I played 3 innings with Gil, from the last podcast. one player is the pitcher, and player 2 is the batter. holding a button( each button is a different pitch, and the speed of your arm determines the speed of the pitch) and doing the throwing motion delivers the pitch, while player 2 just tries to time the swing and get his guy on base. the only problem with this game was the lag in the pitching. the pitcher wouldn't actually begin his pitch until AFTER the player finished his movement, resulting in a 1/2 sec. delay between the movement and the action. so the batter has 2 sets of movements to track, the guy next to him, and the on-screen pitcher. or maybe i just suck, cuz i didn't get close to scoring, and Gil kicked my ass. and again, the kid ruled on this game too. one little girl ( about 8, i think) hit a grand slam!!!!!!

more updates tomorrow, I'm tired of all this monkey typing.......