Wii Hands On First Impressions

DHL dropped off a fresh UK PAL Nintendo Wii last Friday morning, ready to get a proper testing in home conditions with nobody watching us acting stupid. Here’s our initial thoughts and findings - including a test with Datel’s Freeloader disc.

Setup

Console set-up was a breeze, the external power supply was larger/longer than we expected (getting towards Xbox360 size!). We installed the sensor bar above the TV set.

The position on the sensor bar appeared to make it more difficult to control when sat down - meaning we had to be on our feet most of the time - burning them calories!

Controls

The remote sensitivity seems okay, but we noticed the pointer hands shake quite a bit, maybe from being too sensitive? The reports about the daylight interfering with the controls is true - the TV was situated in front of a large window - so the curtains had to be drawn to stop the on screen cursors going mad.

Changing the Wiimote sensitivity on the Wii shows two white dots on screen as you wave the remote around, with the daylight shining behind the TV it caused several dots to appear in other places.

The remote doesn’t perform very well, or at all, when close to the TV screen, and fails to respond over 3m from the TV. So people with small rooms could be stuck unless they have small TV sets, and people with long/large rooms might find it annoying having to move closer to the TV screen.

With the Christmas season here, I also found that having a tree next to the TV / sensor bar, and flashing fairy lights on sent the Wii control system mental. So make sure either your TV is away from the Christmas tree, or you turn the fairy lights off when playing!

Internet Connectivity

Using the built in Wi-Fi connection worked smoothly. As soon as it was connected to the home network a software updated began. This took a short while to complete, upon which the Wii decided to reboot. Another software update was then attempted - before deciding there was nothing to update.

Browsing the Wii Market for Vitual Console games is smooth, although there is currently no trace of the Opera web browser software on the console. A logo on the Wii box does indicate that there is Opera software (somewhere).

For all Nintendo fanboys with a stack of club stars they have collected from years gone by, you’ll be glad to know these stars can be traded in for Wii points to buy games and software now too! Finally a use other than for lame screensavers and desktop backgrounds!

Games

For now we’ve settled for just the extra Wii Play game as it came with an extra free remote. Most of the fun looking games aren’t out just yet.

WiiSports: Baseball feels long winded and too easy to keep fouling. Bowling takes a little time to get the bowl right but has room for some good multiplayer fun. Tennis is a quick paced and easy to get in to game which gives the best impact to new people playing with the Wii. Boxing is really knackering if played for a bit, you need to learn the control gestures in order to properly play otherwise you’re just flapping around like an idiot and getting no where! Golf was a little more relaxing, although getting the swing perfected takes some fiddling.

Wii Play: This title is sold as a learning tool to get you in to the various capabilities of the Wii-remote. Table Tennis needs quick reactions but it very much just Pong with some new graphics. Shooting Range is the Duck Hunt clone with several levels of play but not much depth to it once you’ve been through a few times. Find Mii will keep the younger kids occupied but it’s pretty boring and doesn’t demonstrate much of the Wii controls! ∫ sees you rotating your Mii around to fit in to shapes, it gets frantic later on but overall is a bit boring. ∫ has some fun, but the rotating controls can lead to a lot of own goals — eventually annoying you. Billiards provides a somewhat fun game, although the simulated cue controls soon gave me elbow ache! Charge! is a great little bull racing game and uses the remote horizontal like the Excite Truck title. Finally Tanks makes use of the dual controls, the Nunchuck proving the directional control and the remote the gun. It’s a little slow and the bouncing bullets become more of an annoyance than fun quickly.

Gamecube Compatibility

One thing that I’ve not seen mentioned yet is the backwards compatibility of Gamecube titles, and region encoding.

On the Gamecube we were blessed with Datel’s Freeloader disc to play non UK Gamecube titles easily.

The sad news is that the Freeloader disc doesn’t even get recognised on the Wii, and as such neither does the US Gamecube titles on the UK hardware.

Let’s hope that Datel come up with a solution soon, because until then I don’t want to ditch my Gamecube and loose all the titles I have!

Conclusion

Great hardware, and everybody had fun playing with it. The need to move around and hold your arms out paid its price the day after when my back and shoulders ached all day, but maybe I’m just lazy and un-fit - so the Nintendo is giving me that needed bit of exercise

So now we’re waiting for some new Wii titles to become available to really see what the developers can do with the innovative hardware.

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