When you look at the picture above, you're either thinking "Great system with a lot of great Nintendo games", "Awful system that's for stupid babies who can't play Call of Duty like a real man" or something in-between the two. However, what I see is a system with unlimited potential that isn't being harnessed by third-party developers because they want to make a quick buck. They want to make shovelware like Carnival Games 2: Electric Boogaloo! instead of games like Super Mario Galaxy or Metroid Prime 3 that show new ways to control your favorite genres.
Don't blame the poor Wii for the lack of awesome third-party games. It didn't do anything wrong. Motion controls are here to stay, as evidenced by Microsoft's Kinect and Sony's Move controllers. The Wii wasn't the first electronic device to use motion control. However, it brought motion controls to the eye of the general public and the general public most definitely responded well. Nintendo grabbed the casual market by the balls when they released the DS back in 2004 and the Wii back in 2006 and now the machines are practically printing money.
The Wii's Virtual Console is also another feature that's been pretty successful. Making past games such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time available to play from the Wii's hard drive any time you want without the need for a disc is pretty awesome. Speaking of online, the Wii's online sucks. Like, a lot. Just ignore it and you'll be fine. The Wii's graphics also pale in comparison to the 360's and the PS3's, but if you're playing your games solely for the graphics you're doing it wrong.
Motion controls are here to stay.
Now that we've realized that the it's not the machine's fault for the lack of good third-party titles (except maybe online play, dear God), let's move on to Nintendo. Nintendo's kinda at fault here for setting the casual shovelware trend by releasing Wii Sports packed-in with the Wii console. Now, Wii Sports is pretty fun. It's not like Super Mario Galaxy fun, but for a game that came with the system, it really shows off what the Wii can do. I really enjoy tennis and bowling, but there's a game for everyone. However, even though Nintendo set the bar low for Wii games, they've also set it ridiculously high with their other first-party titles. Twilight Princess broke the house down with its awesomeness (the motion controls were gimmicky, it was a GameCube port, blah blah blah whine whine whine) while other games followed suit.
One game that really shows off the Wii's control system is Metriod Prime 3: Corruption. After playing this game, it was really hard for me to play shooters on my 360 again (thank goodness for BioShock, my personal favorite game, or I would've had a much harder time) because the controls worked so well. Go play that game and try to convince me its controls suck. Not only did the controls work fantastically, but the game was a lot of fun and definitely a worthy climax to the fantastic Metroid Prime Trilogy.
Another game with fantastic Wii controls is Super Mario Galaxy, one of my favorite games ever (I don't have the sequel yet, but I've heard great things about it). This game doesn't really use motion controls except for one thing: Mario's spin attack. Yeah, sure, you could probably devote a button to this spin attack, but when you waggle the Wii Remote a little and Mario sends a Goomba spinning...something just feels right. It feels natural to do that. Pressing a button would just feel...wrong. Try the game out, if you will. You'll see what I mean. Some of you might not like this game because it's "not mature enough". Yes, because mindlessly shooting a bunch of generic bad guys with blood and guts flying everywhere is very mature. The ladies will crawl to you because of how mature you are.
Metroid Prime 3 shows off the Wii's shooting potential.
Now, the Wii's motion controls aren't perfect. They aren't 1:1 motion controls that everyone wanted. Nintendo acknowledged this, and came up with a solution: the Wii MotionPlus. To show off this new accessory, Nintendo created Wii Sports Resort. Yesterday, I was playing the fencing part of Wii Sports Resort and I realized "Whoa...this thing actually works." I never thought about it, but yes, the Wii MotionPlus gave us 1:1 motion controls or at least something incredibly close to it. If you don't have a Wii MotionPlus, go get one: you're gonna need it when The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword comes out.
1:1 Motion Controls...finally realized
Okay, so the tools for developers are in place. A system with a unique control scheme. Great examples by Nintendo to show off the system's potential. 1:1 motion controls via the Wii MotionPlus. However, not a lot of great third-party games have been made. Why is this? Because they want to make money. That's one of the main reasons people are in this business, to make money. With that being said, Wii Sports is the bestselling video game ever with Wii Play the second and all of the versions of Nintendogs the third. This shows that to make money, you should make casual games. Instead of taking risks and benefiting from flipping the video game industry on its head with an awesome game, third-party developers piggy back off of Nintendo's risk-taking by creating casual crap. It's annoying. The Wii has so much potential for new gameplay ideas because of the mix of motion and button controls, yet nobody but Nintendo is trying to innovate. Here's an idea, third-party developers: take some risks. Make games that nobody's ever seen before. That's why Wii Sports and Nintendogs were so successful: they showed us something we didn't know could be achieved in a video game until the Wii and DS came.
Hi, I'm Mr. Carnival Games, and I'm here to destroy new ideas and instead reinstate piggy-backing off of what already worked!
What do you guys think? Love the Wii, hate it, and why? Leave some comments below.