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31 Jan 07
On with the Wii show. Once it's connected, the Wii is a different experience than other consoles. I should point out that I'm loving this wireless generation of consoles. With a high speed toddler and two dogs, no wires is wonderful. Beyond sharing wireless with the 360, there's not much in common.
The Wii main interface is broken into a series of channels. Some are always there and some must be downloaded. The first one is the disk currently in the drive. Then we have the Mii channel, photo channel, weather channel, news channel and the internet channel. Along the bottom you have the ability to go to the message center and adjust system settings.
The main page uses the remote as an air mouse to navigate. Alternatively, you can use the D-pad on the remote to move around the menu. There's a horizontal scroll for the main page if you have more entries than the number of channels shown per page. The A button selects everything. Pretty much every page has a back button. Once you've selected a channel you go to a confirmation screen where you can flip through the channels or confirm and start your selection.
The Mii channel is a great example of the subtle brilliance of the Wii design. Again, I should clarify. Whether the Wii is a great console will be determined by games available on it. But right away I noticed great things about the design. Just like the 360 improvements to Xbox Live, they're great and make a top first impression, but won't make or break the console alone. The Mii channel is where you make your avatar for some Wii games and a home for your settings and save files. For a glorified folder or gamertag, it's amazing the difference putting a face, color and body makes in your connection. For instance, when my son's Mii comes up in the baseball rotation, I want him to do well. There's no rational reason for that, but it shows the connection. The fact that you can share your created Mii's just adds to the connection and the fun.
The Weather and News channels are pretty straight forward. They're simple feeds that are mapped onto a globe. News is presented in a newspaper column format. You can also have the Wii cycle through the various articles in a slide show. Where available, news stories are linked to points on the virtual globe. So you can see how you're zipping around the world reading the news. Weather shares the same globe replacing the news with the current weather. You can cycle between current conditions, today's forecast, tomorrow's forecast and the 5 day outlook. Weather and News are handy and well present, but I doubt they'll become anyone's primary information source.
The internet channel is still in beta. You can download a free version of Opera for the Wii. It functions very well, but you're not going to run java applications or some flash games on it. The only real problem is the lack of HD support. Even though there's a zoom in option, the text ends up too small on many sites. There aren't too many sites optimized for 640 any more. Like the other channels, it's neat to check something out, but it's unlikely to replace your other internet browsers.
Next up will be controls, response and ease of use.
Jason
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26-29 Jan 07
So where have I been? I've actually been playing games. I still haven't had much spare time, but I devoted it to gaming. So did Final Fantasy XII suck me in? Sort of, but that isn't what I've been playing lately. No my wife called me earlier this week to inform me she found one.
The Wii search is over. Well, it is for me at least. I'm now the proud owner of a Wii. Of course, I could have had one a while ago if I had been willing to spend more or camp out or even hover over certain websites. Standing firm meant I had to wait. So was the wait worth it?
The short answer is that I won't know for a while. Before I get to that, let me go over my methodology for acquiring a Wii. Here were my criteria. I didn't want to spend more than $400 (I was willing to go to $410 for the Circuit City bundle). I wasn't going to drive outside the greater Houston area. I wasn't going to camp out. I was willing to wait.
I needed a way to track local retailers and online deals. I used iTrackr to monitor the retailers. I used the free version and refreshed. For online I used Snagthat and xpBargains Wii tracker. The xpBargains site had better information and more stores, but Snagthat was faster on the email updates. Eventually iTrackr won. It notified me of Wii's in stock at CompUSA. My wife was able to swing by and grab the last of the massive three units they had in stock. Fortunately, the PS2 shortage and the Xbox 360 shortage both ended by March. I think we can expect the same with the Wii.
I liked the Wii out of the box. Everything was individually wrapped and sealed and arranged in a tray. The physical set up was easy. It still uses Pro Logic II so there was no optical cable. It was just power and A/V. I went with the component cables. It went quickly. In fact, I was able to set up the Wii faster than I could disconnect the Gamecube.
The console itself feels small. It is pretty with clean, white industrial lines. All the ports except power and A/V have flip covers. With wireless internet and controllers, that keeps everything looking nice without reducing functionality. I went with the vertical orientation. On its side, it looked too much like an expansion drive for my tastes.
Well, that plan didn't work out well. I'll just plug on. I like the design of the remote. I mean the shape and feel. You have good grip and control, and the buttons are well placed. The home, + and - buttons seem a bit small. I'm not in love with the shape of the B trigger. None of that matters too much since it feels good in my hand.
I was a bit surprised at the nunchuk. It's both smaller and lighter than I expected. It's very responsive and easy to use, but I was expecting it to feel more like an air mouse, but it's more light weight than that. The nunchuk. connects to the remote for power and wireless. The plug is sturdy and has a hook to run the wrist strap through. I know there are some extension cords out there for the nunchuk., but the cord seemed the right length for me.
There's not much else on the hardware side. The front of the Wii has the power, reset and eject buttons. It also has the cover for the SD card slot. The disk feed mechanism seems sturdy, fast and quiet. The slot itself illuminates with a blue light when you have a message. Overall, quite impressive especially from an organization that last time brought us a purple cube with a purse like carry handle on the back.
Tomorrow or Wednesday, I'll go over the software side including the main interface, channels and games. Thanks for the patience.
Jason
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22 Jan 07
Let's look at those 2006 games I did manage to play.
GalCiv II -- this game improved on nearly everything from GalCiv. It was fun and flexible and had challenging AI. I felt a little of the 'spreadsheet disconnect' playing the game, but more often I was having fun.
Table Tennis (360) -- I was surprised to find that what I was looking for in a tennis game was here in a ping pong game. There's speed, tension and boat loads of fun. It doesn't wow you with mini games or multiple play modes. It just serves up a mean game of Table Tennis
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (360) -- Even now I'm still a bit up in air on this one. It's a very good game. I just can't decide if I like it better than Summit Strike for the old Xbox. Sure, the graphics are killer. The story and missions are neat. I'm just not sure the gameplay was as compelling for me. I'll probably give it another chance with the new 360.
The Outfit (360) -- I like the chances Relic took with this hybrid game. However, I couldn't shake the feeling that if they'd decided they wanted to a shooter first, a tactical game first or a strategy game first, the title would have been better. It is fun to blow things up.
Rise of Legends -- I don't think I'm alone in saying that I loved the Vinci and the first part of the campaign, but felt things slipped from there. It also didn't help that multiplayer shipped mostly broken. I have fun when I play it, but I don't feel drawn back to the game like I was with Rise of Nations.
Sword of the Stars -- I played this game to death. There are flaws in the game, but the fun overwhelmed them. This was one of the highlights of the year for me.
Defcon -- Who doesn't want to play war games? I had a lot of fun with this. I really should play online more. Another game that's not a big budget title but plays better than most that are.
Paraworld -- Me? I like slow paced RTS games. I had a lot of fun with Paraworld. The sides were fun. The dinosaurs were great. It was solidly old school. However, I could see how it would be a shock coming off a Company of Heroes high. I'm afraid poor marketing and timing did this one in.
Okami -- This is one of those games that are fun to watch because they're so beautiful. Though it didn't have all the polish and magic of Zelda, it did out do Zelda in some areas. It's fun and compelling. Other than a slow start, it's hard to find complaints.
Well, I can't complain about the quality of the gaming. It's the quantity that worries me. I didn't really finish any games. Most of those write ups made me feel guilty since I didn't give the game as much time as it deserved. I just didn't have the time to give. We'll see how this year goes. I hope the quality level keeps up. It's a great time to be a gamer.
Jason
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19 Jan 07
Depressing. That's the only word for it.
Let me step back for a moment. Back in college (when dinosaurs ruled the earth), I played quite a bit of paintball. I wasn't the best, but I didn't panic, worked well as a team member and could shoot straight. I got more than my fair share of tags. Anyway I was pretty passionate about it. I had all the gear. I had some neat toys. Once I got a real job I even got a custom gun. They call them 'markers' these days.
Eventually, I realized I didn't have enough free time (or money) for all my hobbies. Eventually golf and gaming won out. I faded from the paintball scene, packed up my gear. I mention this because though I have fond memories, I don't miss it that much. In fact, when I found out our neighbor's son was taking up paintball, instead of seeing if he wanted a teammate, I offered the use of my old gear.
My point is I don't want to get to that place with gaming. I was looking at my list of 2006 releases that I played. To be fair, I did spend a lot of time playing previous years games I picked up in the bargain bin. Still, it was depressing. I try to keep somewhat current. To a large part, I failed.
I have plenty of excuses. I also had a good amount of quality gaming for the year. I think the biggest factors were short gaming windows and the limits of my main rig. Most of the 2006 PC releases just wouldn't run on my old workhorse. The laptop helped and let me play some of those games, but it never felt as natural as sitting at my desk with my big keyboard and room for my mouse. I'm hoping for a new gaming rig this spring or summer. We'll see if the finances work out.
Anyway, Monday, I'll go over what I did play from 2006. Here's something to play with over the weekend. It's Flash Element TD. It's a version of tower defense. Thanks to MattcOm from Gaming Trend for pointing it out. It's a good way to lose some time. If that doesn't float your boat, check out Games for Windows' (formerly CGW) list of 101 free games.
Jason
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17 Jan 07
The lack of response on the Game of the Year nominations has made me paranoid that I've driven off all my regular readers. It's sad. Help a poor web guy out.
I got my Xbox 360 back yesterday. It was a different refurbished unit with a build date of April 06. I've been running it through it's paces. Thus far it hasn't shown any of the signs of the lock ups that plagued the last unit.
I've mostly been testing with The Outfit. That game really killed the old unit. Now that I can actually play the game, it's kind of interesting. It's not a great game. It's too arcady for my tastes. The story is poor and overwrought. It's even worse in comparison to the narrative of Final Fantasy XII that I had been playing.
However, there is fun to be had there. The physics are fun to play with. The vehicles my be a bit difficult to control (floaty), but there's good variety in weapons and vehicles. Then there's just the sheer fun of blowing everything up in the game. I'd put it behind Mercenaries except it includes multiplayer. I've only played around with multi. I don't think it would be much fun to play highly competitive matches. However, as a fun, messing around with friends game, I could see it being a blast.
I'll probably be heading back to Gears of War soon. Perhaps, I'll get far enough in to have impressions.
Jason
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15 Jan 07
Please get some Game of the Year nominations in. Not to take anything away from the game, but I'm sure that you guys must have enjoyed more than Galactic Civilizations II. It's the only outside nomination thus far. Of course, I'll have some of my choices, but you can't count on me to list your favorite. After all, you know I'm strange.
I feel a little better about the puzzles from Vanishing Point. It turns out that some of the puzzles bothering me required clues embedded in the video. It really helps when you pay attention. Yes, I realize that some people have posted solutions to all or most of the puzzles on the net. I bet some of you jump to the crossword solution key right away as well. I just thought it might be fun to work together on some of the puzzles. Call it a team building project.
I still haven't been playing much. Other than some Donkey Kong Bongos with my son, I've just played some Final Fantasy XII. Why? Well, I have a soft place in my heart for Final Fantasy. Plus, they're not rocket science. You can get into a pretty zen state and just absorb the beautiful sights and sounds without having to play too hard. Given my mental acuity from lack of sleep, that's pretty nice.
I noticed the first review for Europa Universalis III is out. Somehow, I wasn't really expecting that game out yet. I've got to get caught up some time. Overall, it's a pretty positive review from someone who claims not to like that kind of game.
Supposedly, my repaired Xbox 360 should arrive this week. Maybe I can get back online again and take the regular beat downs I deserve. The Wii hunt continues. Sunday is supposed to be the next big retail drop. We shall see.
Jason
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