Wii
While I've been praising the Wii, it's not without its drawbacks, some of them somewhat odd.
Firstly, GameCube compatibility. This is rather a good feature, giving you use of the entire GameCube back catalogue. The downside - no one stocks GameCube gear anymore¹, and controllers are particularly hard to get hold of (I had to resort to e-Bay). Also, they didn't try and reuse the Wiimote and Nunchuk, which surely would have managed a number of games; nor does the GameCube compatibility use the internal memory: you need a memory card.
Integration is also a little rubbish - GameCube play time doesn't appear in the play time list (unlike Wii games and Virtual Console games). And the controller ports/memory slot are all on the top of the unit - a little inconvenient really.
The Wii UI also suffers from a lack of consistency - some screens have a 'home' button, but the icon changes along with the position. Further, networking is dodgy (Polly's PowerBook gets better reception) and it suffers from Apple syndrome: when it's fine, it's great, but as soon as things go wrong, there's no information to be had. And when the connection fails, the unit has a habit of either never returning to the user (connecting forever, apparently) or not giving the user the option to retry and just resetting the unit.
The Virtual Console also seems to be suffering from laziness - Mario Kart 64 is missing ghost recording, for instance, and many games suffer from a lack of fixing for PAL² (or the option to display in 480i60). Neat idea, but they need to put a bit more work in (and some of the Japanese RPGs?) to make it fly.
Most of these can hopefully be fixed with firmware updates, but it is a little worrying - now consoles are so easily patched will we see a situation like PC games, where early shipping with bugs to be fixed in later patches in the norm? One can only hope for a respite from such, but the cynic in me would not be surprised.
¹ This strikes me as a little odd - surely there's a market here, especially given the limited number of Wii titles in Europe? Game seem to have embraced it a little, re-branding their own third party hardware as 'GameCube for Wii', but even the Oxford St. store is bereft of official hardware and has only [rubbish] trade-in games.
² Interestingly, while Sonic always played slower than Sonic 2 over here I had always thought it was a design decision. It turns out no, it was purely a rubbish conversion from NTSC to PAL.
I've had my Wii going on a couple of weeks now, and it's a fantastic success. Zelda is stunning - while the graphics are merely great, the game-play is superb, and the controllers are the icing on the cake. Wii Sports is superb fun, especially with friends, although it does seem a little light sometimes - more a technology demo than a full game. And Monkey Ball has quite a learning curve, given the new control mechanism, but is nonetheless great fun.
I have yet to try the Virtual Console - first I need to track down a GameCube controller, and I'm tempted to go the full hog and get wireless.
Unfortunately, I was so enthralled I went and spent more money. Thanks to the temptresses at Amazon I now have a 26“ widescreen LCD, for a smidgen over £400. It's smashing - the Wii looks great on it, and it's fantastic to be able to watch the BBC in widescreen. All we need now is HDTV broadcasts (and the inevitable PVR upgrade for such).
In the meantime, though, more Zelda...
While I wait for my Wii to arrive I have a second controller in hand, sitting, not doing much. What to do with it?
Connect it to your Mac and let the force flow through you! Fantastic stuff, and a little safer than MacSaber at that.
For those who want a little more control, there's DawiinRemote, and even technical specifications. Reverse engineering is a wonderful discipline.
Yes, victory is within my grasp. After narrowly missing out on one of Game's three Wiis (for the City of London) I've discovered a new stock at Amazon Germany.
Yes, our German friends have Wiis coming out the kazoo, and hence I've ordered one. While I'm somewhat unlikely to see it until next week, even including postage it cuts £10 off the UK retail price. Thanks to the EU there's no extra tax to pay, and it even gets me the chance to practice some Deutsch.
Now, of course, I just need to track down games and an extra controller...
The most annoying part of this whole exercise is that while stock trickles in profiteerers are still buying to sell on eBay. Indeed, if you're at home with extortion it's by the far the easiest way to get one.
