Bad news everybody, I got a call this morning from Pixy's family; he choked on his mullet in his sleep. :(

He will be buried with his SNES, which he always had slept with under his pillow.

His family has asked that in lieu of flowers we send copies of unopened Secret of Mana carts.

Yeah, yeah.. so I got home last night and played Xanadu Next until I needed to go to sleep, my bad. :lol:

I didn't think my words would be THAT valued as I'm certainly not the first person to play it and write about it on the internets.. anyway, I'm writing it up now.. pending random bits of actual work to show that I'm, you know, (sort of) earning my paycheck. Give me about 30 minutes or so.

Hearing a reviewer's impression is nice, but I don't know that person. Who knows if they might be afraid to say what they really think in order to avoid bad relations with a developer. Other people have played it, but at least I know from this board that you can be pretty unbiased, (unless you're playing FF :)) So for those reasons I am very curious to hear your impression.

Damn you Pixy and your 1-up mushrooms...

So the Nintendo Fusion Tour is a yearly concert Nintendo holds showcasing a bunch of pre-teen era "rock" bands (think the Hot Topic crowd). This year's tour was special in that they were previewing the Wii during the event, sans during the headlining band in which they'd have to turn all the demo units off (contract reasons).

As I mentioned, we got in as press. My friend writes reviews for a web site (I've also written one review for them) that has a good reputation with Nintendo. So we meet up with one of the Nintendo guys there and are offered our choice of previews. They had ten units running. Two for Zelda Extreme, two for Excite Truck, one for Wii Play, one for Wario Ware and four for Wii Sports (one each for baseball, tennis, boxing and bowling). The first thing I asked was "WHERE'S METROID YOU SCUM?!" to which I was told that it was taken off the tour as they thought having both Zelda and Metroid running would distract from the bands (what bands?!). Deflated, I suggested we try one of everything in no particular order.

We were first directed towards Wario Ware Smooth Moves. If you didn't know already you are prompted before each mini-game with how to hold the controller.. based on the icons where these prompts came from, it looks like there were about twenty different ways to hold the controller. The first thing I noticed is how easy it was to do everything and how accurate the controller was. I was swatting flies, pumping air balloons, pushing people over and giving paw to Nintendogs with ease. The boss game was a driving game and you held the controller horizontally and turned it like a steering wheel. Very cool. It went by quick but my very first impression was quite positive. It works and it works well.

Next up was Excite Truck. Much like the Wario Ware boss game, you hold the controller horizontally and use it as a steering wheel. Since this was a full-out driving game the controls were a bit looser than the Wario game but ultimately that meant more control over things. The first thing I noted as I watched my friend play was that this was very similar to the SSX games.. the goal is not so much to win the race but to rack up a high score doing jumps and stuff. From watching it.. it went from my " Excite What?" list to my "Might Buy" list. So the controller is passed on to me, I get to pick a truck and color (a speed buggy colored in glorious pink) and I'm off. The controls, as I said before, were basically like the Wario Ware mini-game except a little more advanced, but it felt that after a game or two you should be rocking with much more control over your vehicle than with the mini-game. Unfortunately I only got one game so I did a lot of crashing! The A and B buttons were for accelerate and brake and the D-Pad was for boost, no issues with that control setup at all, simple and quite manageable. Oh, not only could you steer with the controller but tilting it up and down during jumps.. well, I'll let you use your imagination on that one. This game was a LOT of fun, it's a definite candidate for my second launch title.

Now, we headed towards Zelda Extreme. Let me preface this by saying that the line for this was HUGE (duh) and it seemed like they were letting people play out the demo.. as we got to skip the line we felt it wouldn't be fair to run the whole thing and spent about five minutes each on it. While I was quite positive on the controls for Wario Ware and Excite Truck.. it was apparent with Zelda that for more "standard" games, it was going to take a little bit getting used to. That's not a pejorative at all, it's just that it wasn't INSTANT like with Wario Ware and (from what I saw) Wii Sports. Moving seemed fairly natural though.. it was, after all, a standard analog controller. Aiming, on the other hand (with the bow and boomerang), seemed a litter harder to get used to (my main issue was figuring out to aim with the remote and move my field of vision with the controller, doh) but it was easy to see that once you get used to it, it was going to be a hell of a lot more accurate (and cooler) than with a controller. Now, the fun part: sword play. Like the previous 3D Zelda games, you have a lock-on button except now, to attack you wave the controller like a sword. This gave me quite a tingle in the pants. IT WAS AWESOME! I felt a little giddy cutting up the few goblins I managed to find! But, as I said before, we felt bad for jumping in front of such a long line so I shot a few goblins with arrows, cut a couple with my sword, solved a boomerang puzzle and passed it on the guy behind me that had probably been there for two hours.

At this point we had spent a good amount of the rep's time so we let him go to see the rest on our own. They had a line of DSes with some recently released games playing on them and a booth on the other end of the room giving away Wii and Nintendo guitar picks, stickers, Zelda pins and keychain CD cleaners. We pocketed a bunch of this stuff! Next to this was a DS display with some high quality headphones playing Elite Beat Agents, the American version of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! Since I had enjoyed the import I gave it a try and it's every bit as good, obviously with American music and situations, the humor and wackiness kept much intact. I was given a pair of Elite Beat Agent headphones for trying the game out, very cool, they retract, making them very portable.

So we had Wii Play and Wii Sports left unplayed. My friend had already played Wii Sports at E3 so we decided to check out Wii Play and leave. Sorry, but I was dead tired, it was an hour (at least) drive to take my friend home and get back to my place and I figured Wario Ware and Wii Play was enough to see the ease of Wii's "pick-up-and-play" antics. Plus, watching a father and his little daughter play Wii Baseball together was good enough proof for me on Nintendo accomplishing their goal with this one.

They had the shooting game from Wii Play playing.. and again it was so easy and natural to play and very accurate. Right away I was shooting.. no adjustment period. I thought that a light-gun was still better as you could hold it like a gun and have a sight and all.. but for all intents and purposes this worked VERY well as a replacement. The game itself is NOT simply Duck Hunt.. but more a variety shooting game like Namco's Point Blank series. The demo had various stages to it.. the first being a balloon shooting game, the second being disc shooting, third was can shooting/juggling (like Hogan's Alley!) and finally a game where you had to shoot UFOs before they ran off with little people running around the bottom. There were some Duck Hunt ducks that would fly by during the games that were worth big points if shot though! I already wish that THIS was the pack-in instead of Wii Sports.. but I guess it just wasn't ready for prime-time (and I have no clue what else is supposed to be on the disc!).

Basically I can sum this up shortly: Wii is awesome. The final question mark being how it holds up to adding a new element to standard gaming (Zelda, Mario, etc.). I think that's really going to be up to the developers though.. as we've pretty much assumed all along. But, I feel confident that the developers that do good with it are going to do great with it from the little I played of Zelda. It WILL take a bit of adjustment for those kind of games though (but we've been playing them for the same way for twenty years now, right?). I can rest easy now knowing the $320 I've already spent is going towards something that works extremely well. My nervousness is MOSTLY at ease. It's hard to give a rock solid opinion on maybe 30 minutes of gaming and like the DS, it may take a year for everyone to really start knowing what works the best with the system.. but I'm quite happy that I'll be playing on the 19th.

Any specific questions? I'll try to answer some. :)

Thanks for taking the time to write that up. You are just helping fuel the excitement. :up:

From early impressions, including yours of course, it sounds like Excite Truck may just be a sleeper hit. With 3 games already on my buy list, I'll wait and see how it pans out.

Wow, thanks for the writeup Pixy.

You basically answered any of my lingering concerns about the system and I am ecstatic to pick mine up on day one.

I'm especially heartened to hear about the father and daughter playing games together. I've got two small kids of my own and a wife that has finally started playing games with me, Guitar Hero and the Nintendo DS specifically, so I think the Wii is going to be THE system for us for quite some time.

Thanks again for the writeup!

Thanks a bunch Pixy. You quelled pretty much all my apprehension about the system, and I'll definitely be looking to pick one up at launch day. I have a feeling I'll be waking up early to hit Target or Best Buy. Now I just have to decide which games to purchase (if I purchase more than Zelda to start), and if I can get my girlfriend to play the games with me which would require the purchase of another controller.

Really good write up. I'm still torn on selling my Cube. If I could just let go of it, buying the Wii would be a much easier decision.

I'm really thinking the games I'm going to enjoy the most will be the ones like Wario and Wii Play. The best part about the DS is the quick fun games.

Trade it in and get $50 for it at EB. You can play all your GC games on the Wii. There is no real reason to keep it unless a.)you use the gameboy player or b.)it's your only system and would have to go a month w/o gaming.

My use of the GB player is pretty rare and my son has his own Cube so I could give it to him. There is really no reason to hold on to the Cube, but I continue to be stuborn about it. I could easily get $50 for it and $50 for the component cables. Don't know, I may give in and do it. I have plenty of games to play on the DS and PC so that is not an issue.

Thanks pixy, it was a good write up. And also raised my excitement level even more knowing how honest and picky you can be about certain things ;), so the fact that you were able to adjust to the new controller so easily is quite remarkable. I am looking forward to November 19th (when I get to wake up bright and early or camp out).

Thanks for the info, Pixy. Now I just need to decide how many games is too many games.

I have decided that 8 games is too many, so I can buy up to 7 launch titles. :lol:

Zelda is a definite.

Rayman and Monkey Ball are pretty much definites (unless the final reviews are somehow overwhelmingly negative).

Trauma Center, Excite Truck, Red Steel, and Madden are all maybes, pending reviews.

I have enough in my Wii fund to get all 7, and I'm strongly tempted to just get 'em all. I'm taking off all of Thanksgiving weekend, so I'll have ample time to play, and if any of the games are stinkers I can just sell them after a couple of weeks. Around launch (and before Christmas), you should be able to sell used games for decent prices.

I've always been "behind," so to speak, on new gaming systems. Got a PS a couple years after release, PS2 same thing. But now that I'm working and actually have some disposable income, I'm going to get one of the new systems. I'm heavily leaning towards the Wii...the graphics of the PS3 would probably look incredible on my plasma, but I can't justify spending $500 or $600 for the system alone. I could get the Wii and 7 games for that!

Plus, I'm kind of getting sick of playing games that just try to look pretty. I want games that are FUN to play, even if the "realism" isn't there. This sure seems to be the case with the Wii.

I'm also interested in playing some old games. I've played most good NES games via emulators on the PC, but I haven't played any of the Zelda games or Metroid games from SNES on. I think there'd be plenty of entertainment there for me. (though I fear once I get it, I'll only want to play games that utilize the new controller)

So what have others (that are only getting 1 system) decided? Obviously if you're in this thread you're probably getting a Wii, but I just want to make sure I get the one that's right for me.

Are these available for pre-order?

I'm still sticking with just 1...for now. Several of the other games look to be fun, but I just can't see playing $50 for any of them besides Zelda.

I'll finish zelda and see if there are any that warrant a bite at $50, if not I'll just catch up on DS games, but a Virtual Console game or 2 and wait for some sales/price drops or something like Mario, Metroid, Smash Bros etc. that is a $50 must buy for me.

The Wii is perfect for me, as I just mainly want to play first party nintendo games and some quirky pick up and play games.

I'll miss the Final Fantasy and other series I like, but I have such limited time for gaming that I just can't keep up on games for more than one console anymore anyway. And with my limited time for gaming a $500-600 console isn't a worthwhile investment (360 is cheaper but has no games that appeal to me).

I was close to getting a 360, but I had a ton of issues this gen with the PS2 failing on me and have been scared off by all the 360 problems I'm reading about. I have no faith in the PS3 being more durable than the PS2 either. I just don't feel comfortable anymore dropping $400+ on consoles. My gaming habits are shifting a lot more to the type of games I play on the DS and the Wii seems more like something I would enjoy. That said the launch titles are very underwhelming so I doubt I will buy many of them at the $50 price point.

The IGN podcast was raving about both Rayman and Monkey Ball. Rayman, according to them, feels like a bunch of mini games - one of those pick up and play type of games. They also said that Monkey Ball probably utilizes the wii-mote the best out of the games they've played.

I listened to that as well this weekend while driving. Gamespot has a good video interview with one of the makers of Rayman and explains how its not just about the mini-games. I'm still hazy on it, but def. looking forward to it more now.

Another "deal" on a SD Card (2GB) if you are willing to jump though the hoops:
Links and info on dealsea.com
http://dealsea.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8386

I was talking with my mom about the upcoming holidays and mentioned the new Nintendo. She asked if it was a new handheld or a new console. She mentioned she had heard about the Xbox 360 and the PS3 (way to go, marketing). She's pretty much hell-bent against having a video game system. I played too much with mine (<b>:lol:</b>) and she doesn't want the same fate for my younger siblings.

I mentioned I was getting the Wii and as soon as I explained how it works she wanted to try it.

The last time my mom touched a controller to play a videogame was when I got my NES in the 80's.

Nintendo is doing something right.

Show her these http://us.wii.com/experience_gallery.jsp

Yeah, and they just posted 4 new clips there. The one with the Japanese family of 4 is particularly good. I think it shows how much fun Wii Sports will be for families or in a party setting. Non-gamers will probably sit back and watch at first, and then once they see how easy it is to pick up and play, they'll join in. I actually think that word of mouth might be the biggest and most effective form of marketing for this system. I can see friends and family of early adopters deciding to pick one up for themselves after getting a chance to play. On the other hand, non-gamers might "ooh" and "ah" at the pretty 360 and PS3 games, but I doubt very many will be inspired to go out and buy one for themselves. As with the DS and the Touch Generations series, there's a lot of potential for Nintendo to release a bunch of straightforward and simple-to-control Wii games alongside the more complex traditional games, and with that sort of strategy, the Wii could do a lot better this generation than many are expecting.

Questions:

1. Any SD cards will work with the Wii?

2. You can re-use that Google Checkout deal, and Buy.com has Wii games available for pre-order, but it's like $5 shipping on each game. I'm guessing you could use the Google Checkout deal for each game you're interested in and save a few bucks off what they'll be going for at retail at release?

3. Are there any release deals on accessories, games, or the system that have been announced yet?

4. Any place to pre-order the Wii itself?