16 out of 16 people found this review helpful.
"Cons" outweigh the "Pros" from a 2+ Year Owner
Date of Review: Dec 3, 2007
The Bottom Line: Very limited selection of WII specific games, lack of new game development. Other consoles have better game selection and more capabilities. Internet functionality useless.
(updated review as of 12/2009).
The price of the WII has fallen to around $200 and there is finally adequate supply. This is not a console for serious gamers and games that specifically incorporate the WII controls (and are fun) are still priced around $50 (less than 10 popular titles?). Unfortunately, my experience has been that games priced around $20 were complete disappointments. For this reason, I strongly recommend renting or borrowing games before purchasing. Of the 30 or so games we've purchased, maybe 5 or 6 warranted gameplay beyond 10 minutes, seriously. As for trading in used games, you're lucky to get maybe $3-$5 per game.
After owning for more than 2 years, here is what I feel are the pros and cons are;
*PRO: Unique motion sensitive gameplay interraction that no other console has, such as swinging the WII-mote to hit or throw a ball in games like baseball, tennis or bowling or in boxing (or as a weapon in games like Zelda or "Big Game Hunt"). Or, in games like Smooth Moves or Mario Party, gameplay combines a lot of different motions. (I do not have the balance board to evaluate games using it's controls).
*CON: Only a handful of games seem to use this interraction, many games are played just like on any other console, holding the nunchuck in your left hand for the joystick and using the wii-mote buttons with your other hand. Unless a game is released solely for the WII, this is what the gameplay will consist of (with perhaps the option of swinging your controller-less effective in the gameplay--rather than using normal console controls). In a lot of instances, the game doesn't seem to pick up the wii-mote actions (or they consist of complicated, specific movements or combination of movements such as twisting or flipping the wii-mote while pushing certain buttons).
*PRO: (Kind of goes with the above) There are some games available such as "Active Life Extreme Challenge", "Sonic and Mario Olympics", "Carnival Games" or "Mario Party" or those designed for the balance board that effectively incorporate the Wii Controls.
*CON: At this time, there are probably less than 10 popular games that utilize this. Many games are simply played as if using a regular console game controller.
*PRO: Good multi-player capabilities in some games (up to 4 players).
*CON: This is usually just split-screen as in any multiplayer game, not a combined effort.
*PRO: Internet capabilities. For $5, you can download the opera browser to surf the internet. Initially, I thought this would be great for playing online games as there are a few sites that offer online WII games and thought it would be really cool to watch videos or stream music through our surround sound system.
*CON: Useless. Surfing is slow, extremely poor navigation. You cannot stream videos or music. As for the online games, there are still just the same handful of boring games available as 2 years ago. Even the main WII menu/news portal simply shows (yes, believe it or not) scans of newspaper articles, although they're connected to an interractive newsmap that displays where it occurred. Whooptie doo. You can also participate in "polls" using your MII character, but honestly, you can do the same with any internet connection, can't you?
(The rest of my list is unfortunately, CONS)
*CON: Cannot play DVD's. This was something I used often with my PS2 (You can with the XBox and even download movies on demand with a Netflix account).
*CON: Inaccurate "sensing" of motion. Often, it seems like the WII just doesn't pick up movements, resulting in a lot of gameplay frustration.
*CON: Although you can purchase and download games through Nintendo's online site, for the most part, the selection consists of OLD Nintendo games, such as the original Mario, Asteroids, etc. (what's the point?). I purchased and downloaded 2 seemingly new games, only to discover they were worse than most free online games I can play on my PC-(think Bejeweled, Blockbreaker, Cake Mania, or Zuma type games-I won't do that again). The WII Ware offers 157 downloadable titles total, almost none of which I've even heard of (or again, are simply knock offs of free online games). By comparison, the Xbox offers only 82 games, however, these are mostly current popular console games, like games from the Need for Speed, GTA, Call of Duty, Midnight Club series', etc.
*CON: Be forewarned; trailers or previews of games are just sleek, realistic cutscenes or intros from the game, not actual in game screenshots. After purchasing games expecting the sleek graphics shown on the previews, I was disappointed at the often boxy, cartoonish graphics (sometimes even unconnected graphics) of the actual gameplay.
*CON: Due to the lack of internal storage space on the WII console, games take a long time to load. Even during gameplay, such as when you complete a stage and continue to the next, there is a substantial wait for loading; the more graphically complex the game is, the longer the load time. In "Carnival Games", for example, if you're playing a series of events with 3 trys each, there is even a considerable delay between trys-it's just soooo drawn out that in 15 minutes of game time, you are actually playing seemingly half of the time.
*CON: Lack of game selection. Personally, I prefer family friendly games we can all play together. With the exception of a very few WII specific games (such as Mario Party) all of the WII games are available on other consoles. For total game selection (all ratings, based on their respective game websites), the Xbox offers 1,218 games, the WII offers 874 (and after a scan, I'm willing to bet most of those titles are simply the knock-offs of online web games).
On that final note, it seems as though game developers are turning their backs on the WII. Through my own purchases and experience, there is an extremely limited number of games specifically designed for the WII console incorporating the motion controls. In fact, this holiday season (2009) I was bemused to see the WII "Carnival Games" being promoted. We purchased this *2 years ago* and shows the lack of new game development for the WII.
