Joe brought over his new Wii on Sunday and we spent a couple of hours playing it. I fell in love with it immediately. You see, I find the direction that video games have gone to be really kind of sad. Most games are now very solitary first person shooters that reward only extreme violence. The whole idea of the easy to learn and play family video game seemed gone forever. Replaced by the ever escalating war of pixels and frame rates between Microsoft and Sony.
Now Nintendo has decided to depart from the pixel war and go in a completely different direction. To bring back the family fun of games that are incredibly easy to play. Where people from age 4 to 60 could play and enjoy themselves. Last night, Lori, Joe and I were jumping up and down for a strike in a game of bowling. And I worked up a sweat boxing. And this morning I can feel the tennis I played in my arms. How cool is that?
I really appreciate the design of the games too. Instead of trying to get every nuance of the sport right they simplified everything. In tennis you only worry about hitting the ball. The computer moves you around. In baseball you throw and hit, you don't field or run. In golf there are only four clubs; driver, iron, wedge and putter. In bowling, you just throw the ball. You don't worry about the weight of the ball, or stepping over the line, or anything like that. You just hold the trigger, swing the controller back, then swing the controller to the front and let go of the trigger to release the ball. The twist in your wrist spins the ball to the left or right. It's incredibly intuitive and easy.
Will Microsoft and Sony try to rip this stuff off? Probably. Sony's PS3 controllers already have "six axis" motion detection, which is the "secret sauce" of the Wii controller. But what Sony doesn't understand is simplicity. Hell, their PS3 ad about their "six axis controller" has eggs being thrown against a wall turning into ravens or some such crap. I don't know what that has to do with anything. What I know is that I had a lot of fun with Lori and Joe last night bowling, golfing, boxing, batting, and playing tennis in my living room.
Update: This is what I am talking about. It's a whole family thing. Young and old. Father, son, daughter, mom. Everyone can get into it.
Posted by jherr at November 27, 2006 09:30 AMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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