It’s been a long time coming, but finally you can chat away to your Wii friends using the Wii Speak Channel - assuming your pals have the peripheral in question and have downloaded said channel from the Wii Shop, that is.
And it all works very well. My wife’s round at her parents’ house today, and we were both able to talk in a fairly relaxed manner, with Wii Speak picking up our speech very well. While we got the odd bit of echoey lag (I could hear myself speak when I raised my voice, which came through a couple of seconds after I’d spoken) the sound quality was decent, and background noise was barely noticeable. At least until my son decided to start shouting from the other side of the room…
Once you’ve downloaded the channel and accessed it from the Wii Menu, you can start adding your friends into a central space by ticking off their names - a Wii Speak mic will appear next to their usernames assuming they have said channel installed. Once you’ve added them, they’ll appear in a circle within your own space, which has plenty of room and can be scrolled around by holding the B button and moving the pointer. If you want to chat with one or more people, it’s a simple case of selecting their icon and inviting them to a chat. Assuming they accept you can then start having a chinwag. A nice touch is that you can add Miis to represent you, and swap between them instantly. Sound waves move out from the icon when you’re speaking while your Mii will turn to ‘face’ who you’re chatting to, with their mouth moving up and down as you talk. Lovely stuff.
You also have the ability to send short voice messages to friends, even if they don’t have the channel installed. I was given a warning that it might take a little while to arrive in my friend’s inbox, so I’ll check with him later to see if and when it arrived.
It’s a shame this wasn’t bundled with the Wii, as it would have offered a great social option from the outset. As it is, Nintendo will do well to make its audience more aware of this, as it’s a function which will no doubt appeal outside the core gamer demographic.
I’ll report further on Wii Speak’s effectiveness next week, once I’ve tried it out with a few more Wii Friends in a round-table chat and also in Animal Crossing.
Wii Music, then. It’s not perfect (see yesterday’s blog for details) but it’s likely to sell boatloads. And the US TV ad above is a terrific bit of marketing, perfectly capturing the fun of creating your own take on a familiar song, and making it look suitably accessible.
Kudos to Nintendo’s marketing bods for using the Super Mario Bros. theme too, as if to show off its hardcore credentials. And ending with a neat musical stave motif is a stroke of genius.
Given Nintendo UK’s predilection for celeb-themed ads, we’ll probably just get a bit of Girls Aloud messing around. But it’ll be hard pressed to beat this rather joyous celebration of Wii Music’s simple, freeform jam sessions. Lovely stuff.
It’s not the presentation, because that’s great - it’s a little more vibrant and interesting than Sports or Fit, with a much-needed dash of colour everywhere making for a brighter, livelier look, while it’s oddly satisfying to see your own take on a tune spin into CD form, and then tuck itself into an inlay you’ve made for it with your Miis.
It’s not the tutorials, because they’re thorough and helpful (yes, even in Japanese), giving you all the necessary info in text form with a few helpful pics to clarify things - particularly handy for me in this case.
It’s not the MIDI sound, which, while sounding a bit naff for some instruments, works perfectly fine for the most part. Particularly when you’re in orchestra-conducting mode, and hearing a whole wealth of sounds at once.
My issue with Wii Music is the controls. It’s not that moving them up and down to drum or bash a glockenspiel isn’t fun. It’s not that it’s not enjoyably daft to faux-bow an invisible violin. It’s just that if you want to create something listenable, you need the kind of rhythmic precision that the remote and nunchuk just don’t always allow. Playing the saxaphone, recorder and trumpet is fine, because you just need button presses and the occasional volume-adjusting tilt for successful tones there - but when you’re beating out a fine percussive backing to the Zelda theme, it’s inordinately frustrating when a slightly weedy shake produces no sound, or a faintly aggressive up beat adds an extra thwack to the soundtrack.
Would MotionPlus make a difference? Hard to say, but certainly the drum kit would benefit from that - as, while the balance board kick pedal works a treat, pressing a number of different buttons to whack specific pads or cymbals doesn’t feel as satisfying or intuitive as it would if you were controlling the stick position with your hand movements.
With the US version on its way, I’ll be giving Wii Music a more thorough playthrough to discover more of its intricacies, and to see if I can get past this slight control issue. One thing’s for sure - this is likely to surprise a few people with how much fun it is to play, even on your own.
Jesus Christ. Yes, a Mii version of everyone’s favourite water-walker (before Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous came along) has been used to advertise a US church. San Francisco’s Mission Bay Community Church used the son of God’s image to advertise Easter celebrations in an effort to hitch religion onto the latest bandwagon and pull in more worshippers.
Our question is: what took them so long to come up with the idea? Practically the very first Mii that everyone in the Western world designs, when they’re done with friends and family, is the big J.C. himself. Him and Hitler usually. Chances are, though, if you do come to church, they won’t be preaching through the medium of Wii Sports, with Jesus on doubles with Moses. Nintendo aren’t ones for overtly religious games. Although if you’ve got a PC and want to check out that kind of thing, I urge you towards the horrific collision of religion and videogaming that is Zoo Race.
Those Miis, eh? They so… so… boring. There they are, walking up and down an escalator, looking ever so cute. Ho hum. Yawn.
Lucky for us, an enterprising group of teens have dedicated a blog to pornographic Mii avatars. Yes, that’s right, pornographic. So don’t follow the link if you’re easy offended or if you’re in a public place. You’ve been warned!
Sigmund Freud would have a field day if he ever met the kids responsible. But never mind that, they’ve worked hard to rescue you from another boring afternoon. Don’t let them down, people.
So, that’s Christmas and New Year’s out of the way. What’s next on the calendar? Ah yes, Valentine’s Day.
Well, if you don’t happen to be single on that particular day, and if your other half likes gaming, and if they’re not diabetic, then we’ve got just the thing for you. These are chocolate sculptures based on your Mii - either milk or white chocolate - packaged in a special presentation box.
You might be thinking it’s a little early to be shopping for Valentine’s Day. But we predict this item is going to be mighty popular with the loved up gamer guys and gals out there. You might as well form an orderly queue.
And what if you’re not shacked up with anyone at the mo? Then boo-hoo for you.
Here’s a sad story we’d like to share with you all. A US soldier who’d just spent a year in Iraq had come home to hear rumours that his wife was cheating on him. The poor fellow didn’t know who to believe, his wife or his friends, until he found the proof he needed in the most unexpected of places; his Wii.
“I flip through the Wii menu and visit the Mii Channel so I can peruse the many friends that I have created with the guys that I played with in Iraq. As I go through the characters I see there is a Mii that I have not created. It’s a guy strikingly similar to *name deleted*. To be sure of this, I went into the Wil Message Board and click on the Calendar option. Through this menu I was able to identify the many nights my wife’s Mii and this ‘other’ Mii Character played Wii Bowling. It became clearly obvious that she couldn’t explain her way out of this. Especially since she claims that she never had contact with him after her alleged ‘kiss’ in October 2006.”
There’s a lesson to be learned here, folks. The first one is, if you’re going to be a low-down no-good dirty cheat, then at least have the courtesy to cover your tracks. The second? When filing for divorce, be sure to sue for custody of the family Wii. They can keep the fine china and the SUV, they won’t help heal a broken heart.
Because you demanded it, here’s a video tour of Check Mii Out, with all the features of the new Wii channel explained in detail.
Some of you have been wondering why we didn’t cover it earlier. The truth? We’ve got our copy of Super Mario Galaxy and we’ve had time for nothing else. We’re not ashamed to admit that we’re gamers first, bloggers second.
Because of a UK press embargo we’re not allowed to tell you about SMG… yet. But rest assured, you’ll have a full review on launch day. In the meantime, have fun with Check Mii Out!
It’s already getting great reviews overseas, but that hasn’t stopped Capcom’s Wiimote adventure game, Zack and Wiki being put back until January over here. Wh…wh…wha-!?
Actually, for those wanting it to succeed, it’s probably the best thing to do. The game’s got a good chance of doing well, but as a brand new untested franchise, Christmas and its Need For Speeds and Splinter Cells may suffocate it a bit. At least in the more relaxed month of January it can stand out a little better. Although, speaking console-specifically, what do we really have to look forward to in the way of top titles released this December? Bully, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles? That’s two ports and a light gun game. Not exactly a triple A line-up, is it? Is there anything else you’re looking to pick up come the month of Xmas, readers?
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