Wii Q&A Thread

[HaemishM]

Zelda, definitely. Call of Duty 3 is a pretty good linear scripted FPS, that uses the Wiimote for purposes other than targeting sparingly. A few uses of it work, a few don't work quite as well. Still worth it. I think Red Steel is a damn good game. A bit short, but the sword-fighting is pure luv. I haven't played enough Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but so far it feels a lot like a tacked-on port. As I get more games in the rental queue, I'll be updating my blog with impressions.

[Azazel]

I'm not sold on Zelda, really. I played, enjoyed and finished Link to the Past on SNES, I got the (first) one on the N64, (Wind Walker, maybe? He had a horse you could summon by whistling) and it was ok but I walked away from it at some point and then forgot what I was doing when I came back to it a couple months later, and then just discarded it. Never played the cel-shaded one.. so yeah, not sure on the Zeldas.

Marvel Universe, I've played a little on the PS2 (rental) - is there any real difference to the Wii to justify waving a wand around instead of just button mashing besides bolted-on gimmickery?

COD, I'm not sure on. A FPS with those controls seems both intriguing and daunting. Do you get raped by snipers you can't target properly without a mouse? Same with Red Steel I guess, but it's getting really mixed reviews, and at $100, I'm not really thinking a massive gamble is great, especially when it'll be marked right down soon. I guess it seems like it might be the Toh Shin Den of the Wii. Shiny at first, but discarded pretty fast.

I don't think Trauma Center is released here yet. Are we talking that old "operation" boardgame in Wii form?

Saw a Tony Hawk game in the shop this morning, a racing game with trucks or something, something thats a movie tie-in with penguins, Rayman.

Someone here was talking about Rayman earlier and saying it was fun. Anyone have more info/opinions on it?

edit - they also had Far Cry.

[HaemishM]

The controls for both COD and Red Steel are pretty good. They are almost as accurate as a mouse/keyboard combo, almost. The biggest hitch is letting the pointer drift to the side of the screen, resulting in your viewpoint twisting around in a death spiral. The motion based controls are a mixed bag. Some of them work well (the tank mini-game, the driving game once you get used to it) and some do feel tacked on.

Every once else has liked Red Steel less than I did. I dug it hard. I'd suggest you rent both of them if you're unsure and if that's possible. If not, wait until they go down in price. As for Zelda, I've never played a Zelda game all the way through, and I love Twilight Princess. YMMV.

[Ezdaar]

CoD3 on the Wii was the only console shooter I have managed to play more than 5 minutes of. I even finished in fact. The controls are not quite as snipe a single pixel precise as a mouse but the feel is fantastic and I find myself worrying less about sniping pixels and more about shooting and moving to a better position while the enemy's head is down.

[Roac]

Someone here was talking about Rayman earlier and saying it was fun. Anyone have more info/opinions on it?

Friends of mine got Rayman for me today for Christmas, and I've put maybe an hour into it.  I like it.  Stuffed full of minigames that you can knock out each in about 5 min, so it's a good party game or something to play in short spurts.  The style of the game is a riot; we took turns playing and were laughing all around.  It's mostly silly things - like, there's a jump rope game, where you have to flick the Wiimote in time with the rope.  The speed varies, and the better your timing the more points you get.  Every so often, one of the rabbits sitcks its face over the "camera" and makes a face at you to distract you.  In another game, you have to shoot rabbits with a plunger-gun.  I was in stitches when a Ghost Recon rabbit came down on a rope and stealthed around behind some trees.  I got funny looks from them not getting the game's reference.  Go Ubi.

I don't know how much replay value it has, but it's a good party game.  I do like the controls MUCH better than what I ran into in Super Monkey Balls.  I'll also admit that we haven't played 2 player yet; we didn't see where you select it, but no one cared enough to look.  Supposedly it supports up to 4. 

[Azazel]

Here's a question for you - how does virtual console work? I notice the Wii has no HDD, and my console is not going to be in a spot where I can really string the blue cable of love across to it due to the house's layout, and I'm not in the market for a 7 or 8-port wireless router and a ton of recievers for all my devices.

So can I plug the Wii into my net connection, download a couple of games, then disconnect the cable and relax? Or does the console download the games in question each time you want to play them, rendering Virtual Console useless unless you're wired permanently?

[Strazos]

The Wii comes with some internal memory, but you going to want to buy a 1gb or 2gb memory card eventually.

But right now, the VC sucks.

[schild]

You don't need a net connection to play VC games. The Wii has 512MB of internal memory and space for SD cards (I think they're SD...). Anyway, yea, considering most of these roms cap out at a MB, you should be ok.

Edit: Ok, I had a little more information than Strazos. But he's right. The VC pretty much blows at the moment. Hell, everything involving the Wii and Online Anything blows. I'm pretty sure we can all agree on that.

[Azazel]

Hey thats ok.

My main interest in it is to be able to download the odd SNES game if I want to.

Are the memory cards regular SD memory, or proprietry Ninty ones? And I assume the VC games come with some form of DRM forever linked to the console they were downloaded to? So you cant lend them or take them to a mate's place and if your console borks under warranty you're SOL (like the X-Box)?

[Strazos]

List of VC stuff for NA.

What I don't understand is what the hold-up is. How fucking hard is it to put these small, small files on the VC server. Does it take That Long to convert them into a form playable on the Wii?

I'd also be interesting in finding out if there is anything special/different with the Nintendo-branded SD cards. Do they come with some kind of software instruction on the SD, or are they easily replaced by off-the-shelf SD cards from Newegg?

EDIT: I imagine if you save the ROMs to the SD card, you should be able to play over at a friend's house on their unit. Also, if the cards are not some proprietary format, you might even be able to load stuff onto your PC and copy to other cards, but who knows. I'm not sure Nintendo is That Naive.

[schild]

The odd SNES game has to show up before you can download them and that's Nintendo's problem right now. I can see them managing the release of every NES title. But Squeenix, Capcom, Konami, and a few other houses will be hard pressed to let Ninty release their shit again.

Edit: Nothing proprietary about the memory cards.

Edit 2: Strazos, the holdup is licensing. Even on the VC, companies don't want to compete with the likes of Mario 3 and Link to the Past.

Edit 3: Donkey Kong Country is an upcoming release? A Rare title? Must be because of 1. Microsoft getting a cut and 2. the Donkey Kong license. Microsoft probably couldn't do anything with it... ever. Better to make money than let it sit in a closet forever.

[Strazos]

What do you mean compete? I'm not disagreeing with you, but if that's their mindset, it's fucking stupid I think. Do they not want free fucking money from letting their ancient titles be available for inflated prices on the VC? What harm does it do them?

Also Schild, can you confirm on the SD cards? Have you tried a stock card instead of N's in the Wii and had it work? That would be pretty funny.

[Yegolev]

I don't think the Wii even has a rj-45 hole.  I could go find those upskirt pics of it, but I'll be using the wireless anyway.  I am also waiting for a bit to get one.  My current mental milestone is "when I finish Okami".

On a related note, I'm glad the PS3 had a port for an ethernet cable since the WiFi simply did not work with my router until I updated it from 1.10 to 1.11, which caused me no end of irritation.  Also the PS online "game store" isn't anything to be proud of, either.  Quite the opposite, I felt like I needed to take a bath after looking in there.  Brave new world.

Nintendo has repeatedly stated that they are going to trickle out VC titles.  They openly admit they are doing so in order to avoid having a huge wad of games on release and then nothing for the next four years.  Also: Schild is right about licensing.  Companies are wacky about their IP licenses.

[Strazos]

At least they have Gunstar Heroes. I'd pay the 500 points for that, but I think most of the other games in that range are overpriced at 500 points. I think 350 would have been better.

[Azazel]

Edit 3: Donkey Kong Country is an upcoming release? A Rare title? Must be because of 1. Microsoft getting a cut and 2. the Donkey Kong license. Microsoft probably couldn't do anything with it... ever. Better to make money than let it sit in a closet forever.

Doesn't Nintendo own DKC? Sure, rare made it, but they were owned by Ninty at the time, so it would have been essentially work-for-hire?

I don't think the Wii even has a rj-45 hole. 

Now that would be retarded. I'd look, but mine is boxed and wrapped up for Monday.

Looking at the lineup, I'd go a Zelda III, and maybe a Gunstar Heroes. No sign of the TG-16 games here in Aust.

[schild]

Yea, dollar for dollar, Nintendo is ripping people off in the VC shop. I mean, PS1 games on the PS3 cost like $5.99 or something. How much was Super Mario 64? $8? $10? I don't even remember, all I remember is lolling and not buying it.

Microsoft on the other hand is bringing classic games on the cheap and brand spanking new arcadey games for less than the cost of a single movie ticket. They have _got_their_shit_together with XBL. Though I think they should do 1 classic release and 1 new release, just to speed things up a bit. And no more poker/uno theme cop-outs for the weekly release.

[Nonentity]

Yea, dollar for dollar, Nintendo is ripping people off in the VC shop. I mean, PS1 games on the PS3 cost like $5.99 or something. How much was Super Mario 64? $8? $10? I don't even remember, all I remember is lolling and not buying it.

Microsoft on the other hand is bringing classic games on the cheap and brand spanking new arcadey games for less than the cost of a single movie ticket. They have _got_their_shit_together with XBL. Though I think they should do 1 classic release and 1 new release, just to speed things up a bit. And no more poker/uno theme cop-outs for the weekly release.

The only two games I've bought on VC so far are two Turbo Grafx 16 games - Bonk's Adventure and Bomberman 93. Bomberman is insanely fun five player, but getting the fifth controller to work is a bitch. If you have two Wii remotes on ports one and two, and you have a Gamecube controller plugged into ports 2 and 3, the Gamecube controller and the Wii controller on port 2 control the same guy. So, you have to have two Wii remotes (which I have) going on 1 and 2, and plug Gamecube controllers into 2, 3, and 4 on the Wii, and have the Gamecube controller hold down R when you start the game, and it assigns it to player 5.

Took me a while to figure that one out.

[Roac]

Here's a question for you - how does virtual console work? I notice the Wii has no HDD, and my console is not going to be in a spot where I can really string the blue cable of love across to it due to the house's layout, and I'm not in the market for a 7 or 8-port wireless router and a ton of recievers for all my devices.

So can I plug the Wii into my net connection, download a couple of games, then disconnect the cable and relax? Or does the console download the games in question each time you want to play them, rendering Virtual Console useless unless you're wired permanently?

You can go either wireless (B/G), or USB to ethernet.  Nintendo sells a wireless USB thing that you can hook into your PC to setup a simple network for the Wii as well.  Games for VC are downloaded and saved on either the internal memory, or SD card (non proprietary stuff can be used).  You are also able to delete games if you need the space, and redownload at no extra cost.  You cannot transfer to any other Wii - there is protection in place to prohibit other Wiis from playing VC games you download.  Sorta have to do that, since there's no other way to prevent rampant copying once you get them onto an SD card.

[Yegolev]

I hate "hold the button while it starts up" bullshit.  I'm not some sort of caveman.

[Strazos]

Heh, I'm surprised they even support the 5th player in Bomberman.

Also, Mario64: $10 on VC. Ouch. Does that come with some KY warming gel or something?

EDIT: Nintendo seriously needs to come down on those VC point prices.

[Yegolev]

Whenever you make a superfluous edit, a baby angel kicks Baby Jesus in his baby balls.

[Nonentity]

Yeah, the price point is really the swift kick to the balls. I cautiously drop dollars here and there with the current price point, but if they dropped it, I'd probably spend MUCH more.

I'm a horrible person to judge these things on, though, because I'm willing to spend a lot of money on entertainment.

When am I ever going to play Small Arms again on the 360? Who knows. Impulse buy.

Plus, I have Lumines 2 now. Why would I go back and play Lumines Live?

[HaemishM]

I don't think the Wii even has a rj-45 hole.  I could go find those upskirt pics of it, but I'll be using the wireless anyway. 

It does not have an ethernet port. If you have a WiFi router, it connects to that. If you don't, you can buy the DS USB adapter. Hook the USB adapter up to an broadband-connected PC and the Wii sees it as a WiFi access point and uses that. I think they are coming out with an ethernet wired adapter, but it ain't here yet.

[Bokonon]

The Sega prices are the worst. 800 poits (8 bucks) for any Sega game. I wonder if that is Nintendo's or Sega's doing? Probably Sega's, since the TG-16 games are 600 points a piece.

What can I say about F13?  It's really my favorite website in the entire universe!  I love the irreverent banter and sly wit these keyboard jockeys produce.  And I especially love the staff, they're AWESOME.

[Margalis]

I'll take Sonic for the price of a lunch at Subway. Although I agree it would be a lot nicer at $2 cheaper, $50 for 5-8 games is fine with me.

[Azazel]

What a crock of shit that Wireless adaptor is (and it's pricing). Not having an ethernet port on the back is just bullshit.

[schild]

The problem with VC is the prices are higher than the same pricepoint for the ACTUAL cartridges at Game Crazy. I'd know. I was there last night. Sure, I bought some totally rare shit that cost more, but your average price? Less. And VC isn't exactly filling up with hard to find shit.

[Strazos]

How is Game Crazy, actually? Apparently, there are some where I live, but I've never seen one. Do they stock old stuff normally, unlike EBStop?

[HaemishM]

Nintendo is releasing some VC games on Christmas Day. They are:

Street Fighter® II: The World Warrior (Super NES®, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): This game revolutionized the fighting-game genre with characters that had unique fighting skills, speed, special moves and unique endings.
Super Castlevania® IV (Super NES, 1 player, 800 Wii Points): Simon Belmont uses his trusty whip to fight the powers of evil on his way to Dracula's Castle.
Toe Jam & Earl™ (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): Two fun-loving aliens crash on Earth and must find 10 pieces of their spaceship so they can get back home to Planet Funkotron.
R-TYPE® (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): This is a completely faithful port - right down to the character details - of the famous shooting-game masterpiece.

ames available on Jan. 1 include:

Baseball (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Play nine innings of fierce sandlot competition with classic NES graphics.
Urban Champion™ (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Don't let the big, bad bully of the neighborhood push you around! Players fight for the right to walk the street.

I'd be tempted to get the Street Fighter or R-Type games.

[Margalis]

I've never even heard of Urban Champion.

The original SF2 for SNES is so slow, I would wait for HF. R-Type would be cool, as would Toe Jam and Earl. (Never played it)

[Merusk]

The problem with VC is the prices are higher than the same pricepoint for the ACTUAL cartridges at Game Crazy. I'd know. I was there last night. Sure, I bought some totally rare shit that cost more, but your average price? Less. And VC isn't exactly filling up with hard to find shit.

Yes, but you're missing one of the key points for the VC that appeals to "folks not us."   Many of them sold/ threw-out their old consoles years ago when they upgraded to the new shiny. So even if they CAN get the cart cheaper, it doesn't mean they can play it.  Also, it's a cart, and you know how notorious they are for not working without fiddling.

That's before you even start figuring in the number of us who previously mentioned (in other threads) that we simply don't want to hook 3-4 consoles up to our TVs. Wire management is already a pain in the ass just for one Console, Cable, DvD player & Stereo.

[Strazos]

I still wish the prices would come down. I mean, come on...there's no physical product to deal with; just teeny, tiny files. Some of those I would want....but $8 is a bit of a stretch.

[Alkiera]

I still wish the prices would come down. I mean, come on...there's no physical product to deal with; just teeny, tiny files. Some of those I would want....but $8 is a bit of a stretch.

I'd imagine some of it is the dev time to build the emulator that they run on, and making sure they actually run.  They're implying a certain reliability that you don't often get from PC emulators and warez'd ROMs.

--
Alkiera

[Strazos]

I know, but $8 for those just seems high to me. If they dropped it down to $6, I know I personally would end up buying more games. Like, I could buy 2 for just over $10. But right now, those same 2 games would cost me almost $20.

[Azazel]

You can go either wireless (B/G), or USB to ethernet.  Nintendo sells a wireless USB thing that you can hook into your PC to setup a simple network for the Wii as well.  

Since this USB thingy isnt available here in Aust yet, I decided to check eBay US for them. I found a lot of Chinese sellers with quite different WiFi USB thingys which they all tout as being great for the Wii/PS3/360/laptop/etc. So, I have a couple of questions:

1) Will these work ok?

2) How does this work, if my main PC is already on a LAN/Network via a router?

3) Is there a way to create a secure wireless network with such a simple device?

4) I read a review of the Ninty one that explained the software that came with it has a thing so you explicitly allow certain devices (and certain Wiis) to connect, and only those can. Do
these Chinese cheapos allow anything like that?

5) For that matter my MoBo came with a wireless network access point thing, with a little antenna. I have no doubt I could set it up as a WiFi point of some sort. Should I just hook that up and skip the USB dongle? Though questions 2) and 3) still apply