Wii Music

Wii Music

This was always such a wonderful idea in principle, but sadly one that has failed to find its rhythm or tempo. More worrying still is that Wii Music could struggle in striking a chord with any particular audience. Yes, we’re quite disappointed.

We’ve loved the idea since Nintendo first aired its orchestral conduct-a-long demo. Have fun, feel the music, express yourself. Coming from Nintendo you’d expect this to be another Damascus experience. Wii Music had potential to really resonate with gamers and casual players alike. In fact the concept still does.

There are still flashes of genius, and an admirable leaning toward ‘real’ music making and appreciation as an alternative to the mime-along antics of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Using your imagination to transform the Wii remote and nunchuck into any one of 60 possible instruments is pure child’s play in a positive way, and occasionally this doesn’t feel so bad.

Freedom to ‘Jam’ on any instrument of your choosing does raise a smile. But when you want to go beyond just shaking your arms to prod at a keyboard, pluck at a guitar, or parp random notes on a trumpet, say you want to play lots of little high notes then a couple of big low chords, you can’t. The melody is pre-determined by the game, and if you don’t much like what you’re hearing what’s the point of continuing?

Definitely Wii Music won’t appeal to the fabled ‘post pub’ crowd, or even students hooked on Guitar Hero, SingStar and the rest. It’s too childish. But as a possible fun-filled educational pastime it fares only slightly better.

The Pitch Perfect game offers eight levels of challenges increasing in difficulty. You’re asked to identify which of two instruments is playing the lower or higher note, arrange trios to match harmonies being played, or line up a group of musicians to correspond with the rhythm in a couple of bars. The pitfalls that emerge here are that, because all the instruments are so poorly synthesised you’ll have trouble identifying specific ones – especially between a guitar and harpsichord, which sound sort of like a marimba too… Also, the clutch mechanic of the Wii remote (used to pick up Miis) is clumsy enough to frustrate while grabbing at musicians with the clock ticking down.

A couple of highlights should you still be determined to make a go of this: Bell Ringing is quite lovely, but as with all modes there are only a handful of tunes to master. If you quite like jiggling around at various speeds to improvise jazzed up versions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, you can save your performance and mail it to friends. And, okay, the Pitch Perfect game can be rewarding when it isn’t being crippled by the technology. Oh, and you can use that Wii Fit balance board as a drum, hence making it better value for money than you thought – for a short while.

And so, it is with a heavy sigh that we can’t honestly recommend this particular flash of Nintendo inspiration. A bit of a bum note.

2 out of 5