Video Games

Nintendo promises that once we get our hands on the Wii remote at E3, we’ll feel the difference and accept that looks are only secondary.

Despite the silly name, Nintendo’s Wii held a packed Kodak Theatre spellbound for an hour this morning in Hollywood. During a pantomime meets self-help rally, Nintendo explained why ‘playing = believing’ with regards to its GameCube successor, Wii.

Company spokesman Reggie Fils-Aime asked his audience to ignore the calculating left side of the brain for a while and indulge the more creative right. For Nintendo, removing itself from the race for the greatest visuals to pursue a brand new feel in gaming is the most rewarding path to take. The on-stage presentations certainly looked like Wii could be a great deal of fun. We won’t know for sure, however, until day one of the show starting at 10am, 9 May out here in the US.

Nintendo’s famous creator, and father of Super Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto established a playful tone to the event as soon as the house lights dimmed. Dressed in a tuxedo and brandishing the Wii remote as though it were a conductor’s baton, Miyamoto enthusiastically waved along the overture to Legend of Zelda. A cartoon orchestra played mechanically on the large projector screen behind its leader. When the performance was over there came a round of enthusiastic applause, with smiles on the faces of folks all around. We can all question how effective such an idea is tomorrow. Today, let’s assume that we will enjoy being the next Simon Rattle or von Karajan.

Seizing his opportunity amid the buoyant mood, Nintendo spokesman Reggie Fils-Aime quickly trotted through the reasons why the name ‘Wii’ works for Nintendo. Comparing it to established brands such as Lexus and Google seemed rather feeble however – it isn’t just a strange name, it’s a name with unfortunate associations ripe for playground ridicule. We’re stuck with it but at least Nintendo, via Fils-Aime, has acknowledged that Wii is weird for many of us to put it politely.

The second major hurdle facing Wii became apparent during the target videos of upcoming Wii games. Not one of the games previewed looked to be an improvement over GameCube, some arguably worse. Prior to this morning’s event Nintendo has spoken of Wii boasting roughly twice the visual impact of GameCube. So far this isn’t coming across at all. Excite Truck, especially, looks rougher than the off-road terrain it portrays. Classic videogame icons such as Sonic the Hedgehog and of course Mario fared better, chiefly because of their simplistic colourful designs.

Indeed, the greatest visuals of the Wii games demonstrated were those of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. This is after all a GameCube game to begin with, reworked as a standalone Wii edition to be released alongside the dedicated GC version simultaneously at launch (Fourth Quarter, 2006). Yesterday Sony wheeled out Gran Turismo in high definition and following Nintendo’s event Microsoft would show Gears of War for Xbox 360. For Nintendo to push Twilight Princess as the hottest Wii experience of the show would’ve been ludicrous, were the Wii controller not so involving.

Two Nintendo employees formed a double act to demonstrate Twilight Princess, during which time we learned how the main controller houses a speaker and rumble feature to feedback information to the player. Again, we can only comment on how intriguing this looked to the audience – arrows being targeted and fired, Link’s shield being used to ram enemies with a shove of the hand, and combinations of stabbing and slicing movements using the smaller Nunchuk attachment. Manipulating the various physical elements of dungeons in the new Zelda will also be physically involving, lifting crates with the Nunchuk unit, then tossing them aside using the standard Wii remote. Hearing the familiar Zelda chime from the handset, in addition to incidental cues such as the bow string tightening and arrows springing free make this a fascinating gaming tool.

Nintendo’s decision to release The Legend of Zelda as two variations – one GC, one Wii – isn’t quite as smart as launching one version that can be played on both. Perhaps this would’ve been impractical from a storage side of things but it would’ve been nicer to experiment with the two control styles in the same game.

Super Mario Galaxy curiously took a backseat to the entire event, although repeated glimpses of its whacky levels raised a few whoops from the audience. The only other ‘serious’ Nintendo produced game was Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, described by Fils-Aime as, “the most intuitive fps ever.” Words like amazing, and astonishing in reference to all Wii games were avoided throughout in favour of references to specifically how we should feel. In Excite Truck, you should feel like you’re driving. In Disaster, a survival-oriented experience, you will feel the panic. Activision’s Tony Hawk’s game created especially for Wii requires you to feel the balance while grinding on rails etc. While in Nintendo’s own Project H.A.M.M.E.R. it will feel just great to smash things up.

Ubisoft’s Yakuza adventure, Red Steel, also looked weaker than early screenshots have suggested. But yet again the demonstration from its creative team garnered keen curiosity about its control method. Accurate shots to the body, enhanced by freezing time to carefully pick them out using the Wii remote, led to gameplay innovations such as gestures instructing prisoners to kneel and submit. Sword fighting looked to be miraculously intuitive, blocking and striking with combined use of Wii remote and Nunchuk. Red Steel, of all the Wii games on show, was the only title aiming for next-generation visual tricks, such as shafts of light from bullet holes in paper screens. Not hugely amazing, but adding to the atmosphere nonetheless.

Even given all of the above, we might still have emerged from the Kodak Theatre today doubting Nintendo’s chances of repeating the Nintendo DS success story with Wii. Then Nintendo got around to showing Wii Sports, a three-in-one sports package including Golf, Tennis and Baseball to launch simultaneously with Wii. As the Nintendo team played a game of Tennis doubles on the big screen, making so many different varieties of shot and all apparently very naturally performed, it wasn’t hard to imagine something like this taking off in households worldwide. A further promotional video showing groups of young friends playing mini-games (Wario Ware) involving Hula Hoops, balancing acts and chopping through objects helped galvanize the impression of an entertainment centre geared toward family and friends as opposed to an intimidating games console.

President Satoru Iwata’s closing words, detailing how Wii can be always connected to the Nintendo online network receiving updates while in standby mode – “ a system that is new everyday” – added significantly to the curiosity value of Wii. Communication has always been the heartbeat of the greatest Nintendo projects, and the ability to treat Wii as a playful entertainment network always subtly evolving could prove delightful in its simplicity for people unused to how videogames work. At the same time, fanatical gamers and game creators can look toward more in-depth activities benefiting from ‘while you were sleeping’ game content to wake up to.

In its own way, Nintendo has arrived at an elegant solution to its own vision of home entertainment. Simple themes with refreshingly human benefits that don’t require huge investments of time, cash or any degree of technical fascination – or as Reggie Fils-Aime put it, “the heat of emotion not the chill of technology.”