Last Wednesday, my friend invited me to her house to play the Wii, nintendo's latest gaming system... I saw the commercials, which unfortunately I didn't believe...
however after experiencing Wii for myself, all I can say is WOW...the gaming industry is getting more high tech and more awesome... I'm not surprised that technology can do this, but I am amazed (aside- why can't people spend more time developing this type of technology instead of weapons of mass destruction?)....
for those of you who don't know what Wii, here are some of its feautures:
it's like a playstation (it uses discs)
it's whitish and boxy
it has wireless control (a sensor that can detect its movement)
-enables it to be held in various ways depending on the game
it's very interactive (you're not just pushing buttons, you're swinging your arms, and a lot of eye hand coordination, twisting your wrists)
it's almost like dance dance revolution's dance mat but it's focusing on the upper body
I played this game, I forgot what it's called but it has words such as, "Monkey...splitting...balls." in its title- it has a lot of party games like darts, baseball (hitting homeruns), ring toss, jump rope etc.
then I played this game that's sports focused...I liked the bowling, there's the tennis, which can be dangerous-- I almost got carried away because I moved my hand as if I really held a tennis racket (I almost hit my friend, I almost hit the ceiling fan with the controller).. there's golf and baseball...
inspite of the awesomeness of the sensors, there are ways to cheat the system (i discovered while playing bowling, cheating the moves) inspite of this knowledge, I still like playing without cheating, it's more fun not cheating and actually winning truely, not taking shortcuts and going through the full motion, for example, a golf or baseball swing, is rewarding in itself)...
I played a revamped version of Mario Bros....there's a new villain, Count Bleck, he's a interdimensional vampire and of course he wants to detroy the world by making it void, he jumps through different dimensions from 2-d to 3-d and possibly 4-d....there were instances when the game sort of broke through the fourth wall and conversed with the players (it's all scripted but still pretty wacky...)
this dimensional hopping is taken further...the game starts out as a flat 2-d, classic Mario, then later Mario gains the power to change perspective and go into 3-d world...this is possible by changing views-- this game, the idea behind is really playful- talk about messing with your concept of illusion and space... here's an example, the flat Mario is walking sideways, then switch to the 3-d view, Mario remains flat but the scene changes, one sees the cut out board (this is advantageous because it allows an entryway to an impasse)
it's mind twisting... the drawback--Mario couldn't stay too long in the 3-d world, if he did, his hp level would go down...
Wii is pretty novel, virtual reality to another level, try it and see for yourself!
Posted by Michael Diezmos at June 1, 2007 10:42 PM