Press The Buttons: One Wiiear Later

One Wiiear Later

November 19, 2007

The Nintendo Wii has been in our hearts and in our homes for one year now and is still going strong. I wanted to take a moment to outline some of the ways I feel the Wii has succeeded in its first year among us and emphasize a few things that need improvement for the future.

Wiitastic

Fantastic Games. It's all about the games, right? Nintendo is still catering to us hardcore gamers despite the flood of casual gaming projects. The past year has brought us The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Paper Mario, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Super Mario Galaxy. Even the third party publishers are getting the hang of it with titles like Konami's Elebits, EA's The Godfather: Blackhand Edition, and Capcom's third run at Resident Evil 4.
Not All About The Games. Nintendo wants us to use the Wii every day for all kinds of things besides games, and while the News and Forecast Channels are neat enough, I find myself using the Internet Channel quite a lot to browse the web on my large television. It's perfect for watching YouTube, too, as my father can assert. While visiting me recently he spent a staggering six hours in a row with the Internet Channel and YouTube. The Wii must be doing something right when that happens.

Viva Virtual Console. I made a decision not re-buy any game on the Virtual Console service of retrogaming that I already owned in an older format. That means I've been exploring plenty of new-to-me games like Yoshi's Story, Sin & Punishment, Kirby's Adventure, and the Bonk trilogy. Then in a moment of weakness (as in, I didn't want to get up from my recliner to change consoles) I sprang for Super Mario Bros. 2. Now I'm starting to see the convenience in having my favorite games available at a whim on a single console. Whether it's my sense of laziness or my penny-pinching ways that will win out in the end remains to be seen.

Honorable Mentions: Classic Controller goodness, custom music in Excite Truck, import titles on Virtual Console

Wiivolting

Crappy Games. Not all of the third party publishers "get it", of course. I'm talking about the cavalcade of crap that is landing on the Wii just because it's a successful platform and cheap for which to produce. Games such as Ninjabread Man, Chicken Shoot, and M&M Kart Racing are just a small part of the poor game shelf of shame. Someone should really crack down on these lazy developers and get them to either tighten up their products or move on to other pastures.
Again With The Friend Codes. Yes, it's the reviled Friend Code method of address book management. They aren't going away, but at least they're better to deal with on the Wii (one code fits all) over the Nintendo DS (one code per game). There's been some great ideas for online messaging between friends (exchanging Friend Tokens in Metroid Prime 3, bragging rights in Super Mario Galaxy, trading custom levels in Elebits, etc.), but without an easier way to add friends to the system these features largely go unused.
Slender Storage Space. I've said it before, but it's worth mentioning again that as more and more downloadable goodness comes to the Wii, the system really needs more storage space beyond a mere 512 MB. We either need an external hard drive, a more open SD Card environment, or better Virtual Console management, but something has to be done sooner than later.