I bought Alanna a wii as an early birthday present, as I thought it would be really fun for us to play together and with friends. Would I go through with the purchase again?
Hell no.
In fact, I am really tempted to sell it. I am not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but I like these new party style games. Wii Sports is a perfect example, but the games I really love are the Rock Band/Guitar Hero style of games.
First let me start with Wii Sports, it is fun to play with friends, but I tire of it quickly. The mini games, are for the most part fun, but very limited.
The tennis is the best gameplay of the sports. The only problem is that the longest you can play is best 3 of 5 games. You can’t even play a full set. Its a very cool demo at most.
Baseball sucks. No defense, no intangibles, its hitting and pitching and nothing else.
Bowling is probably the best game. You get to play a full game, which is very nice, it actually feels like bowling!
Golf is my favorite. The game action is very cool having to hit with the right force and read the wind. The problem is that once again it lives in demo territory. There are only 4 clubs, 9 holes, and not much else.
Boxing. I’m not a fan, gameplay is iffy, as its tough to tell exactly what you are doing. I don’t ever play it.
Now wii sports is the best example of wii gameplay, but after 1 week I am getting bored with it. I am looking at some of the other sports games, but they don’t seem to be the same. For instance TopSpin 3 (tennis) makes you control the player with the numchuk, it makes it more of a gamer type game. Tiger Woods golf may be a saving grace, I am going to rent that this week.
Now the saving grace… The music games. No wait. They are a giant ripoff.
Rock Band is a perfect example. The PS2 version is $100, the XBOX/PS3/Wii versions are $170. The wii features match the PS2 version. Gah. The main kicker for me (and the reason I am returning Rock Band) is that there is no song downloads! Instead they try to sell you song discs. That is $30 for a bunch of songs, but I really only want 4 of the songs, and is $7.50 + tax per song. No way. Rock Band goes back.
Now what happens with the wii, I think Alanna wants to keep it, and it is her present, so I am fine keeping it, but unfortunately I am goign to have to spend another $500 to get a 360 and Rock Band, although I may wait to get Rock Band 2, and just buy the Rock Band 1 game. There should be good interoperability.
So in short, the wii is a big money waste. If you are a happy spending $500 for wii sports, then its fine, but there isn’t much else.