I finally rented a game for the Wii other than Wii Sports. I got Rayman’s Raving Rabbids. This may seem like an unconventional choice considering the release of the new Zelda game and the popular Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, but I was captivated by the French commercial for Rabbids that I viewed on YouTube. It has a bunch of rabbids playing the game, and there is one particularly memorable scene where there are several rabbids huddled around a couch, all shaking their Wiimotes and nunchucks at the same time. Check it out here:

Rabbids French Trailer

My sister and I finally got around to playing it. The game is set up as levels of four or five mini-games in a gladiator arena base level. There are one or two games from different categories (rhythm, precision, etc.) that all involve different uses of the Wiimote. Many of the games fit into my ideal of mini-games, where you have to play them for two or three times before you can beat them. Some are more successful than others.

By far, I found the rhythm games to be the most fun. They involve shaking the Wiimote and nunchuck in time to the music as raddibs hit a certain spot on the screen. I enjoy music a lot and am a big fan of DDR, so it really appeals me. I also think it is one of the most fun games to watch. My sister and her boyfriend played it in versus mode, and it was hilarious to see two people seated side by side, shaking sticks in time to the ridiculous music and looking completely focused.

Another type of game that seems to translate successfully onto the Wii is the shooter. There are several Western-style shooters in rabbids that are mandatory to complete a level. The Wiimote is used like a computer mouse to aim at the rabbids and shoot them with a plunger gun. There are many friendly features, such as a fairly generous target range (anywhere on the body knocks most rabbids down), short breaks before strings of rabbids, and an endless supply of ammo. The nunchuck is shaken to reload, and the trigger in the right-hand Wiimote is your trigger.

The design is fairly intuitive, and this extends to a great GUI (Graphical User Interface). The ammo and score are displayed along the top. When ammo is depleted (5 plungers at a time), you they turn opaque. The colors and placement of the GUI is very easy to read over a short period of time and never clutters the view.

Some of the other games are severely flawed, however. I grew so frustrated playing one particular game that I quit playing and considered returning the game. It involved pointing the Wiimote at each rabbid’s snorkel mask and then pressing a button to shoot some sort of drink at them. The aiming was absolutely terrible. I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to aim at the eyes of the mask or the snorkel. Also, you have to manage the flow of the drink by constantly shaking the nunchuck, which wasn’t an easy task. I found it very stressful, as the rabbids would creep up to the front, getting bigger and bigger, and then scream in a gremlin-like voice.

This wasn’t the only game with flaws. Many of the games offer only a very brief set of instructions, which is fast and convenient but often fail to tell you important details. For example, on a labyrinth game, you had to figure out that you could slide your ball into a weak wall to break it and take a shortcut necessary to win. Certain secrets are fine with me, but I really prefer to play games where the secrets are not mandatory to win. Games become much more accessible to a wider audience if you save the secrets for those who really want to go through the trouble to find them. Secrets such as those involved to complete puzzles in adventure games turn many players off; veteran players often look up the answers online or use strategy guides. With so many games to play, there is less time to waste on frustrating secrets.

Despite Raving Rabbids’ flaws, I think I will continue playing it for a little while longer. It is nice to be able to pick up a game without worrying about when to find the next save point (each game is about a minute or two long). Even so, I do not find it a stellar use of the Wii technology and hope to find something that better utilizes the Wii’s potential.  

Many families want a Wii under their tree this Christmas. I was lucky enough to obtain one before Christmas. When I went to visit my mother for the holidays, she decided to invite her neighbors over to play Wii Sports.

These neighbors have lived in smaller towns in Arizona for a long time. They have three children, and the teenage son is the main gamer in the family. Their younger daughter plays computer games (her Christmas list included Civilization IV) and the rest of the family is more or less indifferent towards games.

At first, only the son and the younger daughter played the Wii. The son is a quiet high schooler, but he actually got somewhat animated and showed a sign of a smile while playing the Wii. He played tennis with his sister (who managed to beat him a couple of times) and really got into it. The younger daughter really enjoyed playing the Wii and stayed long after everyone else had gone to practice her skills in Wii tennis and golf.

A couple days later, they came back to play again. We had invited the children, but before we knew it, we had all five of our neighbors and two guests who had come over to see what all the commotion was about. The daughter played against her father in Wii Sports boxing. They stood side by side, staring intently at the screen, jabbing and dodging like pros. The father didn’t really play games, and yet he was able to find a technique that allowed him to consistently get strikes and spares in bowling.

It seems that the intuitive design of the motion control in Wii Sports allows people who don’t play games very often to jump right in with the regular gamers. Even people who may not have grown up with games can apply techniques from real life to the games in Wii Sports. However, one of the guests who came along was an engineer. He quickly noticed how the motion control was based more on acceleration than actual swings and arm motions. While it seems that the acceleration-based control was designed to coordinate with regular sports motions, another friend of mine noticed that games such as boxing can be beaten easily with simple wrist flicks.

While Wii Sports’ motion control may not be the most sophisticated in its techniques, it does allow great potential form bringing families and friends together. At its core, the Wii can become a great party console where everyone gets a turn – and a chance to try something really fun.  

I’m used to playing games with friends, but recently I had the opportunity to play video games instead of board games. I got together with some friends of a friend today, and we all played two very different games: Wii Sports and Defense of the Ancients (the Warcraft III mod).

Today was my first experience playing the Wii. While we only had one controller, it was a lot of fun to take turns and comment on each other’s playing. One of the guys was trying to coach my Wii tennis technique (i.e. “Watch your wrist”). During Wii boxing, cell phone movies were taken of the person playing (but not of the game). It was great fun watching ourselves and the ridiculous amount of effort we put into our Wii-mote punches. It’s easy to lose sight of your body when focusing on a game that requires motion control. Just like people in my class moving the PS3 controller, I wiggled and ducked around like there was an invisible bee trying to sting me.

I started to really fall in love with the Wii and its happy music. I love the fact that the sensor responds to the Wii-mote like a mouse on many of the menu screens. The design is sleek yet practical. I am going to get a Wii soon and now I’m way more excited than before. It’s hard to describe how fun it is – you have to play it for yourself.

After playing the Wii for a while, we started playing Defense of the Ancients (DotA). My friend is in love with that game, and we all needed to practice for a DotA LAN party taking place this Friday. We had three labtops and a desktop, so the player with the desktop was at a disadvantage (as you could see where his player was at a quick glance). We promised not to look, but our own characters kept us busy enough that it was hardly necessary.

Playing DotA with more people was definitely fun. Early on, I could see that one of the guys was Bartle’s killer player type because he loved to stalk characters and sneak up on people when they least expected it. Another guy had a great knowledge of items; he always knew what to get for each character at every stage of the game. As a new player to DotA, I had primarily been focused on fighting and found their player preferences to be inspiring. I never realized there was so much strategy involved in what had seemed like a fairly straightforward game.

While I didn’t win, I still enjoyed playing because it was an incredibly social experience. I loved having your friends and enemies in the same room and being able to trash-talk or strategize. There is nothing quite like hearing your enemy scream out of shock when you kill them. I hope I can experience that someday as I become a better DotA player.  

I got to play a PS3 today. A recent graduate in my program came into one of my classes, and she happens to be developing a downloadable game for the PS3. I was excited to hear her speak about how she started her career and even more excited to play the prototype on the PS3.

While the prototype was not complete, much of the artwork and animation was in place. My classmates and I were all very impressed when she put in the cheats so we could see the final forms for the creatures you can control.

I watched a few people play using only motion control - no buttons or analog sticks. The game is a 2D/3D hybrid that is very dynamic and captivating. It was amusing to watch some of my classmates use the motion control, over-compensating and wiggling around in an uncoordinated dance.

When it was finally my turn, I moved the controller in more moderate movements and found that it was quite intuitive. I enjoyed moving my character with only motions themselves, rather than being artificially separated with button-mashing or stick-pushing.

However, I found that the motion control was not as revolutionary as I would have hoped. At its heart, I was still just moving a controller around, but at least it was in a 3D environment (rather than the confining limits of analog sticks, triggers, and buttons). While the motion control felt natural, it was not as if I merged with the game. Even if I was playing on an enormous projection, it made no difference.

So where will games go next? How will motion control become innovative rather than boring? I am excited to play the Wii and compare. I hope developers will take advantage of the next-gen possibilities of the Wiimote and the PS3’s motion controls as they become more commonplace. We may not have the Virtual Reality we once dreamed of for the future, but at least we can create a more immersive experience through the motion control in the next-gen consoles.