I purchased my Wii about a year ago and ended up buying an Xbox 360 about 6 months later. This happened for three main reasons. (1) The other Verbal Brew boys each got one. (2) NHL 2K9 for the Wii – the less said about that abomination, the better. (3) Looking at all the vast array of amazing titles coming out for the 2008 Holiday season and seeing Nintendo’s offering consisting exclusively of Animal Crossing: City Folk and Wii Music. According to Nintendo’s advertising, AC:CF was aimed at house wives, which I’m rather confident, I am not. So that left Wii Music which was getting slammed in all the reviews that I read. Needless to say I was a little underwhelmed. But curiosity reared its ugly head as it is often prone to do and I recently found myself at the video store, rental in hand.
So let’s take a look at this shall we. There are three different modes to choose from: Jam mode, Video mode, and Mini Games.
Jam Mode
Jam mode has three different modes, improv, quick jam and custom mode. The custom mode allows you to select songs and play through them by yourself or with others joining in. Depending on the song you can have different instrumentation and can replay the song and switch up which instruments you are playing. But herein lies plenty of issues. A metronome clicks you by with no option to turn it off which I found rather annoying. Following along with the pattern presented is next to impossible although you are encouraged to be creative with the music. But then again, there is no scoring system so there is no consequence in doing poorly on a song. Or for that matter doing well on a song. The improv jam allows you and your friends to randomly to play your respective instruments in a jam. The idea is that you and your friends are given the freedom to play whatever you want but unfortunately there is no guidance given as to what you are supposed to do so unless you really know what you’re doing it can fall apart in a hurry.
Video Mode
Once you’ve completed a jam, you can get into the video mode. It allows you to make a video fo your performance and it actually looks fine but there are no customization options with your video. You do have the option of sending the video to friends but I didn’t see the point of doing that since everyone’s’ will pretty much look the same anyway. You can also create album covers for your performance but you only have pre-made templates to choose from with few options available to change things up.
Mini Games
Cause god forbid we get through a Wii game without mini games. Ok so first up is Mii Maestro which is a conducting game. And you know what? This is actually pretty fun. The Wii-mote lends itself pretty naturally to conducting and the range of your motion can control the volume of the orchestra. I also found great amusement in pulling a Bugs Bunny and making the orchestra hold notes forever and watching them sweat it out. Ok, maybe they weren’t really “sweating” but allow me my god complex. The only issue is that it’s quite brief with only five tunes to work with. There’s Handbell Harmony which is basically the same principal as Guitar Hero but with all the cool sucked out of it but with hand-bells instead. Again, only five tunes available. Pitch Perfect is another game where you are quizzed on pitches. For example finding the pitches that match or sorting the lowest to highest. Not bad to pass the time and it might be a good learning game for young children.
The Instruments and music
Oh dear sweet Jesus where to start. The majority of music is midi. Which in case you’re not sure what that is, think of a Casio keyboard circa 1986. And if that doesn’t explain it, pick up your phone and start pressing buttons and try to play a song. Yup sounds just like that. Playing the instruments themselves for the most part is not immersive at all. Playing a guitar consists of the nunchuck in your left hand and aimlessly failing around the wii-mote with your right. Playing a saxophone/trumpet/any wind instrument consists of pressing the 1 & 2 buttons. But even if you disregard the physical playing of the instruments, the fact remains they all sound like ass. Most of the instruments sound like they were produced by a keyboard regardless if they’re a string or wind instrument. To put it in perspective, find a pissed off cat and antagonize it and see what sound it makes. That’s what the guitar sounds like in this game.
One neat idea they’ve tried with this game is incorporating the balance board in to play the drums. You use the wii-mote and nunchuck for snare and high-hat and tap the balance board with your feet to simulate a bass drum and high-hat. Unfortunately I found this took a lot of practice to use and I found the balance board wasn’t always accurate in producing what I was playing.
Now I could go on about the list of available songs in this game but take a look for yourself. And keep in mind, that for the most part, these aren’t the actual songs. They’re usually midi versions of them. You also only start off with 3 or 4 and have to play through to unlock the rest. And while it is cool to unlock the Zelda and Mario themes, having to suffer through numerous renditions of Daydream Believer is simply not worth it.
With Guitar Hero and Rock Band dominating the world, it would seem obvious that a high standard was already in place for music based games. Not only for the way the games are played but also in the quality and volume of original music being used in those games. And while Nintendo try to do something unique with Wii Music they seemed to have missed that standard by a long shot. Avoid like the fucking plague.
