tomhudson's Journal: [Wii] Wii Music

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Picked this one up, along with a couple of other titles, last night. This is the sort of game that, if you have to babysit some kids, you're going to like it - they can make noise (up to 4 players at once) while the adults sit in the kitchen over coffee.

Actually, this is the sort of game that makes sense to buy a second Wii (or have someone bring one over) when there are going to be young kids around - let the kids play on the old CRT tv, while the "adults" play on the big screen.

Game play? Move, shake, or rattle the wii and nunchuk. Make noise^Wmusic. Make music videos to unlock new tunes. Let the kids send their videos to each other via WiiConnect24 (the recipient has to have a copy of the game to view them ... oh well, one way to sell more copies of a game).

I can see kids playing this, then wanting to graduate to "the real thing" at some point.

Pros:

• Pretty much a "pick me up and play" game.
• As you unlock features, you get more instruments (there are supposed to be something like 60 in there...)
• Even a 3-year-old will like this

Cons:

• Age appeal is pretty much pre-teen
• It's not evident from the screen that you have to make videos to unlock stuff (I guess this is one way to encourage people to buy the game rather than pirate, so that you actually read the manuals*)

General Beef

* A LOT of the manuals I've looked at so far are written with terrible colour schemes - black letters on a dark background, light letters on a light background, in what could almost be called a micro-font. Bring a really bright light and a magnifying glass to help decipher them. Better yet, scan them into your computer and blow them up + tweak colours and contrast to turn them into something legible.

On another note ...

The stores are having a hard time keeping certain Wii stuff in stock. What I was actually looking for yesterday was 3 more Nintendo-brand racing wheels for this weekend - all they had in stock were the aftermarket "sports kits", at double the price, that come with extra stuff^Wcrap I don't want.

One of my friends mentioned in an email that she's been thinking of buying a Wii for a while, and either I'll schlep the whole thing down to her place sometime, or they'll come and visit, to give it a whirl. Her and her husband have two young kids (pre-school), so Wii Music is probably the right title to "get them started."