Post by Max "Snow" Andershi on Nov 17, 2006 1:20:37 GMT -5
Well, as I was checking out a mall in downtown Seattle trying to see whether or not the f.y.e. there was going to have Wiis for sale on Sunday (They're going to have two), I stopped over at the EB Games that was in the same mall..
Much to my surprise, they had a playable Wii demo station! I watched a kid trying to play ExciteTruck on it for a few minutes, and explained to him and his mother about the Gamecube functionality, as the boy was saying that it wasn't backwards compatible (Which it is), and then checked out the remote once he was done with it; yes, this EB was making people hand over their ID in order to check out the remote, which I think was a good thing. So I picked up the controller, put my hand through the strap, and moved over to the kiosk.
It was already in the Wii menu, so I started there instead of going directly into the game. The remote works surprisingly well, so it was easy to navigate the menus and do anything that I needed.. Or at least it would have been, had my hands not been shaking a bit from being excited. The first thing I ended up doing was heading into the Mii Channel, as that was the only functional channel considering the fact that the Nintendo servers aren't running yet.
The Mii channel was very easy to use as well; I was able to easily look at different Miis that were already on the system, and managed to create my own very easily. There were many different options in terms of making a Mii, but they were very easy to use, and I made a decent-looking guy. But alas, there were no options for Yoshies; maybe in a firmware update, Nintendo?
After that, I went back to the main menu and looked at the Game Channel. It has a nice little splash screen where it has a Wii disc and a Gamecube disc floating, and once it recognises which type of disc it's loading, the proper one drops into a slot that appears, and the real splash screen for the game loads up. As moot would say, it was pretty fancy.
Once I loaded up ExciteTruck, the controls were different than in the menus. Not worse, of course; simply different as I had to hold the remote on its side. Navigating the menus was done with the d-pad and the 1 and 2 buttons on the remote, so it felt more like classic consoles. The menus were pretty slick, and I easily chose a race difficulty and a track to race on, and got ready to start.
The first thing I'll say about steering in the game is that after a small deadzone, the remote is really sensitive; you don't have to move it too much before you're careening off to the left or the right, but it's pretty easy to get used to the control scheme. The game was really fun to play as well, with boost being a large factor in the races themselves, as well as the icons you can hit on the track that create large jumps in the terrain for you to hit. I crashed a few times, but if you tap the 2 button quickly enough as it shows you your crash, you can get a boost for when you respawn on the track, which adds a bit of fun to the game even if you're messing up at first. The race itself wasn't too difficult on the easiest setting, and once I finished it, I handed back the remote and got my ID back.
All in all, it was a really fun experience for me, and now I want a Wii even more, if that's possible.
So that's it from me for now; I'll make another thread later with impressions from waiting in line later if anyone wants it!
Much to my surprise, they had a playable Wii demo station! I watched a kid trying to play ExciteTruck on it for a few minutes, and explained to him and his mother about the Gamecube functionality, as the boy was saying that it wasn't backwards compatible (Which it is), and then checked out the remote once he was done with it; yes, this EB was making people hand over their ID in order to check out the remote, which I think was a good thing. So I picked up the controller, put my hand through the strap, and moved over to the kiosk.
It was already in the Wii menu, so I started there instead of going directly into the game. The remote works surprisingly well, so it was easy to navigate the menus and do anything that I needed.. Or at least it would have been, had my hands not been shaking a bit from being excited. The first thing I ended up doing was heading into the Mii Channel, as that was the only functional channel considering the fact that the Nintendo servers aren't running yet.
The Mii channel was very easy to use as well; I was able to easily look at different Miis that were already on the system, and managed to create my own very easily. There were many different options in terms of making a Mii, but they were very easy to use, and I made a decent-looking guy. But alas, there were no options for Yoshies; maybe in a firmware update, Nintendo?
After that, I went back to the main menu and looked at the Game Channel. It has a nice little splash screen where it has a Wii disc and a Gamecube disc floating, and once it recognises which type of disc it's loading, the proper one drops into a slot that appears, and the real splash screen for the game loads up. As moot would say, it was pretty fancy.
Once I loaded up ExciteTruck, the controls were different than in the menus. Not worse, of course; simply different as I had to hold the remote on its side. Navigating the menus was done with the d-pad and the 1 and 2 buttons on the remote, so it felt more like classic consoles. The menus were pretty slick, and I easily chose a race difficulty and a track to race on, and got ready to start.
The first thing I'll say about steering in the game is that after a small deadzone, the remote is really sensitive; you don't have to move it too much before you're careening off to the left or the right, but it's pretty easy to get used to the control scheme. The game was really fun to play as well, with boost being a large factor in the races themselves, as well as the icons you can hit on the track that create large jumps in the terrain for you to hit. I crashed a few times, but if you tap the 2 button quickly enough as it shows you your crash, you can get a boost for when you respawn on the track, which adds a bit of fun to the game even if you're messing up at first. The race itself wasn't too difficult on the easiest setting, and once I finished it, I handed back the remote and got my ID back.
All in all, it was a really fun experience for me, and now I want a Wii even more, if that's possible.
So that's it from me for now; I'll make another thread later with impressions from waiting in line later if anyone wants it!
)