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Nintendo Wii: the Ars Technica review

Nintendo throws its hat in the next-generation console ring with the release …

Hey, that looks like mii!

The user interface is very easy to navigate with the Wiimote, and Nintendo has separated all their content into "channels." You can hit the disc channel to play a your game, hit one of the system channels to play a virtual console game, go to the Mii channel to make your little guys, and the photo channel to manipulate your photos. It's all pretty simple, and the Wiimote uses rumble and its speaker to give you feedback when you touch icons, making it a joy to use. There are a ton of empty channels, though, so I'm wondering what Nintendo has planned for the future.

I'm a sexy beast

The Mii channel lets you make a little avatar for yourself, and while rudimentary, it's fairly easy to make someone look like you or a friend. I started with an oval face, added some glasses, a beard, and a receding hairline, and I had a depressingly accurate picture of myself. Even better is the fact that this avatar is what you'll be using in Wii sports, and I'm guessing you'll see support for your Mii characters in future games. You can also send your Mii over to other Wiis (this is getting confusing) if you exchange friend codes; the downloaded Miis will also pop up in Mii-enabled games. Weird. I don't like the idea of playing a game and suddenly seeing a friend pitching against me.

I'm making myself a little friend

The system also includes an SD card slot where you can save your games, and on Excite Truck you can even use MP3s saved on an SD card as part of a custom soundtrack. That's a nice feature, and SD cards are large and relatively inexpensive; I'm glad I won't have to spend $30 or so for 8 MB or so of storage. The annoying thing is that's the only way to move pictures onto the system; it wouldn't let me use the USB cable on my camera or my thumbdrive. Bummer.

This system doesn't do much in terms of multimedia, but that's not what Nintendo is going for. You can't watch a DVD, or listen to your songs, or play your pictures over. Okay, scratch that last one, there actually IS an image editing program included with the system. It seems kind of odd, but the idea of using the Wiimote to edit pictures like a Wacom tablet is appealing.

What an odd thing to include

The photo channel is fairly self-explanatory. You have pictures on an SD card, and you can view them. You can also view pictures posted to Nintendo's Wii forum, but currently that functionality is not working.

Nintendo's push with this feature is that it's "easy" to use, and that much is true. In our testing, the Wii snagged pictures off the card quickly, and you could launch into a slide show in a matter of seconds. The Wii will also play back movies shot with digital cameras, and if you're feeling sporting, you can actually break movies and photos in puzzles, the latter playing while you put the pieces back together. It's nifty, but not really something we see ourselves returning to.

The state of the art. Literally

The issue of the Wii's power is one that's going to cause a lot of argument and division among the gaming public. Put simply, the system isn't that powerful. Apparently it's supposed to blow the GameCube out of the water, but I haven't seen anything that proves that to me yet. The very fact that it maxes out at 480p hurts my soul. I'm so spoiled by high-definition consoles after my year with the 360 and the weekend with the PS3 that going back to SD just bothers me. I find that SD graphics now look muddy, and it's distracting. If you've been living in next-generation land for a while, the Wii's graphics are going to put you off at first.

The challenge—and I think this is a good one to have—is for the artists and developers to make sure that the design is strong enough to stand up to the technological shortcomings. Look at Zelda: Twilight Princess; it's not that it's intricate graphically, it's that the design work is so striking that it's easy to get lost in it. In Trauma Center the graphics are stylized, look great, and fit the game. It's not a graphically pretty game, but it fits the theme, and the controls are so engrossing you forget about the simplistic nature of the visuals. Monkey Ball is bright and cartoon-like—a perfect fit for the system. It's only on games like Red Steel that try to be slightly more realistic that the shortcomings really become apparent.

The graphics aren't ever going to be great on the system. It's just a fact of the Wii. Developers can make good-looking games, but they will have to be a little more creative. Sadly, that isn't something most developers are good at. Expect some very uneven-looking games in the future.

Documentation! What a novel idea

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