PAX 2008: Hands on with Wii Music

Written by Brian Szabelski

SEATTLE — The general consensus on Wii Music, at least based off their disastrous E3 press conference showing, is that the game is utter garbage, a waggle-fest geared towards the preschool and the extremely elderly. However, after getting hands-on time at PAX with Wii Music, I can tell you those perceptions are incorrect. Wii Music is not nearly as bad as the E3 crowd might have made it out to be. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s not utter garbage.

First off, if you are a “hardcore” gamer, this game is not designed with you in mind. Some people may take an interest in certain aspects of the game, which I will give detail on in a bit, but the simplicity of Wii Music is clearly geared towards those new to the gaming scene.

At PAX, the free play and drum set modes were available for play. The free play mode is the one you are most familiar with. Free play has a “no-fail” setting by default, meaning you can’t lose no matter what you play. And yes, there are note charts for each of the songs, but you don’t have to play along exactly on the right beat. This turns free play into more of an experiment than anything else, but there will be close to 60 instruments in the final version of the game, ranging from the now-infamous dog suit to drums, guitars, and saxophones. Each of these instruments has different motions that are used to play it, and pressing different buttons on the Wii remote or nunchuk will produce different notes. At any time, up to four players can participate in a song, with six total musicians on stage: a minimum of two musicians are always computer-controlled, but you can select which parts you want to play.

The PAX line-up featured only 5 songs, including the themes from Super Mario Bros.and The Legend of Zelda; when the game is released, a full roster of 50 songs will be available, mixing more modern songs along with classical tunes and Nintendo themes. In this sense, it’ll probably be similar to Nintendo’s previous music game offering,Donkey Konga. Each of the songs can be played at a number of different tempos and in a variety of different styles, including Japanese, reggae, rock and country among others. It’s a nice way to change the game up a little bit, but it’s not the only way.

While being able to record your performances and send them to your friends doesn’t sound like a whole lot, Wii Music offers a few options that add to the replay value. You can rate your performances on how well you thought you did, but your friends can adjust those scores if they think you did better or worse. While that all still sounds like nothing, there is one more thing your friends can do with your performances: remix them. Wii Music will allow you to change the tempo, style, and instrumentation of performances your friends send to you, offering up a chance to change things around a little bit and experiment. I personally think that feature will be one of the hidden gems in Wii Music, much like how the music maker was in Mario Paint.

Also on display at PAX was a drum set mini-game. By pressing different buttons on the Wii remote and nunchuk, you will be able to hit different drums and cymbals on the set. The Wii balance board is used to control the bass drum and hi-hat cymbal pedals. It takes a bit of getting used to this setup, but after a while, it feels natural. Most of the people I saw playing this at PAX seemed to enjoy it, though they weren’t going as nuts as Ravi Drums was at E3. Other games that will be included are the conducting mini-game from E3 a few years back as well as other drum-like solo games and lessons on how to play.

Like other Wii series titles, graphics are kept rather simple on purpose, both in design and in its bright color scheme. There are different backgrounds in free play mode to pick from, but overall, everything about this game screams simple. For Wii Music, it works fine, because the game doesn’t need to be graphics intensive like Fallout 3 orGears of War 2.

Wii Music is not intended to be Guitar Hero or Rock Band. It’s more likeElectroplankton, an experiment in games for the newer gamer. At the end of the day,Wii Music is going to sell well, perhaps not as well as Wii Play or Wii Fit, but it is not the end of Nintendo, like some will have you believe. With so much of Wii Musicshrouded in mystery, though, keep an eye out for some future announcements from Nintendo on more content for the game.

The Penny Arcade Expo ran August 29-31. The 5-year-old exposition is regarded at one of the seminal in the video game industry, adding music and pop culture elements. The Miniboses performed this year.

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In Gaming News, Technology on September 12, 2008 at 21:34

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