Austin Wii Party

Last night I attended the Austin Nintendo Wii party- about 20 people were selected, told to call a number and leave our name and phone number, and then contacted back by a Nintendo rep who gave us instructions and a password. On the day of the party everyone recieved a text message detailing where to go, and we were met by a couple of vans and some Nintendo reps who had us surrender our cellphones, show ID, and give our passwords. I took my DS just in case, but no DS-Wii interoperability was being demoed at the party. We were taken to what looked like an artspace with about 5 HDTV's, Wiis, and a multitude of Wii remotes. Blessedly, beer, softdrinks and pizza were also served. We jumped right into the games pretty quickly. The games being demoed were Wii Sports, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, a Marvel comics game, a Madden game, and a racing game (who's name I have unfortunately spaced on, but I'm sure someone here will refresh my memory).

The first game I picked up was Trauma Center, which was a good place to get started using the Wii Remote. I had heard a few reports of people having difficult times with the remote at various demos, but I found it fairly easy to pick up on, using the metaphor of a laser pointer for Trauma center, and then refining that with the general location awareness of Wario Ware and Wii Sports. The demos of some of the games really only allowed a taste of the possibilities and got us accustomed to working with the controller- Trauma Center and Wario only had a brief set of levels, Twilight Princess had one figting tutorial level and a demo of a fishing mini game (the fishing was one of the most impressive interactions I had with the wii, great use of feedback and physical movements, and the camera movements and water looked great). Wii Sports seemed to be the most appealing package- The bowling and tennis games were easy to pick up, simple and very fun. I especially had a good time taking part in a 4 person tennis match, and could definitely see myself playing the tennis and bowling for hours with my drunken friends. The boxing seemed like a good idea, but I couldn't quite get the hang of using the controllers for it. The swordfighting in Zelda also wasn't as precise and reactive as I had hoped, but I've heard that a star wars lightsaber game is in the works that will use the full range of motion for more precise sword movements.

All in all I was very impressed with my first look at the Wii. Nintendo sent us on our way with coupons for free Wii Remotes when we purchase the console. I left a little buzzed, with a slightly sore shoulder from tennis, and a definite feeling I was going to pick a Wii up in November.

Comments

[CPFace]

Awesome. Gosh, there's a million things I want to know, but damned if I know how to put the questions into words.

Okay, one question for now, if you're taking them. I've heard it mentioned that depth -- the distance between the remote and the viewing screen/sensor bar -- would be some sort of game mechanic in Trauma Center. Did you get any sort of impression of if that was actually implemented or how well it worked?

[Wiley Wiggins]

I didn't notice any depth sensitivity in Trauma center, but I only played the first few levels, which were mostly making surface incisions, pulling stuff out with tweezers, and suturing stuff up. It's very likely that the procedures get much more difficult later, as the ones I went through were pretty easy and very forgiving of sloppy movements and mistakes.

There was definitely depth sensitivity in the Wii Sports games.

[CPFace]

Awesome, thank you. :) Ever since I've started hearing about how the system works, I've been wondering exactly what the motion sensitivity is capable of. Hearing this is very encouraging.

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