In Defense of the Wii
My old bosses at BioWare had a fun discussion about the Wii, which led to the topic being raised at the BioWare forums. Here’s a summary of my posts. Feel free to chime in!
Both Ray & Greg are avid gamers, probably more so than about anyone I know. They got into the gaming biz because they loved games, and that hasn’t changed in any way since BioWare became a success story. They still game more than most, and understand it better than most. Talking to either of them is always an enlightening experience.
But for Greg to assert that the Wii is a different kind of fun because it’s more toy than gaming console, and for Ray to disagree but only within that same context, because playing tennis with the Wii remote is similar to playing tennis in real life with an actual racket… it confuses me. For two reasons:
- One, there’s more to the Wii than the casual, Wii Sports-esque titles (i.e. mass mainstream titles).
- Two, when is a tool that increases immersion a bad thing?
1)
To address the first point, there’s so much else out there on the Wii that is every bit as story driven as a game like BioWare’s Mass Effect or Bethesda’s Oblivion, that is atmospheric and so forth - and everything that, I suppose, differentiates a title from a “casual” one. Mario Galaxy is not a casual title. Paper Mario is not a casual title. Metroid is not a casual title. And these games rely on the unique tools that the Wii remote provides. Plus, they’re not cross-platform exceptions, like Bully or the Godfather (story-driven games that are arguably made better as a result of the Wii remote). In other words, I don’t think you can say that the Wii is “generally” a toy-gaming console when there is such a tremendous amount of story-driven titles.
Every platform, including the PC, offers casual gaming. The Wii, in my opinion because of the Wii remote, just does it better. Let me put it this way. Is the upcoming Mario Kart a “toy game” because the controller usage resembles that of a steering wheel? Or, rather, is it just a game, a casual game, with a more interesting control mechanism?
2)
Which brings me to the second point. Yes, I understand the argument that Wii Sports is a toy in the sense that the game simulates playing sports; Mario Party is a toy in the sense that the game simulates playing a board game. Rock Band (Wii, 360, PS3, PS2) is a toy in the sense that the game simulates jamming as a band. All of these games generate fun, perhaps, more so from your interactions with the group and less, specifically, from the game.
But if these are the examples of “toy gaming”, then I’d argue that toy gaming simply provides tools that allow for a much higher level of immersion.
In fact, didn’t BioWare, once upon a time, when the tools became available, make a leap from more strategic control of the characters (i.e. Baldur’s Gate, i.e. you tell the player to swing his sword and he swings it when it’s his turn) to the higher immersion of active character control (i.e. Jade Empire or Mass Effect, i.e. making the character move and specifying exactly where he shoots and when)? So what’s wrong with taking it another step and letting you perform the running and shooting on a physical level, which is a step the Wii is attempting?
Conclusion:
If Ray & Greg want to assert that casual gaming or higher levels of risk awareness resulting from big-budget game development is hurting the industry, I can get into that argument and likely agree with it on many levels. But I can’t understand a comment that says that “If gaming is defined by story, then generally Wii may not be.”
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