Wii Music Too Casual for Casual Gamers?

With the release of Wii Music this week, a lot of gamers are paying special attention to how it’s received by the general public. Why would that be?

Because, for many gamers, Wii Music is symbolic of Nintendo’s movement away from traditional “games.” When it was first presented at E3, the buzz was hardly positive. With no rules and essentially no way to win at the game, some critics considered it nothing but a toy. For core gamers, it seemed outright alien. It was a game you couldn’t play.

Now, the release imminent, gamers are wondering whether Nintendo’s full shift to casual will replicate the successes of Wii Play and Wii Fit. If the game does well, it could very well mean the end of core Nintendo games. After all, the games will go where the money goes.

So with that in mind, it’s interesting to see that the game’s launch in New York was pretty tame by Nintendo’s standards. As Kotaku wondered aloud, does a poor launch mean that Wii Music is the first failure in Nintendo’s casual foray, or does it just mean that casual gamers aren’t likely to attend launch events. I have my own thoughts on Wii music – and they go down like this:

I have a suspicion that Wii music won’t be successful (or as successful as Nintendo’s other casual games) and the reason is that it’s too casual for even casual gamers.

The problem is, casual gamers are already used to rhythm-based games and these games are not nearly as casual as Wii Music.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band are phenomenal successes and certainly a large reason for that is their wide adoption by those that fit into the casual game territory. As Gamesutra points out, the term causal game is pretty broad and Guitar Hero and Rock Band definitely fall under the genre. What that means is that a large percentage of the people Nintendo has targeted previously with the likes of Wii Play and Wii Fit have likely played a plastic guitar or drum set before.

That said, these people are already familiar with the structures of these games, which arguably are a grey area between casual and non-casual. Sure, you can pick up Guitar Hero and just start playing, but it adheres to some pretty traditional structures, such as points, bonuses for doing well, and penalties or ending the game for failing. Though the rhythm and music components of these games give them a broad appeal, they still play like core games.

Now, Nintendo is trying to entice this audience to play a similar rhythm and music-based game, except without the need for points, or even winning. I would argue that this won’t appeal to casual gamers coming up on Guitar Hero or Rock Band because they’ve already been socialized by these other game structures – they’ve come to expect points for playing well and losing for not playing well – and by removing this aspect of the game, you are removing one of the, now, key reasons they play it.

I could certainly be proven wrong this December at the registers, but I’m betting that the people Nintendo hopes will play Wii Music are the same ones saving up to get Guitar Hero and Rock Band instead.

Call of Duty 5 Beta Impressions

So somehow the gods smiled on me and I got a beta test for Call of Duty 5. After the highly successful Modern Warfare, we turn back to World War 2 and back to Treyarch, the much-maligned maker of the lackluster Call of Duty 3. So what’s the verdict? Did Treyarch make good on a promise to improve on their last effort? Did they top Infinity Ward’s gem?

The answer is yes, but it’s also no….the beta gave me access to World at War’s (WAW) multiplayer with five modes and three maps to try. Here’s my point-by-point breakdown:

Maps

Good

• Castle and Roundhouse are solidly put together; there’s a ton of variety – open spaces and tight quarters. This makes for interesting matches.
• The artistic design is well done for these levels; varied colors and textures between vegetation, buildings and items.
• The ancient Japanese setting of Castle brings something novel to the table. The level takes place on a steep incline which adds some interesting dynamics.
• Roundhouse takes place in a massive trainyard with blown-out buildings and some clever catwalks. There are a ton of nooks and crannies to hide.

Bad

• Malkin takes place on a Japanese island outpost – sounds promising but…
• It feels a little off. The set design is too cluttered. It’s a case of there being too much lying around. I found it bottlenecks the action.
• Everything in this level is dark brown. I realize that it’s supposed to be night, but it’s almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe, or foe from vegetation, or foe from building.

Gameplay

Good

• Since WAW runs on the same engine that built Modern Warfare, the gameplay is similar – same controls, same movement, same framerate.
• But it’s thankfully slightly different as well – moving seems faster, especially running.
• The bonuses for kill streaks have changed – for 7 kills, it’s dogs, which works surprisingly well. The dogs aren’t invincible, but they can surprise you. Plus, they’re great at rooting out campers because the dogs can pretty much go anywhere a person can. That means walkways aren’t always safe.
• Another positive is that the Tanks feel fairly balanced. They are powerful (they are tanks after all), but a couple of good rocket strikes can take them out. Driving them is pretty intuitive and there’s nothing more satisfying that firing a shell into a sniper’s nest (at least for me on Roundhouse anyway).
• The gametypes are decent and varied – War is a welcome change – you have to consecutively capture points which adds a new challenge because it’s a single flag to attack or defend. Plus, all the standard modes seem to be intact.

Bad

• It’s probably just a beta thing, but the spawns are atrocious. Modern Warfare’s were pretty good for the genre. WAW’s are not at all. You’ll find yourself dying at least 2-3 times just because of spawns where you’ll magically appear in front of a group of enemies or worse, someone will spawn right after you on Free for All, garnering them a free shot at your back.
• The artillery strikes are loud and mostly useless. Unlike an air strike, the artillery lasts a long time and hits a large patch of map. The problem here is that it’s too spread out to accurately pinpoint a group of enemies and it’s length and effects can distract you and your team as much as the enemies.

Weapons

Good

• Sniping is easier – it doesn’t take as long to stop breathing (just half a second as opposed to two seconds) and the action of the rifles feels more stable.
• There’s extra modding ability – now you can add surpressors, sights or extra ammunition as part of a weapon’s upgrades.
• For what they are, there’s a good stable of weapons and anachronistic mods to make the guns feel similar to Modern Warfare.

Bad

• Grenades feel underpowered. It takes a near direct hit to take out an enemy.
• Molotov cocktails don’t work at all – unless you hit the person directly, the flames render no damage. You can stand in a room on fire and not be hurt.
• Flares aren’t useful – they’re meant to blind, but they don’t. You can still pretty much see so they don’t accomplish the same thing as a flash bang.

Perks

Bad

• Juggernaut – since a lot of the guns seem to come with less power than in Modern Warfare, I found myself getting 8-9 assists in a match. That’s because it can be near impossible to kill an opponent without having to shoot them multiple times.
• Revive isn’t useful – Revive gives you last stand, but it also lets you revive an ally who’s in last stand. Because players are so used to last stand, the latter perk never comes into play – at least not in multiplayer mode.

Overall

The game is a reasonable step forward, but it’s not without its issues. While the engine is the same as Modern Warfare, Treyarch’s the driver and they don’t bring the same level of polish to the game. It’s a case where Treyarch has added new features, but without fully considering the impact of them on the game play.

Sure some things in WAW sound cool, but it ends there in actual use. Infinity Ward seems to get this concept and regrettably it’s lost in translation for Treyarch. WAW has potential and some good ideas, but it remains to be seen if the myriad of rough spots will mar the game’s lasting power.

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