Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Wii!
Well, as you might have gathered if you've been reading this site lately, I'm one of the very fortunate few to actually own a Nintendo Wii console right now (thanks to the kindness of an almost-stranger). So what do I think of it?
This is Mii!
In a large, hyphenated word: fan-bloody-tastic. Wii Sports is ridiculously addictive, and Trauma Center: Second Opinion actually (usually) works better with the Remote and Nunchuk setup than it did with the DS touch screen - it's a pity it's only a remake. Sega's Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz wasn't to my liking at all though, so I've passed that one on and will probably give Rayman: Raving Rabbids or the apparently average but nevertheless interesting Red Steel a go.
12,916 miles, and no worse for the wear.
What about the hardware itself though, you ask? Well, let's get nice 'n' geeky and talk about the quality of the video output, why don't we? Remember how I constantly raved about the video quality the GameCube's Component Video cable would give you? Well, that was thanks to a very high quality chip that was in the end of the cable, rather than the console itself. I think the idea behind this strange move was so that only people who required Component video would pay the price for it, thus keeping the costs of the Cube down for most other people.
Well, that same chip, as I previously reported, is built into every single Nintendo Wii console and from what I gather, is responsible for handing EVERY type of video output signal - not just Component Y/Pb/Pr. The long and short of this is that even the Composite video output of the Wii can be amazingly detailed, and when hooked up to a TV that knows how to process the signal correctly, can look damn impressive.
Obviously, I can't wait for my Component cable to arrive so I can use the 480p mode, but even still, the quality of the Composite on my KDL-32V2000 HDTV is amazingly bearable! Have a look for yourself:
Pretty incredible, no? Sadly though, not all games look this good through Composite, because it would seem that some of them kick in a Flicker Filter option in the Wii's hardware - just like a lot of Xbox games did. Trauma Center is one of these - it's fun to play, but incredibly blurred. I hope that connecting a Component cable disables the flicker filter.
What's interesting is that the Wii has kickstarted a real nostalgia theme in my gaming interests lately - and I'm not talking about the Virtual Console feature - I'm talking about GameCube games. I feel bad for more or less neglecting the poor little system for the last part of its life, and now I'm sucking up NTSC software at ridiculously good prices - Resident Evil 4 for £13 brand new, for crying out loud - even though I've finished it and used to own it before, you can't go wrong.
Although good games right now are a little scarce - there's a pretty high number of licensed titles - I can't wait to see what Nintendo has in store for us Wii owners. It looks like it's going to be a great system, that's for sure!
Posted at 12:57 AM
