This week my brother in law Tui has been staying with us. It's been awesome having him here! I knew he really loved football games and he had actually been talking to me over Facebook about how he's going to destroy me when we play Madden. The first day he was here he found out that the only console I had was a Wii because I had to sell my Xbox 360. I do have another one that I got from my brother, but it fell victim to the dreaded "Red Ring of Death!" What followed was comments about how the PS3 was so much better, and how he didn't know how to play the Wii. So I of course being the awesome brother in law that I am decided to pick up a classic controller to give him a fighting chance. I mean, it pretty much has all the buttons and sticks as a PS3 and Xbox 360 controller on it.
We play our first game of Madden and it's pretty close, but I claim victory! He spends the next few days practicing against the computer with the classic controller, complaining the whole way about he keeps messing up because of the game and making comments about how if this was the PS3 version he'd be winning, etc. We also played a few other games like Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (A mouthful to say, but super fun once you get the controls right) and Punch-Out. I don't hold DBZ against him as I've had TONS of practice in the game and the controls are really complicated. When we played Punch-Out, it was very close, but still, he prefers to use the classic controller on whatever game we end up playing.
Today I picked up a couple of games I thought he would like. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit and NCAA Football 09(Apparently, it's the only NCAA game that was made for the Wii?) And since Gamestop was having a buy 2 get one free deal going on, I got Bit.Trip Saga for myself. We had a blast playing Need for Speed together, we tried all the modes, it was a ton of fun. Then he really wanted to try NCAA, but there was one problem. NCAA Football 09 does not support the classic controller. I was surprised to hear him say "Well, I guess I'll try this and just give it my best shot." What I started hearing after that was music to my ears. "Hmmm, whoa, that makes sense!" Or "Wow, no wonder you beat me in Madden, these controls are way easier!" Though my personal favorite "This game is really good with these controls!"
As of right now he's totally dominating the computer using his new found controls and having a ton of fun. This is what games are all about. Fun! Now don't get me wrong, I do enjoy amazing graphics as much as the next guy. I enjoy having an engaging story and compelling characters in a game. Though the thing that keeps me coming back to a game, is fun. Because once I've played through the story, I know what's going to happen next. I know the characters, and the graphics... Well I've seen them. The graphics, the story, the characters can't replace the fun factor. I just wish more people had the same "Ah-ha!" moment my brother in law did. I feel like a lot of gamers, or just people in general take one look at the Wii and think "Ah that's for kids." Or "I hate those controls." When really, they haven't even given them a fair chance. Now don't get me wrong, I know there are tons of gamers out there are happy with the controls they want and don't want anyone messing with them, and I can respect that. But I feel like all too often people just write off the Wii simply because it doesn't have the best graphics.
Even now, the Wii U hasn't even been released and people are talking about how it's graphics won't be able to compare with Sony and Microsoft's next console offerings. You know, they are probably right... No you know what? They are definitely right, I know that the Wii U is going to be the least powerful machine once Sony and Microsoft release their next consoles when it comes to raw processing power and memory in the machine. Even still though, I have to wonder, how much of a leap are the graphics going to be? What will we see that will blow us away? Also, how much is all this power going to cost me? When I see the Wii U, I see fun, I see new ideas, I see more creativity and more options.
ANYWAYS, I didn't intend this post to end up as a "Wii U is awesome! Go buy one!" post. It just made me feel really good to witness that moment where someone actually "Got" the controls and enjoyed it! It was one of the awesomest things! I look forward to playing some more with him tomorrow.
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