Christine & Mike

Should the topic even be discussed, that’s the real question? Yes, I think so.

When the XBox 360 first came out, everyone thought it was the most amazing thing ever. Some still do. When it came out, I was years out of video games. I hadn’t played any since the SNES days. Ah, SNES, you were my hero. So, needless to say, not being a big video game guy, I didn’t go drop $400 on an XBox.

Christmas, the year the 360 came out, Christine bought me a regular XBox, with some games. That was the best Christmas present I think I’ve ever gotten. So I started getting back into video games, specifically first-person shooters, which I’ve always enjoyed, and thought I was fairly good at.

Skip ahead to a year later, along comes the Wii. I had no idea what the hell a Wii was, and had kept reading all about it on sites like Digg, and Slashdot. I finally saw a commercial, a few days before it came out, and proclaimed “We have to get one!” to Christine. She agreed, and we began our quest to find one. We finally did, and purchased it at Toys R Us, followed closely by the Zelda game for the Wii, at Target.

Skip to another six months later, when Christine went to visit her parents down in Georgia. The phone at home rings one night, and it’s Christine. “We have to get an XBox 360 when I get home.” Her 14 year old brother bought himself a 360 for Christmas, and recently got Guitar Hero 2 for it. Christine proclaimed “It’s the best game ever made.”, which was enough for me. We promptly went out when she got home, bought the 360, and drove around to what felt like a zillion stores to find the Guitar Hero game. Which, FYI, is the most amazing game ever made. If only I could finish it on expert, damn you Iron Maiden!

Anyway, so we come to comparison:
The Wii is a lot of fun.. at first. Don’t get me wrong, I could play Wii Tennis, or Wii Boxing for hours every day, and not bat an eyelash. But other than Tennis or Boxing, none of the games have really jumped out and grabbed me as something I can play continually. And you’re probably thinking “You haven’t tried enough games.” Not true, we’ve got about a dozen games, including Wario Party, Red Steel, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Madden 07, Rayman’s Rabid Rabbits, and Trauma Center: Second Opinion. (The other titles escape me, as I’m not at home while writing this.)

While some of the games are a lot of fun, and entertaining to watch people play, they’re only good in environments where there’s a lot of people. For example, we brought the Wii to the office one night (at my last job), and invited a bunch of people up to play. We set it up on a projector, and let people play baseball, tennis, boxing, etc. Everyone had fun, and it was even more fun for us to watch people who hadn’t played before. That was Wii Sports, only. I didn’t even bring the other games with us, because they weren’t really great, or multiplayer.

My biggest complaint about the Wii is, while it may be fun to play the Sports game, some of the other games are extremely complicated. For example, we tried Madden 07 (football, for those who don’t know) a few times. Even playing the computer on the easiest level, it’s too complicated. For example, to throw a pass: you start off as the quarterback, and hike the ball. You use the nunchuck device to run away from people trying to tackle you, while looking upfield for a receiver. The you use the Wiimote to “throw” the ball (literally), to the receiver. Then, you automatically switch to the receiver, and have a second or two to raise the Wiimote and the nunchuck up into the air, to catch the ball. If you’re lucky enough to catch it, you have to pull both controllers in close to your body to “hold” the ball. Once you do that, if you’re lucky enought to not have been tackled yet, you have to run using the nunchuck, while holding the ball.

Sound complicated? That’s just one play. Forget about the rest of the game.

Don’t get me wrong, some of the games are a lot of fun to play. But overall, they should spend more time developing these games specifically for the Wii, and not just developing games for other systems, and adapting them to be “Wii-able”. Nowadays, the Wii just sits in our audio tower, collecting dust. We hardly use it, or any of the games. It really makes Mii sad.

Onto the 360. The first game we got, was obviously the Guitar Hero game, that Christine (and Ryan) recommended so highly. In addition to the games that we had for the regular Xbox, we also purchased Dead Rising, which I had played with her little brother last time I visited. (Very violent, and not recommended for kids, in any way.)

So I spend the afternoon hooking it up, and turn it on. The first thing it makes you do, is go through a set up. You tell it what kind of tv you have (hi-def!), and set the time, and create a profile, and all that. Then you’re off to playing. We plugged in the guitar, and started rocking out. I got about 30 seconds into “Surrender” by Cheap Trick (first track in the game), and began jumping up and down. So much fun! Even for people who’ve never played a guitar before, it’s fun, and easy. And it helps you improve hand-eye coordination.

After a while I switched to Dead Rising, which I remember thinking was awesome. My only gripe when playing with Ryan, was the text on the screen was too hard to read. Apparently, that was only because the TV was old, and small. On my HD TV, I could read the text just fine. Dead Rising is so much fun. Tough at points, but fun overall. I’ve still got some objectives left to unlock, but have already finished the various parts of the game.

Since then, we’ve bought a few more games, most recently MLB 2k7, and F.E.A.R, both of which are amazing. I started a season in the baseball game, playing as my beloved Red Sox, and am currently 22-0, with a team ERA of .63, and a team batting average of .483. So far, doing very well. The F.E.A.R. game takes everything I love about video games (killing people, and blowing things up), and adds a “scary” part to it. It’s a very creepy game, and I can’t play it before we go to bed, because it gives Christine nightmares. (Yes, it’s that creepy.)

So to sum it all up, I prefer the 360:

• Better game selections
• The games that are available are built specifically to work with the console, and are not adapted
• XBox Live works better (and faster) than online play for the Wii
• The “Mii” set up on the Wii is only entertaining at first. XBox profiles make much more sense
• XBox Live allows you to track progress through the games you’re playing (and your friends’ games) online, through the website
• Live video and audio through XBox live, Wii doesn’t do that, yet.
• Download movies and other exclusive content to your Xbox, and watch them right on your TV.
• While the Wii has an internet browser (even though it’s Opera), I find that useless in a video game console. If I want to surf the web, I’ll walk the 30 feet to my computer, or use my Blackberry.
• Better battery life on the controllers.
• Plug-n-play adaptors directly from Microsoft. No need to buy third party devices to charge your controllers here.
• HD, plain and simple, HD = better graphics.

The only real advantage for the Wii, that I see, is that Christine can play some of the games easier. On the Xbox, she has a tough time with games that require use of both thumbsticks. IE; Halo, where one stick walks, one stick looks. She usually ends up standing in a corner trying to climb a wall ala Jim from The Office. Though I gotta say, she kicks serious ass on Star Wars Legos. Now there’s a game they need to make more of.

So that wraps up my review of our gaming systems, Wii vs 360. 360 all the way. Guitar Hero 3, and Rock Band will make it even that much more awesome! I can’t wait.

Filed under: Games