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Thursday 21 February, 2008
Game log #4: Wii Sports
Part 2
Gameplay 2
The first thing I played my second time around was tennis. Like the last games I didn’t understand it well at first and didn’t really like it, but the game did grow on me. I definitely have to say that tennis is the simplest game because the gameplay mechanic is based almost entirely on the timing of the hit. After tennis I played boxing. To me boxing was a bit of a disappointment. This is probably because I knew that my brother liked the boxing game and I was expecting more. For the most part I felt that I was just flailing around and that most of my movements were not registered by the sensor. One aspect I did like was that the avatar would lean back or to the side if I did the same in real life. The last new game I played was golf. I thought the golf game was okay, but I felt that the swing usually wasn’t natural, especially when putting. Of course that could just be because I’m a bad golfer and my natural swing wasn’t good to start off with.
After playing the new games I played some mini games related to all the games. These were actually very entertaining. My favorite game was the homerun derby, mostly because I would compete against my brother and my cousins to see who could hit the most home runs. I also liked the bowling games, especially the one where you have to knock down a huge triangle of pins. For some reason there is something very satisfying about wiping out a lot of very orderly somethings, like a fresh piece of bubble wrap. It’s not surprising that my favorite mini games also happen to be my favorite full games, but I also like the tennis mini game and boxing mini games, which surprised me because I didn’t care much for their full games.
One thing I noticed was that some controls seems oddly unsatisfying simply because the Wii remote just couldn’t replicate the feel of using the equipment or playing the sport. Also I feel that the lightness of the Wii remote made some sports like baseball a little dangerous because at times I would move my arms very fast and I was afraid of throwing it out. This is similar to the way that you shouldn’t throw a tennis ball or a waffle ball too hard. Of course I wouldn’t really want a heavy controller either because that would just cause more problems.
Probably the most notable thing I did during my second session was to play the game with other people. Playing with other people really opened up the game play possibilities and I enjoyed the competition. In addition I enjoyed playing with people who don’t usually play videogames, like my parents. Overall the game is fun to play alone, but it is a lot more fun to play in a group, even if you have to take turns.
Design:
One of the games biggest assets is that it is so simple. This simplicity adds greatly to the emergent and social qualities of the game. Obviously it adds to the social aspect of the game because it is open to a very wide audience. More than any other game in recent time Wii Sports has the ability to attract even the most unlikely gamer and this no doubt has something to do with that fact that the game is so quick and easy to play. Furthermore, because the audience is larger there are more opportunities for social play. For example, I wouldn’t play soul caliber with my parents because it is just too complicated; I doubt they could even do single combo. However, I would and have played Wii Sports with my parents because it is very easy to learn and play is very straightforward and short. It also probably helped that the games in Wii sports exist in real life as well. In addition to appealing to a wide audience the emergent qualities of the game also contribute to socialization. This is because any game can play out a nearly infinite amount of ways so that the game feels fresh each time, which adds to its replay value, but also adds to its value as a competitive game. The emergent qualities allow the competition to create large gameplay branches and provide unpredictable and intense gameplay. Almost any game is more enjoyable when it is competitive and competing against someone is certainly a way to socialize. To sum it up, the simplicity of Wii Sports leads to it being a very social game.
On the flip side Wii sports can at times be too simple. It is so simple that in some cases there isn’t much way to get good at the game. It is so easy to play that even if you get better you are still only slightly better than a person you has just started the game and therefore chance can have too strong an effect on a competition. This is great for the beginner because they are not bullied around by an experienced player, but if you are an experience player it sucks to lose to a newbie. Also Most of the games are fairly short and don’t have a lot of depth to them. For example, in baseball you can’t play more than three innings, you can’t switch pitcher, and you can’t field. This is expected because of the arcade like nature of the game, but if you want a serious game then you would need to look elsewhere.
The control scheme of the game has many unique qualities. For one, the control scheme actually factors into the games audience. I would argue that people are attracted to the novelty of the motion sensors controls. In a way this novelty makes Wii sports seem less of a traditional game and essential all players start off with the same amount of experience (as far as controls go). Because of this less experienced players are sometimes less intimidated or put off by the game, and sometimes are attracted to it just to see how the new technology works. Another unique aspect of the controls is that there is more then one way to perform the same action. For example, if you were simply playing as instructed you would swing your controller like a bat to hit a baseball, but if you didn’t have enough room or simply were too tired you could just flick the controller forward and you would get the same result. I would argue that this is a good feature of the gameplay because it allows you to play as you wish and allows for gameplay variation. You could say that not swinging the bat like a real bat would be cheating, but if you really thought that you could just stipulate that the bat has to be swung like a real bat in your particular competition.
One neat feature is that all the characters in the games can be Miis from your system. This adds a much more of a personal touch and somewhat of a story to a game which makes players more attached to it. Most evidently you are more attached when playing the Mii that is supposed to represent you because in some way you feel like you are the avatar. In addition when you are playing baseball all the players will be your systems Miis if you have enough of them. This engages the player much more than just generic characters would because now you know all the Miis and they all have there own personalities and backgrounds. For example, when you hit a home run with a random Mii who cares, but when you hit one with a sibling or friends Mii it has a lot more meaning. It’s hard to resist the urge to tell someone that their Mii was 4 for 4 with an out of the park homerun. Sometimes you almost feel like your friends really are on your team. This could just be my experience, but the fact that you can have custom characters definitely adds to the game and more games should make use of the Miis.
Wii Sports also has an interesting reward system that does some good and some bad things. The good is that you get to earn points and gain rank. This in conjunction with being able to set records keeps you attached to the game and gives you incentive to keep playing on your own. However the bad part is that you can lose points too. For example, the more I played baseball, the more ridiculously challenging the computer players got which caused me to lose more games. This was very frustrating because I would lose points in my overall ranking. This sucked even more in bowling because I could lose points just for not bowling as well as my previous games. This takes some fun out of the game because it causes the player to worry about loosing rank, which detracts from the simple lighthearted nature of the game. An easy way to remedy this would be to allow the option of gaining points or staying even, but not to allow the option of losing points so that players are not discouraged from playing.
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