Before I respond to specific criticisms people have for the Wii, it's important to say what I like about it:
1) The motion controls enhance most games - enabling you to interact with them in a whole new way. This makes some games infinitely more immersive than they would have been otherwise. Anyone who's played Need For Speed Carbon on the Wii knows what I'm talking about.
2) It has a surprisingly high number of games that I've bought and then completed: Super Mario Galaxy, Trauma Center, NFS Carbon, Red Steel, Resi 4, Wario Ware, Zack and Wiki & several others. Compare that to my xbox 360 where I have completed precisely two games: Braid & Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
I've bought several others, including Rez, Gears of War, Condemned, Rainbow 6 Vegas, Kane & Lynch etc. etc. Most of these games, though, just aren't enough fun to want to continue. Condemned was fun for a while - I got to the last level before I gave up in frustration (specifically with the level design) but the other games on this list seem to have spent so much time worrying about the demographic they're aiming for than making the game fun to play.
3) It's the only console this generation where most of the games available feel original.
Now, I know the 360 had Braid as an exclusive, before the PC got it as well and I know the PS3 has Little Big Planet and that M.C. Escher game (which I want on the PC really, really badly) but the Wii is the most original of the consoles by far. Looking at games like Wario Ware, Super Mario Galaxy, Trauma Center etc... None of those games are FPS's which helps, I suppose, but one is a goddamn surgery simulator - look me in the eye and tell me you expected a game like that this console generation.
Anyway, that's enough. I don't want to labour the point: I think the Wii is original and fun to interact with. So, why am I writing this article?
Well, as a dog returns to it's vomit, so do I return to reviews of Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw. Honestly, though, you can't call them reviews. They're editorials - the difference being that reviews present facts and then the reviewers opinion, editorials present the reviewers opinion and then certain cherry picked facts to back this opinion up.
I should really have stopped watching Yahtzee's reviews some time ago but every once in a while, there's one which is quite good - the recent Halo Wars one, for example. These good ones keep me going, through the really bad ones (of which there are many).
Of all his faults, though, his hatred of the Wii is the one that angers me the most. In his recent review of Mad World, he said that he hates the wii mote controls and doesn't like any Wii control methods because the Wiimote is completely broken. He's wrong.
Completely.
This is not an opinion thing, this can't be put down to personal preference, he's just wrong. The Wii controls work fine in games there implemented properly in. There are plenty of games where they're not, fine, but in many games, including most of the ones he's criticised, they're fine.
I know Yahtzee usually prizes impact over accuracy (see his reviews of Assassins Creed & Clive Barker's Jericho for great examples of where he's exaggerated his point so much it's completely at odds with the content of the game) but his attitude to the Wii is symptomatic of a larger problem.
This problem is an attitude held by what seems like the majority of 360 & PS3 owners. That attitude can be summed up by the following sentence:
"The Wii is shit because it's only for casual gamers."
The extended version of this is:
"The Wii is shit because it's only for casual gamers, so why bother releasing PROPER games for it? Mm?"
Now, it's easy to just discount this as snobbery on the part of people who consider themselves the gaming elite. People who've spent £300 on a PS3 so they think they're the ultimate in hard core gamers. As someone who recently spent that much on a new monitor for my gaming PC, I tend to view this as one would view a toddler who thinks he's incredibly talented because he can play Baa Baa Black Sheep on the recorder.
There is something much more unpleasant at work, though. I don't think it's any grand conspiracy by Microsoft or Sony, I don't think they're clever enough to engineer this sort of thing. What I think is happening is a systematic troll war that polarises opinion between those who think it's a kids toy and those that think it's a legitimate games machine.
I'm quite clearly in the latter camp but I'm surprised to see many other people are as well. Yahtzee's Madworld review which sparked this piece of verbal diarrhoea had several responses saying what I'm saying here but in about a tenth of the number of words. One quite eloquent one said:
"Okay, I know the Wii isn't perfect, and I know there is a ton of shovelware crap on it nowadays...I am a Wii owner and I hate going into a store and going bad...bad...bad...bad...bad...Could be good...Bad...Good...Bad...You get the picture
But I have a few questions...
1. Why is a game getting ripped on because of other games on the system? Each game is its own. It doesn't matter if the other games are bad. What matters is this game.
2. Do people want hardcore games on the Wii or not? When shovelware comes out, I see on the boards statements like this. "Har Har, the Wii has no good games. It abandoned the hardcore audience. It sucks! Har Har." Then a good game comes out and I see this. "Why are they releasing this on the Wii! This is clearly for a hardcore audience."
I know this is getting long, but Basically my point is to look at a game based on the game. And then finally decide if you will actually let the Wii have hardcore titles, or you just want to assume that all it gets is shovelware."
But what about the accusation of it only containing casual games? Well, if you ignore the list I spouted earlier, that seems a much more valid argument. The Wii has a load of minigame collections on there, as well as various games like Mario Kart that are more socially geared than most.
But does that make them casual games?
Well, I have no idea. I also have no idea what the hell a casual game is.
Wikipedia's article on the subject is so vague it's practically non existent. Urban Dictionary's definition is the same except it's rather badly syntaxed.
There appear to be two things everyone agrees on that forms a casual game:
1) It requires very little "skill" to play
2) It's very simple
So where does that leave us with Wii games? Well, it's not particularly helpful. Most of the games I've played on the wii have neither of those features. A lot of them have been family friendly, a lot of them have been social in nature rather than solo but with the exception of Rayman Raving Rabbids (which I love) no games I have played on the wii have both of those characteristics.
I'm being overly clinical about this, though. The other feature of a casual game is: It's not a game I, the person who is saying this sentence, would ever play.
I red a fantastic diatribe on a Kotaku forum once. I've lost it now but the verbatim was: Barring stuff like Peggle and Flash games, there's no such thing as casual gaming. What people mean when they say: Oh, that's just a casual game is: That's not Halo. Or Gears of War. Or any of the other really MANLY games that I play. How dare you enjoy Super Mario Galaxy with it's flawless, intuitive and highly original gameplay. It's got giant penguins in it! What are you, a fag?
I said earlier that this attitude 360 & PS3 owners have isn't just snobbery... It's taken me a while to work out what it is but I think I have a handle on it. It's bullying. These people are attacking Wii owners again and again and again with no justification or provocation. I'd care more but Wii owners are very good at telling these twats to fuck off in very loud voices, hence the flame wars that inevitably arise whenever anyone goes down this road on a mainstream forum.
To return to Yahtzee, he is definitely the most mainstream voice of this attitude that I know of. Him saying he wants to run around the streets grabbing people and shouting: THE WII IS MADE OF POO, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE what does that say about him and the people who hold that attitude?
Two things:
1) They're an idiot who hasn't worked out that it doesn't matter what a console itself is like, it's what the games on it that should be judged.
2) They're intolerant, snobbish & convinced that their style of gaming is the superior one. Anything in that camp is just for children and the mentally ill.
I don't really have an end to this article. I've set out my points and am fairly sure I've proved how moronic the phrase "casual gaming" is but how to end? Well, calling for people who use the phrase to be kicked in the balls is a good start. Calling them on their bullshit is another way of doing it.
However you approach it, though, the point of this is tolerance. Accept that there are styles of gaming that appeal to other people and not you.
I do need to practice what I preach, by the way. Halo, Gears of War et all are worth dog shit in my book but they have sold massively massively well, clearly a lot of people like them, which makes them perfectly valid games.
Mind you, I don't go round screaming about how the 360 is a pile of shit because I don't like some of the games on it.
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