The Wii (with family)

The inaugural post of Pixel Imperfect! If you found your way here by accident then welcome; pull up a chair and make yourself at home. I'll be player one, and over the course of this blog's lifetime I'll be leading us past many bad, confusing or just plain odd decisions to emerge from the video game world. I'll also throw us head-long into the good ones to keep things interesting, as how can one measure the lows without the highs?

So, to the first topic at hand on this blog: the Wii (with family). Yes, that white box by your TV that you bought because Nintendo, for one brief moment, appeared to have redefined family video gaming. Instead of aiming their latest incarnation of hardware at the typical video games audience, Nintendo leapt the fence and started preaching to everyone, parents and children alike. What resulted was nothing short of impressive: Wiis sold by the truckload, pre-orders were available on EBay for well beyond their retail price, and every parent that loved their child went to every effort to get one in time for Christmas. Even our ageing geriatric relatives that perpetually occupy the comfiest seat in the room now had the option of flailing wildly with a purpose, a Wiimote so tenuously held in their grasp. Retirement homes would never be the same.

There were problems with the Wii initially, as with all milestone hardware releases. Microsoft had the red ring fiasco, Sony had the wallet-melting cost and Nintendo had shattered living room furniture and broken televisions. The fixes were quick and everything seems more or less settled now, but that's not what this update is about. I'm more concerned with the software the Wii has available for it rather than the Wii itself, as ultimately this defines whether a console's lifetime is remembered as a classic era of gaming or forgotten in favour of more enjoyable alternatives, such as Pogs.

As you may or may not be aware, the Wii above all other consoles has fed the popularity of what could loosely be referred to as "family" games. The definition the family label is somewhat vague given that the primary requirements are to be multi-player and to not feature forced head-torso separation. Typically what you get is a loose collection of mini-games that are glued together by some sort of framework - the Olympic Games, arbitrary point scoring - with few exceptions. Those that do break the mould (Super Mario Brothers Wii being the only example to spring to mind) often have a very shallow plot winding through the game, or simply don't feature one at all.
Why is this a problem, you ask? Given the Wii's fantastically fast domination of this generation of consoles, it could be argued that a developer creating a game for the platform has a chance to invigorate a genre, or perhaps forge a new one. After all, the Wii is aimed at players of all ages so what more could you ask for in a potential audience?

From what I've seen so far this hasn't happened, at least not to any notable degree. Games aimed at the family are either lacking in depth for the older players, way too complex for the younger players to grasp, or simply too boring for anyone to care about. Nintendo missed the boat on the latest revision of their major intellectual properties (Mario, Zelda, and Mario Kart) and instead of redesigning them to take advantage of the new market, they just updated the graphics and stamped out version Wii. To say I was disappointed would be a dramatic understatement.
What would have been more impressive and (I think) perhaps more lucrative, is for Nintendo to have added a new level of interactivity to the games based on multiple player profiles. Zelda springs to mind as the obvious target for this, as the depth element is already present. Take a game like Four Swords Adventures - a great idea and well executed for the most part - but 'upgrade' it to the Wii level. Add in different types of character that suit different family members, provide different abilities and moves depending on how complex you want the interactivity to be, and you're already on the way to getting the whole family involved in rescuing the princess. I for one would find it satisfying to introduce a game to a friend that his kids, his wife and he could play at the same time, with everyone enjoying an experience tailored to their age.

It's not an easy idea to realise though, I acknowledge that. Games such as Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Brothers Wii and Wii Sports do attempt to unite the family in gaming bliss, but only one of these (Super Mario Brothers Wii) actually achieves anything remotely original and captivating. And that's really the key, for the most part. Grabbing everyone's attention is easy, but keeping them playing the same game and continually challenging each person, while simultaneously developing the story, is not a design that can be conjured out of thin air. My family became bored with Wii Sports quite rapidly due to the fact that there wasn't much depth to it, and I personally tired of it because I realised the game doesn't really use accurate motion control at all, thus shattering the illusion. I've been told other reasons from friends, such as lack of variety and the simplistic presentation that contributed to their abandonment of the game. Why then did Wii Sports do so well? The answer is simple: it demonstrated the technology in the easiest, most colourful way. It was never designed to be a deep, fulfilling, immersive experience as Nintendo wanted to ship the Wii as soon as possible, yet Wii Sports appears to be the pinnacle of family gaming if the sales figures are considered.

Ultimately what I'm getting at is that a family doesn't have to be presented with, or if I'm honest subjected to, blatant rehashes of the same material. There's no reason to design a game with the kids as the lowest common denominator for the entire experience. There's certainly no justification for manufacturing shovelware in an effort to saturate the market with poor clones of Flash games, other than profit margins. There is however every reason to create a game that allows all levels of participation, from child to adult, without dumbing down or complicating the content for anyone. Adventure games, puzzle games, sports games, platform games, shooting games, they're all valid for change of this sort. Wouldn't it be cool to explore Hyrule with your wife and kids, you holding back the monsters with your vast array of abilities while they solve a puzzle, or keep each other from falling into pits? I can't be the only one in finding that concept worth investigating.

Perhaps in the future we'll be seeing games that are flexible not just in avatar customisation, but in experience customisation as well. Not everyone can meet the swordplay requirements for defeating the monsters, and not everyone wants to solve puzzles aimed at 10 year olds. Offering both at once and allowing everyone to enjoy the adventure is, I hope, a plan on someone's drawing board.

Thanks for reading, and please leave a comment if you agree or disagree!