If Golf Looked Like This, I'd Play It Every Day

Okay, it's pretty well known that I'm not real good at golf.

Yesterday gaming website Kotaku announced that Konami would be porting terrible coin-op game Target: Terror to the Wii as what is apparently a never ending parade of horrific third party ports continues.

What these two things have to do with each other is that in the spirit of Wii game publishing standards, the port will include several mini games (nobody loves mini game collections like the Wii). One of those is a golfing game that looks like this:



Look at that thing for a second. This is the most spectacular screenshot I think I have ever seen for a video game. As near as I can tell those are hooded terrorists on those golf carts. Some of them in the middle appear to be sinking into the earth. The guy actually hitting golf balls looks like he is standing on the driving mat but is actually hitting the balls off the grass at the terrorists in an effort to defend his right to appear in a game this horrendous.

Let's not overlook the attention to detail as well. Next to the whimsical sign "Replace Your Divots" you can see a shadow effect. What makes this fantastic is there are no other shadows to be seen anywhere else on the screen.

If I hadn't sold my Wii over the holiday, you can bet Target: Terror would be on the very top of my list of games to purchase in 2008.

Resident Evil 4 - Amazing Progress

After a tactical lesson on how to properly play the game from one of my kindly neighbors, I managed to finally get past the opening sequence of Resident Evil 4.

I racked up somewhere between 50-100 pitchforks to the face before making it into the first town. I then racked up about a dozen chainsaw decapitations before finally finishing the sequence.

All told it took me a little over a month to get past the very first combat sequence in the game. The satisfaction was palpable.

And then, like the beginning of a movie, the words "Resident Evil" appeared on the screen.

Yes folks, the sequence it took me all those hours and deaths to get through was the INTRODUCTORY SEQUENCE, designed to take a few minutes to get you acclimated to the controls.

This is going to take awhile.

Maybe It's Mii

My troubles with my Wii have been well documented (ZING).

I've struggled for several months now with the little white box, trying to figure out what the heck I should be doing with it. I've tried several games at this point, all of which have been either sent back to the store or traded for another game.

Yesterday it became starkly clear to me that I might just be the problem here with this system.

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I just finished moving into a new place a short while ago. There are still a lot of boxes lying around and lots of things to unpack. My poor computer is hooked up to the internet but sitting on a small TV stand next to another TV right at the entrance of what will ostensibly be my "office" someday. In other words, the place is still a bit of a mess and although things are starting to take shape a room at a time, getting all of the various games up and running has not been a priority.

However, I also recently had a birthday. As part of that birthday I received a gift certificate from my brother, with which I realized I could finally buy Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition without stern looks from the fiance who has made it clear money is to be saved for purchasing furniture. Although her approach is far more practical, it does not result in me shooting zombies wirelessly.

I'm sure anyone who has been/is married is nodding sagely. "Ah yes, the old zombies vs. furniture argument, you'll learn someday sonny!"

My brother had neatly solved this problem for me with the gift certificate. I happily placed my order and would check back at the website every day to see if it had been shipped yet.

You have to understand, my enthusiasm for this game was pretty high. I have been a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, and Resident Evil 2 was a game I probably played through about 50 times on the original PlayStation. I had never played RE4 because I didn't have a GameCube when the game was first released and it slipped off my radar when it came out for PlayStation 2 several months later. I had initially planned on picking up an old GameCube copy when I got the Wii... then it was announced they were remaking it specifically FOR the Wii.

Resident Evil 4 is one of the best reviewed games of all time. It is considered a landmark game by many gaming magazines and also regarded as one of the best (if not THE best) game that ever came out on the GameCube.

The Wii Edition of the game has also received acclaim for being the best version of the game on any platform yet. Naturally I read every one of these reviews and got myself worked up into a fever pitch from all the hype. I had been keeping the Wii dusted off the last several months, I thought, for this game.

In anticipation of the arrival of Resident Evil 4 I unpacked the Wii and hooked it up. My PS2 remained on a chair in the office... the Wii would get a prominent hookup to the much larger HDTV in the living room.

Yesterday morning I received notification that the game had left the Philadelphia post office. This meant it would almost certainly be waiting for me at home. I watched the clock intently, like a fat kid waiting for the lunch bell at school on pizza day.

Sure enough when I arrived home it was sitting there on the front porch. Oh bliss! Oh happiness! Oh gore soaked zombie shooting mania! At last it was mine!

I wasted no time firing it up. It had been awhile since I played the other Resident Evils but I still remembered the basic gist of things. I was greeted with a sweet opening cinematic... apparently this time I was a special agent tasked with saving the president's daughter. Whatever. The point was I had a gun for zombie killin', and I had no doubt all plot paths would soon lead to undead.

I took a few minutes to run around in a circle and get the control scheme sorted out. There was a handy guide inside the actual game, and I tried out all the moves. It was not nearly as complicated as Zelda or Madden, which was a good sign. Full of confidence, I sent my guy on screen straight into the first mysterious village. A rather predictable cutscene played as the character stumbled across his first zombie. Now we're talking.

It took approximately 10 seconds for the screen "YOU ARE DEAD", dripping with blood, to appear.

I blinked. I really had no idea what just happened. I must have screwed something up pretty badly. That's okay, I thought, just the learning curve kicking in. I hit "Retry" and away I went again.

Same cutscene, blah blah blah ZOMBIE. This time I unloaded about 19 of my 20 bullets on this guy and brought him down. Ah, satisfying!

Unfortunately, you really need bullets in this game. I walked down the next hill and was beset upon by about 3 more hulking monsters who tore me and my remaining bullet to pieces.

Things went on like this for about 20 minutes. I couldn't seem to figure out how to look around and shoot at the same time. It was actually IMPOSSIBLE (as in, not allowed by mechanics) to move and shoot at the same time (actually not that surprising, the other RE games work that way). The combination of being a stationary target and fumbling with the Wiimote/Nunchuck combo lead me to be torn to pieces by hungry zombies at a rate of 2.5 times every 60 seconds. "YOU ARE DEAD" began to get burned into my retinas.

At least three times I got killed without even seeing who or what it was that was attacking me. I would hear a threatening "GRRRR" from somewhere, try to turn around to see where it was coming from, and then my head would explode in a spray of blood followed immediately by "YOU ARE DEAD".

Now, I expected to die a few times. Resident Evil is one of those games where you die a lot, especially the first time through a new area. But I wasn't even getting close to making progress. I thought I had mistakenly put the game on "Hard", but sure enough I had it on the easiest possible setting.

Eventually I was forced to give up before going blind with rage and frustration. It had only taken 45 minutes for me to be beaten into submission.

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Are my motor skills really that out of whack? I'm good at these games, dammit! I can still hold my own against my coworkers in Quake. I can play Guitar Hero, that requires a bit of dexterity. What the heck is going on here?

For whatever reason, I just can not seem to wrap my head around this freakin' Wii control scheme. At one point I was trying to run away from a large group of zombies and instead of running my guy took out a knife and gave it a swing. I didn't even have enough time to scream "RUN YOU IDIOT" before I got a pitchfork in the face from one of the zombies and that firk ding blastin' "YOU ARE DEAD" screen.

It's got to be me at this point though. I've played and failed miserably at the two games on the Wii that are supposed to be the best the system has to offer right now. I don't get it, I'm usually at least passable at these types of games.

Am I really just completely falling behind the curve? Am I ever going to figure this stupid machine out? Or do I really just need a cane and a rocking chair to go along with my complaints about these kids and their new fangled technologies?

Whatever the case, that little white box is making me feel pretty old and slow.

I'm going to hang on to the game a little while longer and see if I can get a little better with the controls, because if I don't learn how to handle my Wii now, I might not be able to call myself a man (ZING).

I also really, really want to kill zombies.

In conclusion, here is a link to many of the ways you can die in this game (pretty graphic). I've really only seen the same death over and over again because you need to actually make progress in the game to see some of these other animations, but it certainly doesn't appear things get much easier. Maybe I should stick to checkers.

Wii're Waiting

When I picked up a Wii a couple months ago I never bothered to do a "first impressions" type post. The reason for this was twofold: 1) there are already a million glowing, feverishly ecstatic "Wii First Impression" articles out there, and 2) it seemed sort of pointless when I only had one game.

And what a game! Wii Sports had me AND Julie hooked for awhile. We'd fire up that Wii and swing our Wiimotes around to Wii Tennis. I'd fire up the baseball and sock dingers. I'd stay far away from Wii Golf! Just like real life!

Then I discovered some tricks. For one thing, you really don't need to be standing up to play some of these games. You can sit there on the couch and casually flick your wrist playing Wii Tennis. In fact, playing this way actually makes you better because you can get unbelievable force on your shots by making quick jerky motions as opposed to "proper" sweeping motions.

Similar tricks apply for baseball. Instead of performing a full swing, you are guaranteed to hit 600 foot blasts out of the stadium on every swing if you give the controller a quick flick. Same thing for pitching: 93 mph every time.

That doesn't mean these games aren't still fun. And it actually is more entertaining to do a full swing. But you're handicapping yourself if you do that.

Keep in mind though, there's only so much mileage one can get out of Wii Sports before you start to wonder if you really just paid $250 for a one game console. I picked up Zelda for the Wii at the same time as the system, and I'm sure if any Nintendo fans out there read this they will kill me on sight... but I fail to see what the fuss is about.

First of all, the graphics on this game. I'm the first one to say over and over again that graphics shouldn't matter in a game. This is almost always true. But in the case of the Wii, when you can buy a pimped out Xbox 360 with full HD capability and everything for the same price, it is really tough not to feel serious inadequacy. I mean, Zelda looks like it could've been made at least 5 years ago.

None of this would matter if the game was fun. A lot of people seem to think it is. But for me it consisted of between 2-3 minutes of fun, followed by an hour or so of trying to figure out what the hell to do next. When you're in the forest temple and those damn monkeys are squawking at you for over 60 minutes, trust me, you're not thinking about how neat it is to swing the Wiimote and watch Link swing his sword. You just want the monkeys to shut up and the pain to end.

But don't worry, once you solve the madness of the maze and the puzzles, they will be quickly replaced with another!

Ugh.

I quickly traded Zelda for Madden 07. I really should have known better than to do this. I haven't enjoyed a Madden game since the 2002 version. But I figured messing with the controls on the Wii would provide some good fun.

Wrong. Most unnecessarily complex control scheme ever. There are some great ideas here: running the football is pretty cool and intuitive. Jerking one of your controllers left will make the running back spin or juke left, etc.

But defense. Not even Mike Martz would find this level of defense acceptable. The controls just can't seem to figure out what your intent is. When I try to tackle, the guy leaps to... deflect the pass?... well there goes the running back. Touchdown. When I rush on the line or spin out of a block... my guy dives?... well there goes the running back. Touchdown. Okay, this time I'm just going to sit back and try to deflect the pass, I know I can do that. Here comes the pass, my guy... tackles the wide receiver?... pass interference, ball on the one yard line.

It doesn't get much better from there. I tried out Super Paper Mario, which got decent reviews. Folks, this is a game suited for the DS, not a "next-gen" console.

I hate to say it, but the games that are coming out for the Wii just flat out suck right now. Look at this list of recent games with their Metacritic rating:

- Spider-Man 3: 56
- Bionicle Heroes: 49
- Heatseeker: 67

It goes on like this. There are only 10 games that are well reviewed enough to even garner ratings above 75:

1) Zelda
2) Super Paper Mario
3) WarioWare: Smooth Moves
4) Madden 07
5) Trauma Center: Second Opinion
6) Godfather
7) Rayman Raving Rabbits
8) Wii Sports
9) Elebits
10) Super Monkey Ball

Three of those games on the list I have played and didn't like one bit. Two of them are essentially DS games ported to the Wii. Three of them are mini-game compilations. If this is the best the system has to offer, my purchase is starting to look dubious.

Compare that with the Xbox 360 which boasts 83 games rated over 75. Folks, the Wii doesn't even have 83 titles available for purchase yet.

During the last console war, I managed to back the wrong horse by going with the XBox. I got some decent mileage out of the system (the Star Wars RPGs were awesome), but it is now pretty clear the PS2 was (and still is) the way to go. Since picking up a PS2 I've played at least 20 superb titles, and I've only had the console since November. A buddy even loaned me God of War 2 recently, and this thing looks and plays better than anything on the Wii I've seen. I'm talking about a PS2 title here, folks.

I'm still holding out hope. The Wii has a cool control scheme and the possibilities seem staggering. But they have not even come close to being realized yet, and all of the goodwill and market advantages Nintendo has managed to grab for themselves aren't going to mean a thing if they don't have the games. Every console war in the history of consoles has been decided by the games.

Nintendo has chosen to market "fun" ahead of "graphics". That's a worthy strategy, but they better come up with some more "fun" games and pronto. My idea of "fun" is not playing Wii Sports for a year.

Anyway, I could always sell the Wii now and get my money back for it easily enough. But I'm sure, like my Dad when he refused to admit backing Beta may have been a mistake, I'll go down with this ship, flailing my Wiimote all the way.

Note: Most of the links are to Penny Arcade, which is basically like the Oprah Winfrey of the video game crowd in that they have an army of slavish followers that will obey their every whim. That's not their fault though, and besides, their comics are funny.