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A Wii Southern Playtest
Karn Spydar Lee Bianco :: 18th November 2006

Excitement for my impending Wii tour experience was hindered somewhat before it had a chance to begin thanks to my college enforcing painfully ridiculous and monotonous procedures for no apparent reason. Despite having no timetabled lessons for the entire day, I was forced to come in (before lunchtime/ lie in time, I might add!) just to attend an assembly full of the usual 'straighten up and fly right' drivel the administration feel the need to dish out every week. Anyway, after that little incursion was out of the way I leapt out of the building and sprinted* all the way to Churchill Square Shopping center in Brighton for some Wii action!

*Possible prevarication.

As you may know the Wii Tour reached Glasgow on the same day as it did Brighton, our own John Boyle has already covered that event in-depth so I will aim to keep my account somewhat more brief as a result. In comparison to that event the Brighton demonstration area was distinctly larger, offering four separate Wii setups showing off Wario Ware, Wii Sports, Wii Play and Twilight Princess respectively. As soon as I entered the mall it was great to see that despite the unusual time of day (pre-lunch on a Thursday, peak work/school time) there was still a lot of interest being generated by the booths. Not only from cues of people waiting to get a turn but from the bulk of people going about their weekly shopping sprees. You see, Churchill Square is laid out with a large open-plan central area with shops around it on three levels with escalators crisscrossing through the centre at the upper levels. This means that wherever you are (give or take) in the centre you can see the location that the Wii tour has been set up in.

As a local I've seen a fair few products being advertised in that very spot and I can honestly say none of them have been quite as visually striking. There has been a car in there waiting to be won, massive vats of free packets of mints (which I certainly made the most of!) and free facials for one and all, but nothing quite so... Nintendo. Yet, what is odd about such an observation is that the name Nintendo was nowhere to be seen, the glowing bulb in the centre just said 'Wii', the awesome floor titles did the same (plus Nintendo's new slogan 'Wii Move You'). Everything was Wii, the fact is if you hadn't heard of the console before hand you weren't necessarily going to go away with the name Nintendo in your head, just Wii. And it seemed to be working beautifully, luring in all sorts of people from every walk of life, all intrigued by the iPod-sexiness of the whole shebang and not by the premise of a new games console. It certainly helped that everyone playing with the machine looked like they were having vast amounts of fun.

Shifting around the various areas I was able to do some subtle eavesdropping (none of that approaching people malarkey that John went in for!) and it was certainly interesting to hear the various people's responses. A group of young male adults (somewhere in their twenties I would assume) were intrigued enough to give Wario Ware a go but seemed a little embarrassed at having to do the Hula in front of so many people. After this they continued to discuss the upcoming Playstation 3 and how it could do so many more things than the Wii and was more for them, whereas the Wii seemed to them to be aimed at kids. It seemed that a few people were trying the console out because of a sort of peer pressure, people were happy to look on and laugh at people giving it ago for a time, but eventually they had to give in and try it for themselves. It was at this point, for the most part, that they too started enjoying the experience. Whilst I don't think it has convinced everyone to rush out and spend

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Tenacious D 18.11.2006#1

I played TLOZ:TP at the wii preview event in Birmingham today, and it was as awesome as you say it is! While most reviews give between 9.5-10, bloody gamespot with that wanker Jeff Gerstman (who has always been biased against wii) gives it an 8.8?!?!?! WTF?!?!

Tenacious D 18.11.2006#2

nice report btw Smilie

Spydarlee 18.11.2006#3

Thank you kindly. Smilie

Glad to see you agree with my Zelda verdict, with the exception of GameSpot it seems the reviwers out there are on our side also which is good to hear.

If I had one issue with the game it was that the spin-attack action that is accessed via the nunchuck seemed a little unresponsive compared to the Wii-mote sword based attacks.

Possibly just because it was a demonstration version, we'll see...

Can't wait to play the final version. I just hope I can make enough money in time for launch!

Cubed3 Staff [ Retro Editor :: Previews Editor ]

jb 18.11.2006#4

Fantastic report, glad you had a good time mate. The Wii approaches!

Cubed3 Admin/Founder & Designer

Spydarlee 18.11.2006#5

Cheers! Smilie

It was great stuff, shame I didn't have time to go back today or yesterday really, have to wait for aaages now. Smilie

And that's if I have the money by launch!

*Should really stop mentioning that*

Cubed3 Staff [ Retro Editor :: Previews Editor ]

Xavious 20.11.2006#6

i really had doubts about how the wii remote will work in practice, but it actually turned out to work better than expected. that day was pretty good actually Smilie