Geekadelphia @ the Wii Music Launch Party in NYC

As Geekadelphia’s looming presence reaches far and wide, even though some of were attending Zenkaikon 2008 in King of Prussia, Pa., others of us were perusing what Nintendo had to offer at their New York City launch event for the rhythm game Wii Music. In addition to the photo you see above, we’ve got a full gallery after the break and a thrilling writeup… right now!

Guest Written by Jeff Walewski

So today, on the first very cold day of fall (made obvious to me as my leaking radiator turned on this morning) I headed downtown to the Nintendo World store, for their Wii Music launch event. I arrived an hour into the party and to be honest with you, it seemed as if the people in the store were there more for the other Nintendo merchandise than for Nintendo’s event. Inside they had only two Wiis dedicated specifically to Wii Music with no type of banners or anything of the sort, as well as a few tents set up outside with the game running on around six to eight televisions, and of course, a live marching band. The scene was a bit bare since it was in the low 50’s and not a whole lot of attention was placed on the game and more towards the live band.

Back inside, I had no problem walking right up to one of the two aforementioned Wiis and playing the mode in which you act as a maestro — I conducted my first piece of music, choosing Zelda’s main theme. This mode acts as more of an interactive listening of the songs.  It’s unfortunate that the song choices, which end at 50, are generally public domain songs with the exception of songs like “La Bamba” and a few from Nintendo’s library. Waking up to playing a bit of Guitar Hero and Amplitude the next day left me very disappointed in their playlist. It seemed if they wanted to turn max profit so they skimped on spending any money on music choices — not that throwing in a Black Eyed Pees song would make it any better.

After finishing the Zelda theme I chose the Jam Mode. In this mode you have the option of choosing one of the six sections of the band. Two percussion, a melody, harmony, bass and chord. I chose Melody and percussion on two different turns, to which songs I’m not even sure of at this point. Playing each song is more about expression rather than linear gameplay; it acts more like a simulator than a game, which sounds great but in practice feels empty. You swing your arms wildly and by pressing different buttons you play a range of notes, which is very cleaver but it would have helped if the game would give you some kind of a cue to when to press these buttons. There was also these four little music notes in the bottom right hand corner which kept your tempo but while the song is being played they changed shapes to a triangle then to a square that oddly look like a juice box. I’m sure the instruction book explains why they change shape but the Nintendo employee’s could not answer my question (a bit odd given their employer and the event they were working at).

Having no background in music, I found the “game” to be chaotic. It felt more inclined towards children under 10 and the elderly in the manner of getting the youth into music or trying to learn how to play an instrument — and the elderly to have a little cardio work out. After each song you have the option of saving each play as a video, which you may send to everyone that you have traded Wii and friend codes with (and consequently received their codes via a telephone call or an Instant message). With the limitations of no voice chat, Nintendo once again makes it harder for us to play and share with one another. I walked away feeling very disappointed with this game. Why not throw in Mario or Donkey Kong playing a few of the instruments? Maybe with a few more licensed songs and way more Nintendo songs I would have had a smile on my face. A rock  rendition of the Mario theme would have been awesome, but I was stuck playing “O’ Christmas Tree” in the middle of October.