Defending Wii Music

Filed in archive Features on August 9, 2008

There has been one game that genuinely excited me, going all the way back to 2006 (an eternity in the game industry!), and that's Wii Music. The idea of conducting an orchestra with the Wii Remote provided something the other music games didn't: the ability to conduct an entire orchestra.

Since then, Wii Music has been greatly expanded to include 60 instruments. The game is what you would call a "musicianship simulator," which is much different than all the other music games on the market, which fit firmly into the "rhythm game" category. You generally hit a button to correspond to a falling gem or icon on the screen, to a certain rhtyhm, which is loosely oriented to the music.

Wii Music, on the other hand, wants to truly simulate what it is like to play music with other humans. It does this by simulating improvisation. By using simple motions, a player can jam away, playing as many or as few notes as they want. The game then translates this into notes that correctly fit the current harmony, in real time.

This is exciting! For the first time, people can experience what it is like to REALLY play a musical instrument- because Wii Music simulates something that is completely lacking in guitar Hero, Rock Band, or Dance Dance Revolution: Interaction. Sure, people play together in Rock Band, but they aren't interacting with each other, that is, they aren't communicating musical ideas to one another (the way real musicians do). Instead, they are concentrating on hitting the on-screen rhythms for their instrument at the right time. They aren't concerned at all with what the other guy/gal is doing.

Wii Music, on the other hand, encourages true musical interaction and communication. A player might decide to play high and fast notes on the trumpet, for instance. The other player on guitar might play something that responds to it, or the drummer might play a little fill to accent what the trumpet player is doing.

This is how Wii Music will create its fun- something the spoiled, hard core brat crowd that covered the game at E3 completely missed. Of all the things they were mad at Nintendo about, Wii Music confused me the most. I'm genuinely pumped up about the game, and outlets like IGN pretty much hate it, and are already on the warpath. Expect some stupid "grade" like a 5.0 from them when it comes out (the same outfit that outrageously awarded Metal Gear Solid IV a perfect 10, which, as much as I love that game, is a joke).

I'll give Gamespot some credit- they actually *get it*, as they call Wii Music a virtual studio as opposed to a game. And that's where the other media outlets completely swing and miss. They want some sort of competitive, win or lose situation. But that's not what music is about. Music is about the artistry of the moment. It's about that cool thing that happened while playing a certain song at a certain time with people that you love. It isn't about passing or failing songs. Yes, I find some of those "rhythm games" to be a lot of fun, but they are not really music games- they are video games WITH music. As a real life musician, I can tell you that Wii Music is a much closer approximation to what we really, actually do, which is why I'm so excited about it.

Seeing as IGN and other big name websites are going to say nothing at all positive about the game, I'll be doing the opposite here- promoting it like crazy. Perhaps it'll be a total failure, but I love the concept, and hopefully Nintendo will design something engaging and fun around it.