Wii Music Defense Force Gets A High Profile Member

Filed in archive Wii on August 31, 2008

The Wii Music Defenders have been far and few in between. Basically Gamespot and myself were the two lonely outposts on the Nintendo internets that were supporting the software. I thought it was a great idea, and I make my defense here.

Jeremy Parish has now come out in support of the software, saying that additional time with it at PAX has given him a different view. Expect this to happen a lot. Wii Music is a brand new idea in music games, one that doesn't involve mindless mashing of buttons in robotic order based on falling gems. Hey, that can be fun, but why not take a different approach?

The money quote:

But Nintendo has a slightly more fleshed-out version of the game on display this weekend at Penny Arcade Expo, and despite this version sporting only a few modest tweaks, I think it has won me over. The difference: A sense of purpose. While the game's primary mode remains the same - a group of faux musicians jamming together and playing individual notes or beats of a predefined music track - the single-player mode now has added depth. Rather than simply pantomiming music with a phantom backing band, you can record their own personal renditions of each tune's six tracks, including melody, harmony, rhythm and percussion. You can save performances, then splice them into the standard rhythm tracks, allowing you to effectively create a complete custom performance of each track. This also works for group performances, although it has more impact with a single performer.

What Jeremy reports is very exciting because of the single player element. My only real worry with Wii Music was that it would be primarily a multiplayer experience. Unfortunately, as a family man, I don't often have "the boys" over (both my wife and I would love to have more people over, but baby's 9pm bedtimes sort of limit this), so multiplayer in general is less appealing.

However, it seems that the single player in Wii Music might be its best element.

Color me excited!

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