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I went to one of the hundreds of San Antonio Gamestops today, and to my delight, they did in fact have a Wii Kiosk set up.
To play, you need to either hand over a valid drivers license, or a credit card. They'll give you a wiimote (no nunchuk, sorry) and you can mess around with the menus. First I just scrolled around the screen and tried to get used to aiming. First of all, you don't want to aim directly in front of you. It makes your arm tired very quickly, and given that the sensor bar is what picks up your movement, not some interface on the wiimote itself, you don't quite aim where you look like you're aiming. One of the most satisfying pieces of the interface is that when you move over any clickable elements, you get a nice tacticle rumble from the wiimote.
The game available at Gamestop was Excite Truck, which at first I was disappointed with, but I decided I couldn't pass up a chance to try out a game on the system. For anyone who hasn't watched the interface videos, you click on the "Wii" channel from the channel browser, and then the system looks for game disks. It takes a minute to find a disk, which I can see becoming mildly annoying, but is roughly 5-10 seconds. After that, the game boots up immediately, demonstrating some seriously impressive load times.
For those unaware, the Wii discs are DVD sized and therefore larger than the Cube discs. To compensate, Nintendo added some nice slot loading hardware that can immediately position the disc without scratching it up, saving you the trouble of trying to center the Cube disc exactly before insertion.
Excite Truck
If you've ever played Excite Bike, you already know what to expect from this game, for the most part. The main differences are: You drive a truck, and you do it in 3D. However, playing was actually incredibly fun. First thing you need to do is figure out just how to navigate the menus. I tried pointing at the screen, and no cursor moved around. I pressed up and down on the wiimote D-pad, and nothing happened. I tried hitting A, since the main race menu was already highlighted, and still nothing happened. All the while the Gamestop monkey behind me was thoroughly enjoying himself watching me flounder with the control scheme.
What you actually have to do is turn the remote on it's side such that the D-pad end rests in your left hand, and the other end in your right hand. Button 2 accelerates, 1 brakes, and then the left and right directions on the D-Pad actually select your menu items, while 2 chooses. After picking the initial track, I was presented with a selection of roughly 8 trucks. I'm not sure if they're default, because it appears half the game has already been beaten since the kiosk was set up two days ago.
The race quickly loads, in less than two seconds, and then you're positioned on the track with 5 other trucks. First impression of the graphics was less than optimal. It's definitely a Gamecube, and most definitely a Gamecube game that was ported to the system at the last second. This isn't an issue for me, but it's a little disappointing when you walk across the store and see something as gorgeous as Chrome Hounds or Fight Night running on the 360. However, I'm also not sure if the system as running on composite or component cables, so that definitely would be a large factor in the visual quality.
To drive, you rotate the remote just like a steering wheel. Turning is quite sensitive; enough so that you don't have to twist your arms completely around each other to take a corner. Pressing any direction on the D-pad activates your turbo, which works exactly like the Excite Bike turbo. You have a heat meter which you have to keep an eye on, and flying through the air or driving through water cools you down very quickly. Therefore, driving through shallow water technically constitutes any other games' zipper strips. The water itself actually looks pretty good, which some decent pixel shader effects to simulate specular highlights and rippling.
Actual game play is an absolute blast, and most of the time you feel like a 4 ton wrecking ball completely out of control. You spend over half of a track in the air, and you can hit the turbo immediately after leaving a jump to activate a super boost of sorts that shows off a nice looking motion blur effect, giving an acceptable sense of speed. You can also roll the controller forward or backward, affecting the way the tires hit the ground. You can aim for an ideal landing by making each tire touch at the same time, which will activate a minor boost.
At times, you'll find exclamation points which will affect the course in front of you in some way. For example, one of the tracks is an island and features cliffs that must be ascended. However, one of the icons lowers the mountain I was crawling up all the way down to sea level and let you drive down the beach front through the waves, boosting the entire time.
Also, once in a while rings will appear over large jumps, and if you hit all five, you get an absolutely insane turbo boost which allows you to plow at max speed through absolutely anything, including trees. Speaking of trees, hitting one completely stops your truck dead, and you have to pound button 2 until you fill a meter up, which resets your position on the track. This actually adds a decent level of challenge to the game because most of the corners allow for some crazy drifting. However, one also needs to keep the drift under control, or you'll plow right into some palm trees and lose your position. It's especially funny when you make a 500' jump only to land in a tree and total the truck.
The wiimote speaker itself seems very gimmicky. Occasionally it played a sound corresponding to a power up picking or plowing another truck off the road (which also gets you a bonus.) The sound quality pretty awful, but I think if done correctly it can be put to good use. In game sound was acceptable, but nothing extraordinary. The sound track seemed to consist of heavy rock/metal, as you might expect from any game involving trucks and smashing. However, because of the ambient noise in the Gamestop, it's tough to give a good impression.
Wiimote Impressions
The Wiimote seems nearly perfect to me. Save for the battery door, which seems a little cheap, it was a very solid remote. The button click provides good tactile response, and the D-Pad comes straight off the DS-Lite. Take that as you will.
Aiming the remote takes a little practice, as I mentioned above, but it's no deal-breaker. The one thing I can say is that it's comfortable to use for 15 minutes at a time. Sadly, I of course can't suggest what it would be like for hours of play, but for the most part, Excite Truck was completely usable keeping your arms hanging and just using your elbows and hands to lift and spin the wiimote as necessary. I can definitely see someone getting fed up very quickly if they don't realize you're capable of using the controller without keeping your arms rigidly out in front of your body.
All in all, I'm a lot more excited for the system than I was before this. I can say the wiimote doesn't feel like a gimmick to me. Playing with it as a steering wheel was comfortable and just made sense. However, I can see it becoming a gimmick if developers can't think of creative ways to use it.
To play, you need to either hand over a valid drivers license, or a credit card. They'll give you a wiimote (no nunchuk, sorry) and you can mess around with the menus. First I just scrolled around the screen and tried to get used to aiming. First of all, you don't want to aim directly in front of you. It makes your arm tired very quickly, and given that the sensor bar is what picks up your movement, not some interface on the wiimote itself, you don't quite aim where you look like you're aiming. One of the most satisfying pieces of the interface is that when you move over any clickable elements, you get a nice tacticle rumble from the wiimote.
The game available at Gamestop was Excite Truck, which at first I was disappointed with, but I decided I couldn't pass up a chance to try out a game on the system. For anyone who hasn't watched the interface videos, you click on the "Wii" channel from the channel browser, and then the system looks for game disks. It takes a minute to find a disk, which I can see becoming mildly annoying, but is roughly 5-10 seconds. After that, the game boots up immediately, demonstrating some seriously impressive load times.
For those unaware, the Wii discs are DVD sized and therefore larger than the Cube discs. To compensate, Nintendo added some nice slot loading hardware that can immediately position the disc without scratching it up, saving you the trouble of trying to center the Cube disc exactly before insertion.
Excite Truck
If you've ever played Excite Bike, you already know what to expect from this game, for the most part. The main differences are: You drive a truck, and you do it in 3D. However, playing was actually incredibly fun. First thing you need to do is figure out just how to navigate the menus. I tried pointing at the screen, and no cursor moved around. I pressed up and down on the wiimote D-pad, and nothing happened. I tried hitting A, since the main race menu was already highlighted, and still nothing happened. All the while the Gamestop monkey behind me was thoroughly enjoying himself watching me flounder with the control scheme.
What you actually have to do is turn the remote on it's side such that the D-pad end rests in your left hand, and the other end in your right hand. Button 2 accelerates, 1 brakes, and then the left and right directions on the D-Pad actually select your menu items, while 2 chooses. After picking the initial track, I was presented with a selection of roughly 8 trucks. I'm not sure if they're default, because it appears half the game has already been beaten since the kiosk was set up two days ago.
The race quickly loads, in less than two seconds, and then you're positioned on the track with 5 other trucks. First impression of the graphics was less than optimal. It's definitely a Gamecube, and most definitely a Gamecube game that was ported to the system at the last second. This isn't an issue for me, but it's a little disappointing when you walk across the store and see something as gorgeous as Chrome Hounds or Fight Night running on the 360. However, I'm also not sure if the system as running on composite or component cables, so that definitely would be a large factor in the visual quality.
To drive, you rotate the remote just like a steering wheel. Turning is quite sensitive; enough so that you don't have to twist your arms completely around each other to take a corner. Pressing any direction on the D-pad activates your turbo, which works exactly like the Excite Bike turbo. You have a heat meter which you have to keep an eye on, and flying through the air or driving through water cools you down very quickly. Therefore, driving through shallow water technically constitutes any other games' zipper strips. The water itself actually looks pretty good, which some decent pixel shader effects to simulate specular highlights and rippling.
Actual game play is an absolute blast, and most of the time you feel like a 4 ton wrecking ball completely out of control. You spend over half of a track in the air, and you can hit the turbo immediately after leaving a jump to activate a super boost of sorts that shows off a nice looking motion blur effect, giving an acceptable sense of speed. You can also roll the controller forward or backward, affecting the way the tires hit the ground. You can aim for an ideal landing by making each tire touch at the same time, which will activate a minor boost.
At times, you'll find exclamation points which will affect the course in front of you in some way. For example, one of the tracks is an island and features cliffs that must be ascended. However, one of the icons lowers the mountain I was crawling up all the way down to sea level and let you drive down the beach front through the waves, boosting the entire time.
Also, once in a while rings will appear over large jumps, and if you hit all five, you get an absolutely insane turbo boost which allows you to plow at max speed through absolutely anything, including trees. Speaking of trees, hitting one completely stops your truck dead, and you have to pound button 2 until you fill a meter up, which resets your position on the track. This actually adds a decent level of challenge to the game because most of the corners allow for some crazy drifting. However, one also needs to keep the drift under control, or you'll plow right into some palm trees and lose your position. It's especially funny when you make a 500' jump only to land in a tree and total the truck.
The wiimote speaker itself seems very gimmicky. Occasionally it played a sound corresponding to a power up picking or plowing another truck off the road (which also gets you a bonus.) The sound quality pretty awful, but I think if done correctly it can be put to good use. In game sound was acceptable, but nothing extraordinary. The sound track seemed to consist of heavy rock/metal, as you might expect from any game involving trucks and smashing. However, because of the ambient noise in the Gamestop, it's tough to give a good impression.
Wiimote Impressions
The Wiimote seems nearly perfect to me. Save for the battery door, which seems a little cheap, it was a very solid remote. The button click provides good tactile response, and the D-Pad comes straight off the DS-Lite. Take that as you will.
Aiming the remote takes a little practice, as I mentioned above, but it's no deal-breaker. The one thing I can say is that it's comfortable to use for 15 minutes at a time. Sadly, I of course can't suggest what it would be like for hours of play, but for the most part, Excite Truck was completely usable keeping your arms hanging and just using your elbows and hands to lift and spin the wiimote as necessary. I can definitely see someone getting fed up very quickly if they don't realize you're capable of using the controller without keeping your arms rigidly out in front of your body.
All in all, I'm a lot more excited for the system than I was before this. I can say the wiimote doesn't feel like a gimmick to me. Playing with it as a steering wheel was comfortable and just made sense. However, I can see it becoming a gimmick if developers can't think of creative ways to use it.