Doomulation
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I got it about 2 weeks ago, at the beginning of February, after ordering it around December or so. It goes to show it's not impossible to acquire one if you're just patient.
Anyway, I'll describe what I've found about the Revolution console, the Wii Sports game and Twilight Princess. I'll cover the channels, as well, and a little short on Zelda: A Link to the Past from the Virtual Console.
I'm not bashing the console (and the games) or anything, but I'm not showering it with praise either. The results may surprise you... maybe...
Part #1: The Console
Sleek, as expected from the new generation consoles. The only bad thing is that dust settles on it and makes it look terrible. Have to clean it regularly. Easy to set up and all. The interface is alright, but nothing that really catches your eye. The wiimote is usually too sensitive, but that can be changed in the options. That's good. After changing it and getting used to it, it's not bad at all. The bad thing, though, is that it's easy to loose the pointer and in such case, getting it back on screen. Though lately I've found it easier as I know about how to position the controller to make it appear on the screen.
For a company who advertises little or no loading times, the console sure is slow. Navigating around the settings and in/between channels takes time. A few seconds. There are a few settings to change in the options, which are mostly straight forward. Never used the parental controls, though.
Then there's internet connection. I've got a wireless router, but it seems the console likes to throw a tantrum when trying to connect to internet. Three times it has refused to connect now. Basically, it connects, then the next day, it fails. The router settings haven't changed. I was getting the same results whether I used channel 1 or 11. Now it seems to work. I hope it stays that way. The router works excellent with the laptop and the DS.
One bad thing is that the console is very localized. The dates are displayed in MM/DD/YY, though I prefer DD/MM/YY. Time, if I remember correctly, is AM/PM and I prefer 24-hour. I've found no way to change these. Maybe I haven't looked enough? Then there's country. Because it's from Canada, it expects me to live on that continent and displays only countries there. That's stupid.
I also found that once, when returning to the Wii Menu (as it is called, the main screen when you put on the console, where the channels are), the two wiimotes I had simply died. And they didn't want to re-sync either (no, the batteries were fine). Thankfully, shutting of the console and on fixed this and it hasn't happened since.
But I also find it annoying that the system seems to choose its number 1 remote by itself. And it tries to remember it too. That brings problems when you want to use your own controller as number 1. Basically, someone uses Wiimote #1 and someone else uses Wiimote #2, but when I use MY mote, puts on the system, then that mote is branded as player 2 (even though the other wiimote isn't even ON). That's annoying.
The output cables for the system (or the system itself?) is outputting poor quality video to the TV as well. There are lots of the "rainbow" artifact on the video on the TV. I compared Twilight Princess on Revolution and GC, both with original cables, and the GC picture quality was superior. No rainbow artifacts.
I also tested parental controls. They're flawed as well (what did you expect?). First you have to create a PIN (not a password, instead a pin which is easier to break and harder to remember). It can only be 4 digits, which makes it even easier to crack. Then you have to choose a secret question, should you forget your pin. Of course, you can only select from pre-selected questions. What if you don't know the answer to any of those? Or don't want to use them because they're obvious?! Furthermore, the answer has to be 6 letters at least. It may depend on each question, though. I don't know as I only tested one. Wow, that's great security there, Nintendo. You could choose what to restrict, also. The highest rating of games that were allowed. Then, you could restrict the news channel, internet and exchange of emails via WiiConnect24. It asked all these questions, one after another. If you hit back, you're taken back to the beginning and have to enter everything over again. It doesn't go back to the previous question, oh no. Good work, Nintendo. Really. And from you could expect, it's really simple. You can restrict the Internet channel, but you cannot restrict what your kids can visit and not. Nice. I see you've put up a really useless parental controls, Nintendo...
I also do commend Nintendo for using SD cards for memory. You can get 2 GB for about $20 or less. Memory cards for PS2 or GC were far more expensive. The largest to have existed for GC I think was about 64 MB? And that price was kind of steep, but now we can have 2 GB for equal or less! Just stay away from Nintendo brands...
Before I move on, I'd like to give you two readings... When fully operational, the Revolution consumes about 35 watt. When idle, it consumes about 20 watt. That's a lot. I have WiiConnect24 enabled, but I usually break the power when turning off the console. No WiiConnect24 for you! Do it when it's on!
Part #2: The Channels
Photo Channel
I haven't touched the Photo Channel. Who needs it anyway? I don't store images on an SD card, since I don't have a camera.
Shop Channel
The Shop Channel is interesting. First, you need to accept an agreement... only, to accept it, you need to go to settings and enable WiiConnect24. You can't use it before. How stupid is that?
And, of course, it takes time to load the stupid thing too. I say, bake it into the console instead of streaming it from the Internet and make available the material to download instead. You have firmware updates, right? So update the interface and fix bugs in the firmware instead!
I think Nintendo expects only casual users on the channel, because they put heading which they require you to read and not just the main body. Otherwise you'll get confused. So I tried the web browser first. Takes about 200 blocks, out of the available 2.1 gigablocks (1 gigablock = 1000 blocks) [sweet name, huh?]. As to be expected, the darn thing takes some time to download. How fast? I can't say. There's no indication. The only progress bar available, as you'll soon learn, is either Mario or Luigi running at the bottom of the screen and dunking their head into the blocks. Each block represents a milestone of the download complete. Well, anyway, the download went okay, though slow.
Sometime later, many days later, actually, I decided on Zelda: A Link to the Past because it's classic and it would be fun. So, naturally we have to follow Nintendo's stupid Point System. Why do we have to exchange money for these worthless points? Is it supposed to be easier? Let me remind you: these points are not refundable, and non-transferable. Oh yes, that means when you've bought these points, you can't give them back. And what's more, should your console crash, then, well... those points are lost. Forever. To make matters worse, you can only buy fixed amounts of points. One being 1000 and the other 2000. So, I wanted a SNES game. That costs 800 points. I had to get 1000 points and let 200 points to go waste. That's $2. $2 just lying there, waiting for disaster. Of course, I couldn't just buy those points. Entering credit card information and trying to just didn't work. Asking for state and crap I didn't have. Turns out it's because I had set country to US (but I don't live there, dammit!). Of course I couldn't choose Sweden because it was imported.
They had found a workaround on the web, though. Choose Brazil as your country and then enter the details as you have them. It worked fine. Good. But dammit, Nintendo! A credit card is supposed to be international, not limited to US.
Also, if you enter bad credit card data, it takes you back to the beginning and you have to enter everything over again. Nice.
I downloaded Zelda perfectly.
Forecast Channel
The first bad thing is that you can only choose provinces within the country you've specified in the settings. Considering my own country wasn't even listed, this is a very bad thing. Bad move, Nintendo. The forecast channels measures wind strength, weather and temperature. Temperatures can be in both F or C, as specified in settings. Wind Strength can be measured in both mph and km/s. That's good, at least.
If only the stupid thing listed non-major cities, it would be good. It only lists the actual capital of Sweden. Then what's the POINT? I can use local weather casts and get a better forecast than this channel. Useless.
News Channel
This thing was also mostly useless. It takes forever to load, the background for the news is boring, making it boring to read and also, it's hard to read because of TV interlacing plus small font plus the poor output quality which caused rainbow artifacts all over the place. Useless.
Opera Web browser
Again, useless. The web pages just weren't designed for TVs. The webpages are very small when viewed on the TV, so you have to continually zoom in where you want to read. Furthermore, let's face it - even though the keyboard where you can type everything is sweet, it's still (AFAIK anyway) a US keyboard AND it's a lot slower to type on than a real keyboard. Aside from this, the browser seems to be buggy. I tried a movie from newgrounds.com. The result was that it was laggy and actually aborted the movie not even a minute into it (went to the previous page, but I didn't do anything!). Further, there are no windows and no tabbed browsing. This should not even be called a web browser. Useless, I say!
Part #3: The Games
Wii Sports
First up, our favorite, Wii Sports. The game that's packaged with the console. My feelings on the game is... controls: Gimmicky and lacking. Fun: Average.
Sub-game: Wii Tennis
The is the worst of them all. You can't move by yourself. You might say this doesn't matter. But it does! Often, when shooting balls to the corner of the stage, your characters just won't catch them in time! You can't take them, because you can't control your characters. Then there's the controller thingy. Swing the mote to hit. Yes, swing it however you like, it really doesn't matter. Controlling the ball is difficult, and not how it's supposed to be, hence why I call the controls gimmicky. The angle at which you hit the ball determines where it goes. That's now it works in reality. In reality, you place yourself at a position and angle the racket (which you can't do in this game!) to control where the ball goes. You're supposed to be able to make the ball go high or slow, fast or slow, but striking the controller from down to up doesn't help at all. And you can't swing the controller from up and down to smash down a ball at the net either. When you meet someone who can control at what angle you hit the ball, you're screwed, because there's no way to catch those balls. It's really sad. It's supposed to show the console's potential, but all I see is failure.
Sub-game: Wii Baseball
Not much to comment, other than that you hold buttons to do a different throw? How stupid isn't that? how you throw the ball, or swing the remote, is how you control what kind of ball it becomes. Sheesh.
Sub-game: Wii Golf
Not much to comment. Don't really like golf... haven't played it much either.
Sub-game: Wii Bowling
This seems far too easy than the real thing (which I'm not that good at). In the game, it's easy to do strikes or spares. I don't you did this properly, Nintendo...
Sub-game: Wii Boxing
Never played this. Don't like boxing at all.
Twilight Princess
The main attraction! How is the game with these new controls? My short answer? Gimmick and total failure. For a detailed explanation, read on...
First, the mote is supposed to be our sword, right? I can see how swinging it right or left swings the sword. That's good. But the other sword techniques are different. The horizontal slice? Z-target and a move the remote left or right. WHAT?! I should say we move the mote horizontally. What's wrong with you, Nintendo?! Same goes for the stab. Z-target, then left or right. Logic would say just thrust the controller towards the screen, but no... They could also have done something fancy for the jump attack, but it's just the A button. Boring!
How about shooting with the bow or the slingshot then? I thought so. The controller is WAY too sensitive. I had a very hard time aiming and shooting my targets, whereas on the GC, I could hit spot on anything basically. If there's any good way to remove the sensitivity, then I would really be happy to hear that... But for now, I'm switching to no pointer. The fairy that moves around the screen all the time is also stupid. Why is it there? You only need it when selecting items and in menus. It even moves around when swinging your sword! What the heck?! And there's no way to remove it without removing other things, as well.
Twilight Princess also uses the speaker in the Wiimote a lot. I think it overuses it. The sound quality in the speakers are also terrible. I tend to turn volume down to minimum. It helps a lot. But Midna's laugh in the speaker is pathetic, as well. It isn't even like her voice, so I'm considering turning off the speaker altogether.
The only good thing versus the GC version is that you have 4 instead of 2 slots to store items in.
Another bad thing it the spin attack. The strength of it is equal to the rotate the control stick in a circle and attack version on the gamecube. PLUS it requires recharging! There is a more powerful spin attack in gamecube where you hold down the attack button and release - and it's stronger than the Revolution version! Why is there no such version on Revolution and why isn't there a "free" spin, aka quick spin? WHY NINTENDO?
That's where my Wii vs GC review ends. There are plenty of other flaws in the GC version, too, but I'll not mention those now.
Zelda: A Link to the Past
Not much to say. but there are a few things. First, it looks very edgy. Is it because it's too old and my TV is too big? Or is it due to interlacing maybe? It could have been better. Rainbow artifacts are very present in the game, as well. Very annoying. It's a little hard to play with the GC controller, buy it's doable. I don't have a Classic Controller yet.
Maybe there are things that can be fixed. Feel free to point them out, but these are my initial impressions.,
Anyway, I'll describe what I've found about the Revolution console, the Wii Sports game and Twilight Princess. I'll cover the channels, as well, and a little short on Zelda: A Link to the Past from the Virtual Console.
I'm not bashing the console (and the games) or anything, but I'm not showering it with praise either. The results may surprise you... maybe...
Part #1: The Console
Sleek, as expected from the new generation consoles. The only bad thing is that dust settles on it and makes it look terrible. Have to clean it regularly. Easy to set up and all. The interface is alright, but nothing that really catches your eye. The wiimote is usually too sensitive, but that can be changed in the options. That's good. After changing it and getting used to it, it's not bad at all. The bad thing, though, is that it's easy to loose the pointer and in such case, getting it back on screen. Though lately I've found it easier as I know about how to position the controller to make it appear on the screen.
For a company who advertises little or no loading times, the console sure is slow. Navigating around the settings and in/between channels takes time. A few seconds. There are a few settings to change in the options, which are mostly straight forward. Never used the parental controls, though.
Then there's internet connection. I've got a wireless router, but it seems the console likes to throw a tantrum when trying to connect to internet. Three times it has refused to connect now. Basically, it connects, then the next day, it fails. The router settings haven't changed. I was getting the same results whether I used channel 1 or 11. Now it seems to work. I hope it stays that way. The router works excellent with the laptop and the DS.
One bad thing is that the console is very localized. The dates are displayed in MM/DD/YY, though I prefer DD/MM/YY. Time, if I remember correctly, is AM/PM and I prefer 24-hour. I've found no way to change these. Maybe I haven't looked enough? Then there's country. Because it's from Canada, it expects me to live on that continent and displays only countries there. That's stupid.
I also found that once, when returning to the Wii Menu (as it is called, the main screen when you put on the console, where the channels are), the two wiimotes I had simply died. And they didn't want to re-sync either (no, the batteries were fine). Thankfully, shutting of the console and on fixed this and it hasn't happened since.
But I also find it annoying that the system seems to choose its number 1 remote by itself. And it tries to remember it too. That brings problems when you want to use your own controller as number 1. Basically, someone uses Wiimote #1 and someone else uses Wiimote #2, but when I use MY mote, puts on the system, then that mote is branded as player 2 (even though the other wiimote isn't even ON). That's annoying.
The output cables for the system (or the system itself?) is outputting poor quality video to the TV as well. There are lots of the "rainbow" artifact on the video on the TV. I compared Twilight Princess on Revolution and GC, both with original cables, and the GC picture quality was superior. No rainbow artifacts.
I also tested parental controls. They're flawed as well (what did you expect?). First you have to create a PIN (not a password, instead a pin which is easier to break and harder to remember). It can only be 4 digits, which makes it even easier to crack. Then you have to choose a secret question, should you forget your pin. Of course, you can only select from pre-selected questions. What if you don't know the answer to any of those? Or don't want to use them because they're obvious?! Furthermore, the answer has to be 6 letters at least. It may depend on each question, though. I don't know as I only tested one. Wow, that's great security there, Nintendo. You could choose what to restrict, also. The highest rating of games that were allowed. Then, you could restrict the news channel, internet and exchange of emails via WiiConnect24. It asked all these questions, one after another. If you hit back, you're taken back to the beginning and have to enter everything over again. It doesn't go back to the previous question, oh no. Good work, Nintendo. Really. And from you could expect, it's really simple. You can restrict the Internet channel, but you cannot restrict what your kids can visit and not. Nice. I see you've put up a really useless parental controls, Nintendo...
I also do commend Nintendo for using SD cards for memory. You can get 2 GB for about $20 or less. Memory cards for PS2 or GC were far more expensive. The largest to have existed for GC I think was about 64 MB? And that price was kind of steep, but now we can have 2 GB for equal or less! Just stay away from Nintendo brands...
Before I move on, I'd like to give you two readings... When fully operational, the Revolution consumes about 35 watt. When idle, it consumes about 20 watt. That's a lot. I have WiiConnect24 enabled, but I usually break the power when turning off the console. No WiiConnect24 for you! Do it when it's on!
Part #2: The Channels
Photo Channel
I haven't touched the Photo Channel. Who needs it anyway? I don't store images on an SD card, since I don't have a camera.
Shop Channel
The Shop Channel is interesting. First, you need to accept an agreement... only, to accept it, you need to go to settings and enable WiiConnect24. You can't use it before. How stupid is that?
And, of course, it takes time to load the stupid thing too. I say, bake it into the console instead of streaming it from the Internet and make available the material to download instead. You have firmware updates, right? So update the interface and fix bugs in the firmware instead!
I think Nintendo expects only casual users on the channel, because they put heading which they require you to read and not just the main body. Otherwise you'll get confused. So I tried the web browser first. Takes about 200 blocks, out of the available 2.1 gigablocks (1 gigablock = 1000 blocks) [sweet name, huh?]. As to be expected, the darn thing takes some time to download. How fast? I can't say. There's no indication. The only progress bar available, as you'll soon learn, is either Mario or Luigi running at the bottom of the screen and dunking their head into the blocks. Each block represents a milestone of the download complete. Well, anyway, the download went okay, though slow.
Sometime later, many days later, actually, I decided on Zelda: A Link to the Past because it's classic and it would be fun. So, naturally we have to follow Nintendo's stupid Point System. Why do we have to exchange money for these worthless points? Is it supposed to be easier? Let me remind you: these points are not refundable, and non-transferable. Oh yes, that means when you've bought these points, you can't give them back. And what's more, should your console crash, then, well... those points are lost. Forever. To make matters worse, you can only buy fixed amounts of points. One being 1000 and the other 2000. So, I wanted a SNES game. That costs 800 points. I had to get 1000 points and let 200 points to go waste. That's $2. $2 just lying there, waiting for disaster. Of course, I couldn't just buy those points. Entering credit card information and trying to just didn't work. Asking for state and crap I didn't have. Turns out it's because I had set country to US (but I don't live there, dammit!). Of course I couldn't choose Sweden because it was imported.
They had found a workaround on the web, though. Choose Brazil as your country and then enter the details as you have them. It worked fine. Good. But dammit, Nintendo! A credit card is supposed to be international, not limited to US.
Also, if you enter bad credit card data, it takes you back to the beginning and you have to enter everything over again. Nice.
I downloaded Zelda perfectly.
Forecast Channel
The first bad thing is that you can only choose provinces within the country you've specified in the settings. Considering my own country wasn't even listed, this is a very bad thing. Bad move, Nintendo. The forecast channels measures wind strength, weather and temperature. Temperatures can be in both F or C, as specified in settings. Wind Strength can be measured in both mph and km/s. That's good, at least.
If only the stupid thing listed non-major cities, it would be good. It only lists the actual capital of Sweden. Then what's the POINT? I can use local weather casts and get a better forecast than this channel. Useless.
News Channel
This thing was also mostly useless. It takes forever to load, the background for the news is boring, making it boring to read and also, it's hard to read because of TV interlacing plus small font plus the poor output quality which caused rainbow artifacts all over the place. Useless.
Opera Web browser
Again, useless. The web pages just weren't designed for TVs. The webpages are very small when viewed on the TV, so you have to continually zoom in where you want to read. Furthermore, let's face it - even though the keyboard where you can type everything is sweet, it's still (AFAIK anyway) a US keyboard AND it's a lot slower to type on than a real keyboard. Aside from this, the browser seems to be buggy. I tried a movie from newgrounds.com. The result was that it was laggy and actually aborted the movie not even a minute into it (went to the previous page, but I didn't do anything!). Further, there are no windows and no tabbed browsing. This should not even be called a web browser. Useless, I say!
Part #3: The Games
Wii Sports
First up, our favorite, Wii Sports. The game that's packaged with the console. My feelings on the game is... controls: Gimmicky and lacking. Fun: Average.
Sub-game: Wii Tennis
The is the worst of them all. You can't move by yourself. You might say this doesn't matter. But it does! Often, when shooting balls to the corner of the stage, your characters just won't catch them in time! You can't take them, because you can't control your characters. Then there's the controller thingy. Swing the mote to hit. Yes, swing it however you like, it really doesn't matter. Controlling the ball is difficult, and not how it's supposed to be, hence why I call the controls gimmicky. The angle at which you hit the ball determines where it goes. That's now it works in reality. In reality, you place yourself at a position and angle the racket (which you can't do in this game!) to control where the ball goes. You're supposed to be able to make the ball go high or slow, fast or slow, but striking the controller from down to up doesn't help at all. And you can't swing the controller from up and down to smash down a ball at the net either. When you meet someone who can control at what angle you hit the ball, you're screwed, because there's no way to catch those balls. It's really sad. It's supposed to show the console's potential, but all I see is failure.
Sub-game: Wii Baseball
Not much to comment, other than that you hold buttons to do a different throw? How stupid isn't that? how you throw the ball, or swing the remote, is how you control what kind of ball it becomes. Sheesh.
Sub-game: Wii Golf
Not much to comment. Don't really like golf... haven't played it much either.
Sub-game: Wii Bowling
This seems far too easy than the real thing (which I'm not that good at). In the game, it's easy to do strikes or spares. I don't you did this properly, Nintendo...
Sub-game: Wii Boxing
Never played this. Don't like boxing at all.
Twilight Princess
The main attraction! How is the game with these new controls? My short answer? Gimmick and total failure. For a detailed explanation, read on...
First, the mote is supposed to be our sword, right? I can see how swinging it right or left swings the sword. That's good. But the other sword techniques are different. The horizontal slice? Z-target and a move the remote left or right. WHAT?! I should say we move the mote horizontally. What's wrong with you, Nintendo?! Same goes for the stab. Z-target, then left or right. Logic would say just thrust the controller towards the screen, but no... They could also have done something fancy for the jump attack, but it's just the A button. Boring!
How about shooting with the bow or the slingshot then? I thought so. The controller is WAY too sensitive. I had a very hard time aiming and shooting my targets, whereas on the GC, I could hit spot on anything basically. If there's any good way to remove the sensitivity, then I would really be happy to hear that... But for now, I'm switching to no pointer. The fairy that moves around the screen all the time is also stupid. Why is it there? You only need it when selecting items and in menus. It even moves around when swinging your sword! What the heck?! And there's no way to remove it without removing other things, as well.
Twilight Princess also uses the speaker in the Wiimote a lot. I think it overuses it. The sound quality in the speakers are also terrible. I tend to turn volume down to minimum. It helps a lot. But Midna's laugh in the speaker is pathetic, as well. It isn't even like her voice, so I'm considering turning off the speaker altogether.
The only good thing versus the GC version is that you have 4 instead of 2 slots to store items in.
Another bad thing it the spin attack. The strength of it is equal to the rotate the control stick in a circle and attack version on the gamecube. PLUS it requires recharging! There is a more powerful spin attack in gamecube where you hold down the attack button and release - and it's stronger than the Revolution version! Why is there no such version on Revolution and why isn't there a "free" spin, aka quick spin? WHY NINTENDO?
That's where my Wii vs GC review ends. There are plenty of other flaws in the GC version, too, but I'll not mention those now.
Zelda: A Link to the Past
Not much to say. but there are a few things. First, it looks very edgy. Is it because it's too old and my TV is too big? Or is it due to interlacing maybe? It could have been better. Rainbow artifacts are very present in the game, as well. Very annoying. It's a little hard to play with the GC controller, buy it's doable. I don't have a Classic Controller yet.
Maybe there are things that can be fixed. Feel free to point them out, but these are my initial impressions.,
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