A tiny Wii bit of advise

The entire concept of the Wii has certainly created a stir in the industry. It's certainly selling a whole truck load of systems and that makes for a fairly interesting platform to throw an opinion on. The mere nature of the platform itself certainly has gotten a lot of criticisms and praise. Now that we are just over a year of Wii gaming, there's a few things I need to get off my chest about it.

It's fairly amusing how the media reactions have been with the Wii. All the 'Wii will fail', 'PS3 will overtake it', 'Xbox 360 will win' or those that say the Wii has beaten the competition are all loads of crap. First thing is that nobody has info from the future. Secondly, all the so-called analysts make a living making guesses. Thirdly, all of those statements are there to create a buzz around them. I certainly don't buy them and neither should you.

Analysts come, create a stir, then disappear after awhile, but the game reviewers surely don't. They've been the staple in the video game industry as those that report on how well the game did and whether people should buy them. If you trek through the Wii reviews, you'll likely see very polarizing or sometimes very grim scores for Wii games. There's a whole lot of crap being thrown at titles, especially third party ones and there's also some that tend to be more lax with them, and this is one thing that I really noticed throughout the year.

Reviews are especially an important benchmark for gamers read them to get a good idea whether or not a product is worth buying or renting at all. And it's with this that we need to bear in mind that no matter how objective the reviewer is, reviews tend to be subjective. After all, the only real report being done is within the eyes of the reviewer and how he interprets the game. And I believe this has never had a bigger impact than on Wii games.

More than any other platform, the mere design of Wii controls lend to even more subjective factors involved. If you are panting after a round of boxing, is it your fault or the Wii's? If you feel tired while swinging the sword, is that a point deducted on the Wii or is it because you've spent your life living on the couch? The motion detection is often reported as being wonky. Is it your fault or the Wii's? These things beg to question how Wii reviews are being evaluated at all.

The fact of the matter is, the reviews written are always the opinion of the players/journalists who played the game. It always was and it always will be. It also only represents a mouthpiece, which happens to be one people hear from afar.

My experience with Wii gaming is one that is interesting for me, since I have come across titles where agree with them and titles that I don't agree and at times, you tend to wonder what game they were actually playing. This is something that has existed in older platforms but I feel has been more emphasized on the Wii because of the very nature of play. This is also something I find disconcerting because there is quite a number of games that I like that just got slashed up to bits.

Thinking about it all though, if there's one thing I have learned from a year of Wii gaming, it is this:

Don't trust reviews.

Just don't. Nintendo was definitely right with one thing about the Wii, you have to feel it to know if it's for you. It's hard to put on paper the experience you get and often times what you feel, the person next to you has the exact opposite experience.

This isn't an article about not reading reviews. On the contrary, Wii game reviews are good articles to read for some information on the game. What it is not, is a credible measurement of the game being described. Do you enjoy a game because someone else said it's great? I don't think so. Do you think the title sucks because someone else said so? I hope not.

If there's a game you are interested, do yourself a favour and spend a few moments with it. I feel it's especially more important with the Wii because you never know what you may have missed by reading someone just dish out expletives at a title.

When all is said and done, you are the one who will play and you are the only one who can decide if it's playable or not for you. It's in the eyes of the beholder.

... Or maybe, I'm just an example of my own article. Ha!