Nintendo Channel Impressions
Well, I have to say I was a little annoyed that my Wii wasn't lit up until after I'd already turned it on and downloaded the Nintendo Channel. That's when I got the message from Nintendo telling me it was available. Thanks, but the blogosphere beat you to it!
I thought it was very interesting that before launching the channel for the first time, it asks if you want to receive messages about games. Basically commercials. I don't need my Wii glowing blue every time a game company wants to send me an ad, so I opted out of that one. I mean, that's really all this channel amounts to, is a bunch of advertising. However, the second option allows you the choice whether or not to be part of the game rating system. This allows Nintendo to monitor what games you're playing and how long you're playing them. If you're afraid of Big Brother, you can opt out, but Nintendo reminds that as a reward for sharing this information, you'll be allowed to download DS demos. So there's really no choice there at all.
Because the DS demo downloads are easily the best part of this experience. There's a decent selection to start with, but we'll see how often new one pop up and whether they add to the list or replace older ones. I was excited to see Jam Sessions on there, but the demo was curiously underwhelming because it was so limited. I am slightly more intrigued by it, though, so I guess it served its purpose. I also tried the Ninja Gaiden demo, which was very pretty and quite thrilling, however I'm afraid to play the full game for fear of shredding my touch screen!
As with all the Channels, the background music is soothing and surprisingly well done, but this time around the loading noises are a little irritating to me. Luckily the videos load quickly. Not wild about how the first screen is a video they push on you before you can go to the main menu. And for that matter, the main menu isn't laid out as nicely as I would've expected. For once, I was actually a little confused. I do appreciate how the extraneous titles and whatnot on the screen disappear after a time while watching a video, although I wonder if Apple can sue them for using that reflection image thing. Full screen is a nice option, though it didn't always look that terrific. The light blue circles swirling in the background aren't distracting, but the red squares while watching DS videos are. What's up with that?
I only rated one game, but I was surprised that No More Heroes wasn't on my list. I appreciate that they require you to have played a game for more than an hour before you're allowed to offer up your opinion on it, but I'm pretty sure I've played NMH more than a few hours. Ah, whatever, it wouldn't have been a glowing review anyway!
Oh, and make sure to check out the Ghost Squad: Dress To Impress trailer. The game is just another on-rails shooter that doesn't impress, but oh man, is that commercial full of cheesy goodness!
Wootini
Posted to Video Games on 7 May 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: ds downloads, impressions, nintendo, nintendo channel, wii
I think it only allows you to review first party titles that you have save files for.
I was looking to recommend No More Heroes too btw.
The Jam Sessions Demo is limited because the "game" itself is extremely limited. It's more toy than game, similar to Electroplankton. There are very few Guitar Hero-esque game functions, but it's an interesting piece of software.
Ghost Squad is actually an on-rails shooter that *does* impress with the right expectations. Ninja mode forever! Now that HotD Returns is out, it's hard to say that it's worth as much money, but GS is a fun multiplayer game that Mrs. Game-boi and I play together. At the very least, it's more accessible than Umbrella Chronicles.
There are a few third party games up for review, but sadly NMH is not one of them. I was looking to review it too. But at least I could give Sin&Punishment and Blazing Lazers some love.