Wii Music (Wii)

Nintendo hits a sour note with its musical extravaganza.
10/20/2008 4:09 PM | 4 Comments | Page 1 of 4

Everything you need to know about Wii Music you can figure out within 30 seconds of getting four people together for an in-game jam session.

Amidst a clanging clash of guitar, bass drums, cat meows, dog barks and glockenspiel, there's a sense of something interesting and innovative going on. But damned if you can figure out what it is through all the noise.

I hate Wii Music because I love Nintendo and I want to love Wii Music.

If you took the classic turning point from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" and played it in reverse, you'd get my general feeling of playing Wii Music -- a heart shrinking 10 sizes as I played the game in time to some screwed-up, backward, masked Dr. Seuss music.

This was supposed to be the music game for the rest of us. This was supposed to be the game that gene-spliced the gentle soul of Nintendo fun with music appreciation. This was supposed to be the game that sailed up the charts past Rock Band and Guitar Hero with a bullet. This was supposed to be an AAA Nintendo blockbuster.

Instead we get something like the Kiss solo albums -- watered-down rip-offs, derivative, pointless and dumb.

The basic idea behind Wii Music, like most of what Nintendo cooks up, is intriguing. Waggling Wii remotes around in the air like guitars and drumsticks, cow bells and clarinets, anyone can make music. By pretending to play some 60 different instruments, including such unlikely orchestral voices as the galactic drum kit and dude in a dog costume, Wii Music promised to turn your expressive joy and boundless musical mimicry into dulcet music. We'd seen the beaming Shigeru Miyamoto at E3 in tux and tails conducting an orchestra of Miis, and we thought we could do it, too.

Unfortunately, like those "learn to draw in 30 days" ads, or promises of losing weight while you eat all you want, only the most gullible or desperate are drawn in. You'd have to be a rube to fall for that snake oil. So, what the hell, Shigeru? Why did you play with our blind faith that Nintendo could hammer our tin ears into silver strings of song? Even worse, it wasn't a bait and switch. Nintendo's not so craven as to steal dollars from suckers who hope they'll be the next American Idol after a few weeks with the latest Nintendo trainer game. Nope -- I sincerely think that this time, Nintendo was so high with whatever egomaniacal drugs success has encouraged it to cut into its usual mix of pixie dust that it actually thought this game was the next Wii Sports, the next Brain Age, the next DS, the next big "F-U" to the world of games that keeps telling the Nintendo mothership in Kyoto that it is out of touch with gamers.

And this time it should have listened to the naysayers.

What's wrong with Wii Music is basically a design cancer that runs through the entire body of the project. Every good idea, every bit of genius, is riddled with a fun rot that makes even the best parts feel queasy.