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Genre: Music Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Music Players: 1-4

By brikrok3 (27th Oct 2008)

In some sense, games like those from the Guitar Heroes series and Rock Band suffered largely from their strength: they rock, and they rock hard. And while this seems an admirable goal for the KISS Army, it’s something of a disadvantage for those not ready to rock. Indeed, there’s something narrow-sighted about providing a single music-style game for an ostensibly all-inclusive console. Both of these series, of course, are great, and have proven immensely popular among almost all axe-heads across the spectrum. But why not expand your musical horizons? What not just play rock music, but opera, not just hammer out riffs, but conduct a symphony? This is exactly what Wii Music intends to do. If only the result were more satisfying.

Wii Music follows some predictable and not so predictable paths. The usual Rock Band/Guitar Hero shtick is thus in attendance: play along to some tunes, either by yourself or with some friends en ensemble. Wii Music, though, also tries to do a few new things. For many tunes, you’ll be able to step in and modify them to your particular tastes. For instance, you can add and hold notes, even in some cases alter pitch. This is only aided by your box of instruments; some sixty in all, you’ll be able to play everything from triangles to tubas. Unfortunately, some features prove just the nerdy workings of amateurish musicology. You can, for instance, test your ear for tone, organizing a band of Miis from highest to lowest note. Whether this is supposed to be fun is lost on me; most musicians don’t take nearly as much pleasure in tuning as in playing their guitars.

The control scheme is well suited to its tasks, but its accuracy is ultimately wanting, making even the most mundane activities infuriatingly tedious. For any given song, and any instrument, you’ll need to employ the Wiimote and Nunchuk, mimetically motioning while you play along; the Wii board shows up for drumming expos. For some activities, though, this is easier said than done. For instance, when conducting the symphony—a promising opportunity not just to lead an ensemble but to control the very tempo and rhythm of the performance—your attempts at interpretation are often stymied. Anything but the most vigorous waggling of the Wiimote means flubbed notes and the loss of points. Frenetic movement, in this case, replaces accuracy. On the whole, a better job could have been done.

Visually the game is a mix of both good and bad. The performers are a selection of Miis, so no quibble can really be made for how those block-headed, clunky, existentially misrepresented fellows look. The backdrops are decent. These tend to be a mix of simple geometric light patterns--which for the most part look good, their pulsating movements synching well with the music—the Hills are Alive bucolic backdrops, and rock stadium amphitheatres. This stadium-style backdrop is passable, though many, I’m sure, will compare it unfavourably to Guitar Hero’s grittier, more realist clubs and venues. On the whole, the aesthetic is what one supposed to be quintessentially Wii: from the characters, to the backdrops, to the physics, the Wii Music fits seamlessly into a world of other Wii titles—Wii Tennis, Wii Sports, etc. Whether or not this aesthetic is a good one remains to be seen; I, for one, remain unimpressed. Moreover, I wonder why, in an enterprise as progressive as a console controlled almost entirely by motion sensitivity, would the aestheticians at Nintendo settle for such a humdrum look. Good or bad, though, it seems here to stay.



The game’s musical choices are a startling selection of high-brow, low-brow, and maybe even unidentifiable-brow tunes. Thus you’ll be able to play along to both classic Nintendo tunes, such as themes from Zelda and Super Mario Bros. and largely dated pop hits by Wham!, John Lennon, The Monkees, and Madonna. Added to this are the stranger choices, such as the overture from Carmen, Wagner’s Bridal Chorus, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. To top off these operatic selections is an oddity from opera’s retarded half-cousin, the musical: Do-Re-Mi, from The Sound of Music. These latter choices might leave some tepid.

Ultimately, though, the music is just too mixed a bag, bordering upon a musically minded hobo’s sack of mishmash. Diversity is one thing; discontinuity another. Granted, Wii Music tries to push the music-performance envelope, envisioning not just whole band scenarios but non-genre specific performance. Thus while games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero do the obvious, Wii Music’s title lives, if disappointingly, up to its name: this is all types of music, some poorly selected, I imagine, played on all kinds of instruments. The ambition is laudable, if at times the results are risible. Maybe worst of all, the music has been rendered in MIDI. And while this might rile even the faintest audiophile, Wii Music’s cause is in no way helped by the sheer badness of not just the tone but the performance of the songs. Here, bad sound combines with horrid mixing, brought altogether by rhythmless performance, to make some already iffy songs choices not just mediocre selections but ear-aching listens.



For the most part, then, it’s hard to recommend Wii Music for anyone except youngsters. If for no other reason than the music, this game is not interesting enough for adults. I suspect the Guitar Hero franchise will continue to dominate the field of motion-sensitive musical performance if for no other reason than quality of music. If, though, for a moment we imagined Wii Music as a game with a better-selected, better-performed line-up of songs, would that change anything? In some sense, yes: all of the sudden, Wii Music would have successfully built upon an existing model, offering the opportunity to play not just different instruments, but to conduct whole symphonies. But at the same time, it wouldn’t change anything because the threadbare quality of the gaming experience would remain; Guitar Hero and Rock Band would still be better-constructed, more intelligent games. On the whole, Wii Music shows promise, a future release potentially offering a more complete gaming experience. But for now, Wii Music is a lackluster disappointment, not bad enough to be scrapped, not good enough to be endorsed.

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