Bring on the FPS, please

It’s time for a first-person shooter that focuses on the dynamics of online multi-player death matches to hit the Wii.

Sure, the Smash Bros. and Mario Kart franchises are a blast, but where are the first-person shooters? While Xbox’s Halo 3 — not to mention its long list of other first-person shooters — stretch the competitiveness of gamers across the world, it’s almost undeniable that the best platform for first-person shooters is still the PC. The main reason the PC makes for great first-person shooter gameplay is because of the intuitiveness and ease of using a mouse for aiming. While analog controls get the job done, they just don’t compare to using a mouse.

Now, take a minute and analyze the Wiimote.

In Super Mario Galaxy, the Wiimote acts as a cursor — just like a mouse — and makes for smooth and responsive gameplay. The same is the case for Metroid Prime 3. This game follows suit, allowing for the Wiimote to act more like a mouse than a “traditional” controller. The result in both of these games is phenomenal gameplay that feels easy and natural.

Let’s take a closer look at Metroid Prime 3.

The Wiimote acts just like a mouse does in a PC first-person shooter. Aiming is accurate and smooth, allowing the player unlimited flexibility in his or her controls. The only improvement to make to the gameplay is to have a faster turning radius. Therefore, one must ask the question: if the ease of the Wiimote is such a nice fit for a first-person shooter, then why aren’t there more first-person shooters for the console?

The Metroid universe lends itself to some fast and exciting multi-player options, even if not online, then at least four-player death matches. Imagine the use of things such as the morph ball to gain access to secret areas or the grappling beam to traverse vast landscapes, all the while blowing your competition to tiny blue and red glowing bits of energy.

A good first-person shooter — with online play, of course —could end the arguments that the Wii is only for casual gamers. Developers need to take a page out of the Metroid Prime 3 design book and start making intense first-person shooters that utilize the effectiveness of the Wiimote and nunchuck combo.

Using this technology, there should be no reason why first-person shooters can’t be just as good, if not better, on the Wii than on their more graphically-superior peer-consoles.

Strike up the band

2008 looks to be one exciting year for Wii owners. Titles such as a new Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and the unique Animal Crossing have Wii owners primed to become one with their Wiimote.

But perhaps the most innovative title for this year, at least for this gamer, is Wii Music. Wii Music is set to be the fourth installment in the Wii Series, which includes Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Chess.
The title was first introduced at E3 2006, as it featured Shigeru Miyamoto’s main theme for the Legend of Zelda. Visitors to the demo were shown using the Wiimote and nunchuck in the same fashion that a conductor would use a baton to conduct an orchestra. The demo also showed people playing a drum set by striking different point in the air with the Wiimote and nunchuck-combo.

Although the people shown were mostly using the Wiimote to just tap the downbeats, I couldn’t help but to speculate on the possibilities of bringing this type of gameplay to rhythm-based games.

The success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band have shown that gamers enjoy rhythm-based games, but Nintendo has the chance to really offer players with another dimension of musical gameplay with this innovative title; a dimension that only the Wiimote and nunchuck-combo can provide.

While it would be great to lead a virtual symphony with classic NES themes, such as Rygar’s under appreciated soundtrack or Nobuo Uematsu’s “Flight of the Red Wings” for Final Fantasy II (FFIV in Japan), this music-lover can’t help but to salivate at the thought of conducting Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” or Verdi’s requiem, “Dies Irae.”

G4tv.com (http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/index.html) reported this week that Wii Music is scheduled for a Japan release later this year.

Here’s to hoping that music-lovers stateside get to enjoy the title of maestro, as well.