Wii Music (Wii)

...spent weeks trying to get Wii music from Game at a good price, I missed the sale, so the only prices they had left was £34 and there was no way in hell that I was going to buy a game at that price.

After a very hectic day, we ended up in a small town whilst my sister was getting her brace fixed, after sitting in the car in a traffic jam for 2 hours to get there (in the heat mind you), we were about ready to pass out in the car, so ...
...worst games I’ve played on Wii so far.

==What is Wii Music? ==

Wii Music is free form game for the Wii console which allows the user to simulate playing musical instruments by using the Wii Remote, Nun Chuck and even the Wii Balance Board which came with the Wii Fit.

==How to Play It? ==

To play the game, you don’t need the Wii Balance Board; I myself have not used it yet, because I can’t ... more

This is a very different review for me, so I hope you enjoy it. Please rate and comment. Thank you.

Wii Music

I have spent weeks trying to get Wii music from Game at a good price, I missed the sale, so the only prices they had left was £34 and there was no way in hell that I was going to buy a game at that price.

After a very hectic day, we ended up in a small town whilst my sister was getting her brace fixed, after sitting in the car in a traffic jam for 2 hours to get there (in the heat mind you), we were about ready to pass out in the car, so went for a little walk and found a blockbusters. There sitting in front of me was the game I wanted for £22.98 which was the price I was willing to pay.

I came home with the game and for about 10 minutes I had great time learning the controls and playing the different games, and then realised, within 10 minutes I had played on everything the game has to offer.

Okay, I know the game isn’t aimed a 7 year olds and not 17 year olds, but as I love music, and the adverts were so good for this game, I really thought it’d be for me. However, what you see on the advert is what you get with the game. That’s all it offers and it is possibly one of the most expensive, crappest games I’ve ever played in my life. Let me tell you a little bit more about the game and why it’s one of the worst games I’ve played on Wii so far.

What is Wii Music?

Wii Music is free form game for the Wii console which allows the user to simulate playing musical instruments by using the Wii Remote, Nun Chuck and even the Wii Balance Board which came with the Wii Fit.

How to Play It?

To play the game, you don’t need the Wii Balance Board; I myself have not used it yet, because I can’t be bothered to get it out of the cupboard so I have stuck with just using the nun chuck and the wii remote. Playing the instruments are pretty easy, a little too easy, you just have to simulate how you would usually play an instrument in real life, for example with drums, you just bang your hands up and down with the nun chuck in your left hand and wii remote in your right. Simple huh? Way too simple.

Instruments Available To Play

There are actually 66 playable instruments to play on the Wii Music game, I myself got bored after about 10 of them. To access certain games depends on how many players you’ve got as some require you to play in multiplayer mode.

Some of the instruments that the game simulates are:

Violin
Cowbell
Clarinet
Piano
Guitar
Drums

They’re all conventional instruments that you would expect to be on a game like this, however you can also do the following:

Dog & Cat Sounds
Kung Fu Cheerleader
Doo Wop Vocals

Yeah, not what you really would call instruments, we played on the dog sounds and it really was just a waste of time.

What Can You Do On Wii Music?

There are different modes which the game allows you to play on, when it came to this game, I seriously thought there would be a lot more than the things they do provide. Here they are:

Jam Mode

This section is probably the best bit of the whole game, and its pretty crap so that’s telling you a lot. In Jam Mode you have three different things you can do, they are:

Improv (play instruments without backing music)
Quick Jam (randomly selects song for you to play)
Custom Jam (six person band taking part in a performance)

If you want to play Custom Jam and play every instrument yourself, then you are able to by clicking Overdub. This allows you to play a different instrument but playing the same song at the same time.

MiniGames

These are the ‘Games’ that Wii Music provides for us all to have a fantastic time with, however, they are just as awful as the Jam Mode and the games are not really what you call fun.

Open Orchestra

This game allows you to use the Wii Remote to conduct an orchestra. Yes it is just as boring as it sounds.

¬¬¬_Hand bell Harmony_

This lets the players match notes by playing with hand bells. Again, boring as hell and quite painful when played wrong.

Pitch Perfect

Probably the only game on the entire game that allows you to really use musical skill to get somewhere, with this game you have to distinguish one sound from another. It’s an alright game, but like the rest it gets boring very quickly

Videos

With all sections of the game you are able to save your sessions as videos, which lets you go back later on and watch them. This is really a waste of time and money in my opinion, I will never use this section and I’m sure the rest of you will agree.

Skill

The thing I really liked with games like Guitar Hero was the fact that you didn’t really need skill to start with, you could still play around, but as you progressed you started to really make ‘music’, however this game there is no skill what-so-ever required to play any instruments, all you have to do is lift the wii remote and nun chuck up and down and you’ve played an instrument pretty badly.

There is no way of playing an instrument in time with a beat you want to play even in Jam mode, you have to pretty much mess around, there is nothing with this game that keeps you entertained and involved.

Sound

7/10

The sound is as good as you would expect from a music game, however, the sound quality might be good, it really depends on how good the player is to make the sound good and it’s almost impossible to play in tune or play a good sound on the game.

Graphics

6/10

The graphics are pretty much what you would expect from a Wii Game. Like Wii Sports you use your Mii to play the games, and the whole thing is situated around that sort of cartoonish style, all of the other people helping you play songs are all Mii’s.

I wouldn’t say they are the best graphics I’ve seen in my life, however if you have played Wii Sports, then you will know what to expect with the graphics in this game.

Usability for Children

6/10

Parents should be warned, it is not possible to make a good sound out of this game, and your children will be sitting playing the hand bell game or drums in Jam Mode and will drive you absolutely up the wall. It is not teaching them musical skill, get them guitar hero instead or world tour, then they will learn proper musical skill.

The game is based at children, however I thought it would be good for all ages, I was wrong I have to say, it was pure awful and I was bored within a few minutes. There are so many better games on Wii at the moment, which are significantly cheaper.

Interactivity

1/10

There is no interactivity when it comes to this game, you wouldn’t like this in a game like Wii Tennis as you’d be missing the ball all of the time. The interactivity, or lack of it, really ruins the game for me in my opinion.

Price

1/10

At the moment there are hundreds of prices for this game swimming around, I myself am taking my game back to a Game store to trade it in, because I would get peanuts on EBay by the looks of things. Here are some of the prices:

EBay: £8 ish, they’re selling them really cheap on there.
Play.com: £24.99
GAME: £39.99
Blockbusters: Preowned (£22.98)

Soundtrack

1/10

I think one of the main reasons games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band, was the modern day rock songs or even pop songs that you are able to rock along to. This game has a lot of songs you can perform, however they are stuck in the stone age, the set list is mostly classical music, that I’ve never heard of before, and for me, playing twinkle twinkle little star is not my idea of fun. Where is the Aerosmith? Where is the decent music, this is what we want from a game of this price.

Gameplay

2/10

For a good game to be counted as good, the game play has to be good, this game is not good. There is a terrible track list and it really is one of the most boring games I’ve ever played in my life, it’s way too simple to play, and when you want to do, what you assume the game is about, playing music, you are unable to play a decent tune as the interactivity is just ridiculous.

Final Opinion

All in all, as soon as I turned on the game I was very disappointed, I really expected something brilliant, as Wii technology seems to be mind-blowing. However, you will get more enjoyment out of games like Wii Sports which is free with your Wii, this game gives you a very limited enjoyment time, and it is not aimed at all ages.

I am usually the type of person to buy a game or DVD after reading hundreds of reviews about it, however with this game I read zilch and it was probably one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made because I have wasted £22 of my own money on a game which I’m taking back to a shop to trade in two days after buying it. I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, I really did think that the game was going to be fantastic, it had a perfect concept, however the creators did not follow through.

There really was not enough games or challenges throughout the entire game, it was too simple and really just a waste of money.

You have to remember before buying this that what you see on the adverts, is what you get, 30 seconds of fun, what shocks me though is the fact that this game was released October/November time of 2008 and is still at the same price in some places that it was when it was released. I really wish I had looked on EBay before buying it for £22, as they are really selling it for a quarter of the prices you’ll find in shops.

The card case that you get with the game is almost false advertising as it’s quite funky and eye catching and it looks like they have spent a lot of time on it, but when you get to the game it’s boring and just a waste of time and money as the game even feels cheaply made.

What annoyed me the most was, I can play guitar, I can play a little drums, but when I tried to ‘perform’ a song or a beat, the Mii on screen did not do what you were doing and did not produce the beat that you wanted to play.

If you read reviews of this game on Amazon then you will find a very mixed bag, but please do not waste your money on this game, you will feel very disappointed if you have paid the full price (£39.99) for this game, considering what you get is pretty abysmal and very boring. As well as that, if you brought it for a full price, you will not be able to get the money back from EBay or even GAME, I’m not sure what they are offering for Trade in, but I’m sure it’s not going to be anywhere near £20, if it is, I will be very pleased.

There’s not much more I can say about this game, other than I was very disappointed and I think most of you will as well. Parents be wary before you buy this game, I don’t think even a trained musician can play this game, so don’t expect your 4 year old to be able to make anything other than noise with this game, painful noise.

Hope this review helped.

Thank you for reading.

Kirsty 2009 (C)

 

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