Gamecube VS Wii- An Unfair fight
I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself, I really don’t. I remember when the Wii was announced, when I was a slightly shorter (about 6’2″), slightly less disgruntled chap. I laughed at the name, I looked at the games that were coming out and thought “cool, it sounds okay”. Then I found out it had motion sensor controls. Then I swore.
I hate to shovel spoonfuls of my private life at you but I happen to be incredibly lazy and I also happen to be spatially retarded. I didn’t want a Wii when I found out, I wanted to bury my head in the sand and cry. What is wrong with a normal controller? Why can’t you do what Sony will inevitably do and change fuck all about the controller?
The GameCube controller is easily the most comfortable, best designed and most well-weighted controller of all time. I can say this with a degree of certainty because there are complaints about controllers which you must always take note of. 1) It’s too big- never heard this about a GC controller, 2) It’s too small- never heard or had that about a GC controller, 3) I can’t reach the <insert> button- never had that problem. Everything about it is designed to fit perfectly into your hand and never give you carpal tunnel or RSI. The wiimote on the other hand seems to have been designed by Ann Summers if Ann Summers was run by Nazis. The wiimote has a long smooth shaft with nodules designed to reach all a woman’s pleasure centres and the nunchuk is clearly a clit-stim with a 3d control for intensity.
… where was I? Yes, that’s right. It’s designed for anything other than fitting in your hand. It is designed to be “ergonomic”, in this case “ergo” meaning “errr, go away now please, I’m trying to look cool”. It doesn’t fit in your hand, the d-pad is twenty miles away from your thumb and the A and B buttons make very little sense in their positioning the +,- and home keys are too small for anyone but the fucking Borrowers and the 1 and 2 buttons have never been used by me, ever. The Nunchuk’s button placement is similarly annoying as I STILL don’t know which is the Z and which is the C button. This is a problem I never had with the GC controller as it was so brilliantly designed even a dyspraxic moron like myself can use the damn thing.
Enough of the controller, let’s look at the other hardware. I can buy a little cable which connects my GBA to my GC… why would I want to do that? Oh, I can put a game from the same franchise in my GBA and my GC and then use the GBA as a controller to open different content. Wow, that sounds pretty good. The Wii has similar features? Oh… I can only send Pokemon to “My Pokemon Ranch” for no clear fucking reason. This is the problem with the Wii, it does stuff for the sake of it and gives no clear reason why we need it. Why would I want the weather on my Wii? I clearly have a television and the internet so I see little reason to switch another device on when teletext will do just fine.
Let’s move on to the games before I kill someone. It seems to me that the GameCube was able to do something extraordinary with games that shouldn’t have been good. Super Mario Sunshine sounds like a flawed premise in a way, take a character who has been jumping from platform to platform for almost 40 years and make him fight paint. Yeah it sounds stupid, but how many times have you played a game where you have to jump and immediately press any of the 4 main buttons to switch to your hover nozzle before realizing the game you’re playing ISN’T Mario Sunshine? That’s right, none, because you’re not thick like me but it’s this level of immersion which brings about these thoughts and why Mario Sunshine is so good.
Super Smash Bros Melee is another case in point because it took a fairly fun beat ‘em up on the N64 and turned it into a fantastically funny and creative beat ‘em up in which nothing ever seems broken. This is something the Wii managed to break because as long as you’re Falco you will ALWAYS get the Smash Ball in SSBB and it will ALWAYS annoy people. What Melee managed to do is make losing fun. It didn’t matter if you were shit because watching Link fly off the screen because he’d just had a bob-omb thrown at him is, and always will be, hilarious. Allowing any muppet to break the game if he gets the right item detracts from the fun because there’s no sense of “Yes, my friend deserves that kill”, all you feel is “fucking smash ball!”.
Another game brilliantly brought to life by the GameCube is Mario Kart Double Dash, a game I have already wrapped my lips around and pleasured fondly but it deserves the praise I give it. It took a game which already existed (Mario Kart) added a new dimension to it (2 characters) which managed to freshen the whole approach to both single and 2-player co-op. In single player you would think which 2 characters would give you the best karts, items and weight and this in turn allowed you very different styles of gameplay with each different team construct. In 2-player you thought “which of us is shit at driving? You? Well you can be him because he has the best item and I’ll be whichever will allow me this Kart” which is slightly different. Mario Kart Wii sought to do something different from Double Dash and made Mario Kart 64 but without any soul. Just Mario Kart by numbers with shit items that no one gives a fuck about.
There are plenty of other games for the GameCube that now have Wii partners and I can guarantee you that everyones complaint will be “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MOTION SENSORS”. No one cares, if the controls were used effectively then maybe people would like it. Unfortunately, because it’s there almost every single action has to be replaced with a flail to mimic an epileptic receiving electro-shock therapy and so you get very physically tired very quickly and turn the game off to do something else… like get a GameCube game.
I know it’s unoriginal to rag on the Wii but I have some advice for you. Go out and buy as many GameCube games as you can find, yes even some not very good ones, play them on the Wii with a Wavebird or GC controller. You will not be dissatisfied, in fact you’ll probably enjoy yourself and have a good time. You also won’t get carpal tunnel syndrome, won’t look like a tit in your window and will never, ever, ever play “Wii Fit”. Which is about as effective for weight loss as squirty cream on tap.