More Hands-on with the Nintendo Wii

I took an early look at the Wii a couple of months ago, but I didn't get enough of it. Unfortunately, getting a finished, retail-ready Wii unit ahead of launch is proving difficult, so I went to a party Nintendo had at its 10,000-square-foot flagship store in New York's Rockefeller Center, where one of the first—and definitely the largest—playable Wii displays just went live. At the party, each of 12 units displayed a different "launch window" title (that means the games could come out any time between now and March, though Nintendo is promising 32 new titles by year's end).

Alas, time was limited because of a screw up (on the part of Nintendo) with the event's hours, so I focused mostly on third-party titles that I hadn't seen or had a chance to play before.

One of the new titles was Rampage: Total Destruction, an updated version of the arcade classic. The Wii version is similar to the Gamecube version that came out earlier this year, but has a little more going on onscreen (extra detail on buildings, new characters) and makes use of the Wii remote's motion-sensitive functions. I managed to wrestle the controller out of the hands of Diana, the quirky-academic contestant from Season 2 of Project Runway, who was there, randomly, playing in cooperative mode with a friend (holding the remote and the Nunchuk, respectively).

Though not a huge or revolutionary title, Rampage was engaging for a little while. It's fun to swing one's Nunchuk-and-Wii-Remote-carrying arms, thus smashing buildings or stamping out entire S.W.A.T. teams on the ground by making downward swatting movements with the Wii remote (or pressing the "A" button to eat people in windows). People who liked the arcade version or who just like to smash things up will be amused, though even this version isn't as fun as the original arcade version.

I have hopes for the party game potential of the multiplayer mode, where up to four people can play as the havoc-wreaking oversized creatures (I played as Marco the Shark). Still, it's far from my first choice Wii game to run out and buy.

A more fun party game and higher up on the ladder of Wii game purchase priorities would be Ubisoft's Rayman Raving Rabbids. The game consists of a series of weirdly named trials that must be overcome. (The idea is you're helping the title character escape from the crazed, alien quasi-rabbits who have imprisoned him.) The game can be played in either single-player (with the storyline) or multiplayer mode (which lets you access many of the trials as mini-games).

Rayman Raving Rabbids is all about the Wii controller. In the "Bunnies Are Addicted to Carrot Juice" game, players must hold back an onslaught of amphibious-landing bunnies by squirting carrot juice at their scuba masks. To accomplish this, you have to shake the Nunchuk vigorously and use the Wii Remote to target and shoot at the bunnies' masks (which fill up with the orange liquid and kill the wabbits).

In "Bunnies Don't Know What To Do With Cows," you swing onscreen cows around by twirling the Wii Remote in a circle, lasso-style, above your head (and the watch the cow swing around onscreen), then throw said cow literally out to pasture by pressing the "A" button. Whether it's more amusing to toss the cow or hear the cow's comical, anguished moo as he flies through the air and plop-lands on the ground, I'm not sure, but it all adds to the fun.

I also really dug/laughed at the totally wacky noises the bunnies make in a Simon-meets-Parappa-the-Rapper-style memory game called "Bunnies Have No Memory," where you point the Wii remote at different bunnies to repeat a sound pattern. I find pointing the cursor with the Wii remote to be one of the harder new skills to learn with the Wii controls, so this game can be a challenge. For more on Rayman Raving Rabbids, check out Greg Mueller's detailed preview after last summer's Leipzig Games Show and Phil Elliott's updated hands-on from a recent Wii showcase in Paris.

Lastly, I got some hands-on with Ubisoft's Red Steel, a first-person shooter that also makes a big deal out of the Wii's new controllers. The Yakuza plotline—what is it with Yakuza plotlines lately?—takes the action to hotel lobbies, massage parlors, narrow streets, and other locales in Los Angeles and Tokyo. Red Steel's story and settings give the game an appropriately slick and adult edge (unlike many of the Wii launch titles), with some funny cutscenes and interludes with random characters that verge on PG-13.

That said, in typical Wii fashion, the game also requires that all new games start with a tutorial, which teach newbies how to use the Nunchuk and Wii Remote to control the swords and guns that you use as weapons. Basic actions include making sweeping motions with the Wii controller to affect sword movements, and using the remote as a gun that you can twist from side to side for more stylish, gangster-esque shooting. Real-world movements of the motion-sensitive variety aren't spot-on-synchronized with the onscreen action, but they do the trick againsts opponents.

Also Wii-nnovative: You can zoom in on targets by just holding down the "A" button and literally shoving the Wii controller towards the screen. And here's some good news for the FPS-averse: You can take some shots and avoid actually dying by just ducking under a table or hiding out somewhere else and letting your health meter replenish (usually only takes about ten seconds), which means you might just be able to play with the whole family! For more info, check out Phil Elliott's recent video preview.

I'm hoping to get an actual unit to play around with a few days before launch, in which case I'll report back, but this is what I was able to get to play with on Friday before rushing off to the PlayStation 3 event across town (more on that later). For more Wii impressions, check out my earlier hands-on post from the Wii press conference in September.

Anybody looking forward to any of these games? What other Nintendo games are you dying to get your hands on?