Wii Music

Wii Music
Publisher	Nintendo
Developer	Nintendo
Genre	Music
Ratings	ESRB: E - PEGI: 7+
Players	1-4
Inputs	Wii Remote,

Wii Music is a free form music game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. The game was released in Japan and North America in October 2008, and in Europe and Australia in the following month. Wii Music is part of both Nintendo's Touch! Generations brand and the Wii series.

Gameplay

In Wii Music, the player uses both motions and button presses on the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to control a six-member band with 5 "Tutes" and 1 Mii. Unlike other music games, Wii Music does not require the player to press certain buttons at certain times but only requires the player to move the Wii Remote and Nunchuk like he or she was playing the instruments.

Instruments

Template:Mainarticle Sixty-six playable instruments are available in the single and multiplayer modes, including the violin, cowbell, clarinet, harmonica, piano, guitar, trumpet, harp, shamisen, maracas, sitar and marimba, as well as unconventional instruments such as dog and cat sounds, pseudo vocals (Singer), Kung Fu (Blackbelt), cheerleader, and 8-bit sound waves (NES gray Horn). In addition, the Wii Balance Board can be utilized to play the drums. Some instruments also have extra playing options. For example, with woodwind instruments, the player can aim the Wii Remote up or down to simulate an increase or decrease in blowing strength, while with Guitar instruments the player can hold down the C button to get single notes instead of chords.

Jam mode

The main part of the game is the Jam mode, consisting of Improv, Quick Jam and Custom Jam modes. Improv allows players to play instruments without backing music, while Quick Jam randomly selects a song for players to play to.

The Custom Jam mode features a six-person band taking part in a performance, although only up to four players can play at once (the remaining two positions are computer-controlled). Players can also do what is called an "Overdub" session in which they play the same song again controlling a different musician or instrument; this allows them to play over the music they recorded in previous playthroughs. This allows a single player to play an entire band.

Players can save their Custom Jam sessions as music videos for later playback, or share them via WiiConnect24.

Characters

Wii Music features both miis (featured in all other games), and tutes. The game is led by Sebastian Tute (right), and when you jam the other tutes can join you.

Minigames

Along with the freeform Jam Mode, Wii Music features several structured minigames:

• Drums uses the Wii Remote and Nunchuk together to simulate drum sticks, while the Wii Balance Board can be used for the pedals. The player moves the "drumsticks" up and down to hit the drums, while players stamp with their feet on the Balance Board to hit the pedals. The game supports split-screen multiplayer.
• Mii Maestro (known as Open Orchestra in PAL regions) uses the Wii Remote to conduct an orchestra. The player swings the Wii Remote up and down to a certain tempo. Moving the Wii Remote quickly with no real rhythm will make the Mii orchestra play frantically, while slow, more graceful movements will create dragging notes and softer, longer tones. There are no indicators of any kind to show how well the player is performing, forcing the player to try to match the original music from memory, and experiment to find which movements give better results. At the song's conclusion, a round of applause sounds and a numerical score is displayed. In multiplayer, several players conduct the same orchestra at once. Scoring is based on the players' chemistry: better scores are obtained if the players conduct harmoniously, but if their styles vary the score is poor.
• Handbell Harmony lets players match notes by playing with handbells. Players are scored depending on how many notes are played correctly. The 8 coloured notes move along a bar, similar to the moving coloured blocks in the Guitar Hero games.
• Pitch Perfect, in which players are quizzed on distinguishing different sounds from one another. This mode is similar to Wii Play's Find Mii, and allows the user to pick up Miis and place them in the correct positions. Multiplayer is a hot-seated version whereby one person of the group will get picked to answer a question.

Soundtrack

Template:Mainarticle Wii Music features 52 songs that consist of a combination of Classical and Traditional songs, 7 songs from Nintendo games and 15 licensed songs.

Development

Wii Music was also first shown, along with the Wii Remote, at the Nintendo press conference at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show. The two minigames briefly featured were Drums and Orchestra. The game was also the first Wii game ever to be demonstrated during Nintendo's E3 2006 press conference, where Shigeru Miyamoto came up to the stage to perform the The Legend of Zelda Overworld Theme for the audience using the Orchestra game. Both Drums and Orchestra were also made playable to attendees. Additional details of the game were released in conjunction with a Nintendo press conference held on October 11, 2007.

Wii Music was showcased during Nintendo's press conference for E3 2008, revealing much more information, including support for the Wii Balance Board to play the drums. It was revealed later on that the game has lessons for the drums programmed in. Miyamoto later announced that over 61 instruments will be playable in the game, and explained the control scheme that uses the Wii Remote's buttons to play notes on various instrument while holding the Wii Remote in a similar fashion to the actual instrument.

Reception

Critical reception to the game was mixed, with a 62/100 aggregate score at Metacritic. Wii Music was given a score of A- by 1UP.com by Jennifer Tsao, who believed the game has a "surprising depth and flexibility" that rewards players who have mastered the controls. She also felt that the game's four-player custom jam mode was addictive, but lamented the abundance of public domain songs in the soundtrack. It was given 80% by Official Nintendo Magazine who praised the surprising depth of the game. GameSpy, who gave it 3.5/5, called the game an "odd duck" and something "more akin to a tech demo or social audio experiment" with little to interest adults, but is simple enough to be accessible to everyone and believed it would be a hit with young children and their families. Wii Music also got a 6.5/10 from GameSpot, who said that Wii Music, while fun and easy to pick up and play, is hard to recommend because older children and adults would only get a few hours of entertainment.

The game received a 5/10 from IGN, who called the game "a noise maker tied to a series of gestures" and cited "gimmicky" controls and poor sound quality, in addition to a "fundamentally flawed" soundtrack. However, they also felt that children may enjoy the game much more than adults, who they believe may "grow bored of the experience in a matter of hours, if not minutes". Game Informer gave the game a 3/10, calling it "a poor solution to an imaginary problem". GameTrailers gave it 5.8/10, criticizing the "ancient" song list and emphasis on video creation.

The game sold 92,000 copies in its first week of release in Japan. In North America, the game sold around 66,000 copies in around the same period after release. Shigeru Miyamoto has stated that the game's sales have not been as strong as originally hoped, with a possible reason for this being competition from established music and rhythm games series such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band which are dominating the market. Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing, suggests Wii Music will be an "evergreen" title that will see continued sales in the long run. Wii Music was the tenth best selling game for the month of November, selling 297,000 units in the US according to the NPD Group.

External links

• Official website
• Wii Music at Wii.com