If you keep up with video game news, you probably know what "Wii Music" is. You probably even know how to play it -- shake the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as if you were playing one of the game's more than 60 instruments.
But you may have no idea what it's like to play the game. How is it structured? What actually happens when you boot the game up? How do you progress? The game comes out in just a few days and even I didn't know the answers to these questions until this week.
I've played my retail copy of "Wii Music" for a couple of hours over the last two days and can explain how this game really works.
I also think I've finally figured out the very unusual way the game is designed to appeal to you. Winning isn't an option in this game. There's something else...
"Wii Music" begins with a tutorial. You have to play this when the game boots (after it updates your firmware, that is). The tutorial is conducted by a composer character who teaches you the game's four primary control schemes: 1) two-handed drum-stick-shaking for percussion and keyboard; 2) one-handed Remote-only trumpet "blowing;" 3) two-handed violin-strumming and 4) two-handed, Remote-strumming guitar.
If you start with the Jam option and see just those five songs available, you might think something's very wrong with this game.
Once you perform each of those actions a few times, you go to a menu screen that allows you to choose from four options. You can Jam, which means you'll be playing along to a song from the game's soundtrack with any of the instruments you've unlocked. At start you have about two dozen instruments and five songs to choose from. That's right, five songs. They are basic ones like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "Do Re Mi." The most pop-oriented of those songs, at start, is the Monkees' "Daydream Believer."
If you start with the Jam option and see just those five songs available, you might think something's very wrong with this game. I did, at first. "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" don't start you with such an elementary -- read: juvenile -- list.
That five-song list turns out to be the first clue that "Wii Music" has a different agenda for its players than do those other rhythm games. On the first day I had the game, I played "Twinkle, Twinkle" and "Do Re Mi," starring in each performance as my own Mii avatar. I tried different instruments and very quickly started to improvise my part of the song, shaking new notes into the arrangement. "Wii Music" doesn't tell you if you did well. It dosn't give you a score. You can't even fail a song. Doing poorly involves playing in a way that makes the music sound bad. The judgment is purely an aesthetic one, and you make it.
The game isn't programmed to even care that you've finished playing a song. What you're urged to do is to turn your performance into a "music video," essentially a playback of your and your bandmates' performance. You design album art, using pre-set options. And you assign your own score, from 1-100 for the song. This is what matters to the game, because, by making videos, you start to unlock new songs to Jam to.
I wound up creating a six-piece arrangement of "Do Re Mi" in which I had played six different instruments, each recorded one at a time.
The object of "Wii Music"'s goal structure is making videos. Why? At first I didn't get it, but in-game characters chatter enough suggestions to you that it all comes together. Making music videos is the means to the game's purpose: getting it's players to improvise, to feel like they're not just playing music but making the music your own. You're encouraged to send your videos over the Wii's Internet connection to your friends. If you dig around, you also discover that you can load your video data for yourself. Whether your friend then loads your video or you load it back into your own game, you can then go into it and start changing the way the band in it played their song. This seems like the real point of the game: repeatedly tweaking your musical arrangements' and other people's.
To give a specific example, I played the melody part of "Do Re Mi" with a stand-up bass, as Wii-controlled characters backed me up on five other instruments. Then I re-loaded that session and took over the percussion role, playing a snare drum. While I played the snare, only four Wii-controlled characters backed me up because the version of me who played stand-up bass played that part just as I had. I repeated that process four more times and wound up creating a six-piece arrangement of "Do Re Mi" in which I had played six different instruments, each recorded one at a time. (Echoes of a musical side quest in "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask") In making such a complex performance, I could appreciate why "Wii Music" starts off with such ridiculously basic songs. Even with a simple song, I was challenged to put together a six-Mii rendition that sounded both unique and good.
At least I nailed the unique part.
Everything I described above is part of the Jam option on the "Wii Music" menu. The three other options are a Music Video area for managing videos, a Games section that consists of three mini-games, and a Lessons section. The Games section has a one-to-four-player handbell game that has everyone trying to shake their controllers at the proper time. It has some mini-games that challenge players to match pitches that characters play (It's more interesting than it reads here). And there's a classical music conducting game that requires a player to swingin the Wii remote to propel an orchestra through a symphonic piece. The handbell and conducting games each support five songs that are unlocked one at a time. Some of the songs become available in Jam mode. In fact, the easiest way to unlock a Nintendo-themed song (do you really want me to give away which one?) is to reach the fifth and final stage of the conducting game. These mini-games, by the way, do get scored for points.
I'm excited by the idea that the game could teach me to play Wii-style tunes in different musical styles like rock, reggae and jazz. I'm concerned that I may not have enough musical talent to complete the lessons.
The Lessons part of "Wii Music" is the title's most unexpected feature. Only the tutorial lesson is available at first, but after recording several videos, I was given the opportunity to take a rock-n-roll lesson. In it, I was shown how "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" could be turned into a rock song. First the game's characters did their rock rendition. Then I was assigned to play each part in a rock-like fashion. I had to play the drums with a rock beat. I was given a note pattern to follow, and only if I shook the Remote and Nunchuk with the proper note-timing did it let me then do my own rock version of the song -- for that instrument. Then I was assigned a second instrument, given a pattern to follow, required to match it, then encouraged to perform my own riff. The idea was that I would eventually have played all six parts of a band doing a rock version of "Twinkle, Twinkly." It was surprising and interesting to be taught how to turn a non-rock song into a rock song. What was less fun, however, was my inability to match the expected pattern for bass guitar and therefore fail the lesson. I'm excited by the idea that the game could teach me to play Wii-style tunes in different musical styles like rock, reggae and jazz. I'm concerned that I may not have enough musical talent to complete the lessons.
One of the most charming elements of the game is that your Miis show up everywhere in it. Your six-piece Jam band can be filled with your Miis. Your orchestra in the conducting game is stuffed with your Miis (see the image atop this post -- those are all my Miis, from Shigeru Miyamoto to Charlie Brown to Hulk Hogan). I've enjoyed that extra touch, because it makes the musical performances feel more personalized.
So how do you play "Wii Music"? How does it unfold? The mini-games are good for unlocking songs, and the drum trainer -- which I didn't even mention yet -- is probably a fun pasttime. But it looks like the core experience is Jamming, saving videos, sharing them and re-mixing them. That four-part process is Nintendo's melodious version of that "Little Big Planet" mantra of Play Create Share.
This isn't the kind of game that I see myself playing to win. But I'm driven right now by an oddly distinct goal: to make what I play sound better, and to hope against hope that I have the musical skills to keep up. Otherwise, I may have to have to bail out.
I'll have more impressions as I play the game over the next few days and begin swapping songs with other Wii friends. As I said in a Game Diary earlier this week, this game is very "different." If, as a friend asked, that means it is "good different" or just "different different" is still hard for me to assess. You will have to like its unusual goals, that's for sure, and not mind not having a chance to win.
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Game Diary - October 16, 2008: ‘Wii Music’ Day 1 With Totilo, Keighley And Who?
Watch Four MTV Employees (Including Me) Play ‘Wii Music’
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