Summary of IGN’s 10-minute Wii interface walkthrough
Only 41 days until the Wii, and more importantly, Twilight Princess! Unless you’re in the US, in which case it’ll be a few days earlier. But wherever you live, it’s getting pretty damned close now. So what do you do? Watch some guy messing around with the Wii’s operating system for ten minutes, of course!
IGN is habitually a bringer of solid information, so it’s no surprise that a lot of things people have speculated about but weren’t really sure on have been cleared up in this video. Basically they’ve gotten themselves a Wii debug kit which works just like a normal Wii, except it lacks all the fancy channels. Instead, only the ‘Play Game’ channel and the system settings are available. Since the video is loading really slowly at the moment, here’s a summary of what it confirms:
- An easy-to-use on-screen keyboard can be toggled between phone and computer style
- You can adjust the Wiimote’s sensitivity — hurrah!
- You can globally toggle between 4:3 and 16:9, as well as between 480i and 480p
- There’s some kind of method for preventing the dreaded screen burn-in
- Games/internet can be restricted based upon their age rating and require a PIN to play
- You can specify whether your sensor bar is above or beneath the TV for maximum accuracy
- Setting up a wireless or wired network connection is as easy as it is on the DS
I enjoy the fact that the operating system offers a reasonable level of configuration without sacrificing ease of use or intuitiveness; hopefully the other channels will follow suit and be as accessible. I’m also very glad that the Wiimote sensitivity can be tweaked as that’s been an ongoing concern with many people and particularly the media, who noticed that Wii games don’t have a Wiimote configuration option. I guess we now know why.
Two points!
One! Do we know how online multiplayer will work on the Wii yet? It’d better not be any of that friend code nonsense, it’s a pain in the ARSE.
Two! Pressing tab skips over the capcha field. That’s a pain in the ARSE, too!