EDITORIAL: Wii Music - The Struggle of Sound

Wii Music is a popular martyr for the hardcore crowd. There's just something about the game that threatens their very being. If this succeeds, this means that Nintendo will no longer make anything but casual titles, and the only third party efforts will be Wii Music knock-offs! ...Or at least that's the unfounded fantasy of the haters. Let's take a look at three reviews of varying viewpoints from 1up, IGN, and Gamespy. We'll go in order from review release.

1UP Review - A-

Okay, okay, okay. Positive Wii Music review. This definitely means that the irrational Wii and Wii Music haters will jump all over it looking for a way to discredit it. Forget all the words of the review. That part isn't important. Let's just read the top: "By Jennifer Tsao". Ah. There you have it. A woman. She's obviously a casual gamer because she's a woman, so this review doesn't count. Did I mention that most of the Wii Music haters and hardcore gamers are sexist?

IGN's Review - 5.0 (Meh) out of 10

I don't really know how to be nice about this. It just proves my point that game journalism has a long way to go. You have Matt Cassamassina, editor-in-chief of IGN Nintendo, who during the podcast after the E3 show said that he was going to absolutely trash Wii Music when he gets to review it. Oh, well, that's an incredibly unbiased stance to have. Fast-forward to a week ago where his preview was entirely negative, and the videos shared went out of their way to make the game look bad when other videos were showing quite the opposite. I don't know if it's a question of Matt not getting it or a question of Matt not wanting to get it because then he'd have to eat crow. We know how well Matt eats crow with his lies on "Halo DS"-- you know, that unauthorized third-party effort he tried to pass off as real-- and Kid Icarus Wii-- which a year and a half later is still coming! Nintendo's just not ready to show it... or has yet to even start developing it probably. But you can be sure that two years later when the game is announced after having been just started development, Matt will go, "see? lol I was right again! lolololol". Ugh. Of course, since this review is entirely negative, the fanboys will jump on it and hold Matt's review as the messiah. Then again, before Matt was just an uncredible Nintendo fanboy before he started hating on Wii Music by the same said fanboys who are now riding the review's jock. Then you have people like me who greatly dislike IGN altogether, especially the obnoxious and trying-to-be-credible-and-failing Nintendo crew.

Compare Matt's videos to someone actually playing the game how it is meant to be played. (Here's the nicovideo if you can't load it.)

Gamespy's Review - 3.5 stars out of 5

Last but not least, we have Gamespy's review. The only thing I have a problem with is this con: "The more traditional "hardcore" gaming audience will simply not care about the experience it offers." Really? That's not a generalization at all. Obviously, every single hardcore gamer "will simply not care about the experience it offers" as that is how the sentence reads. That statement relates to the myth that "a hardcore gamer's favorite next-gen system can't be the Wii" as both statements are steaming piles of donkey crap. All it would have took is just to say "some hardcore gamers" instead of generalizing like that.

Finally, it's amazing to me how the opinion of many NeoGAF users have changed. I mean they're honestly huge hardcore gamers. I imagine anyone really who frequents a message board to talk about sales and get 100% on countless games is pretty much a hardcore gamer. See this list of comments from people who despised everything Wii Music stands for and went onto have some very favorable impressions. I guess that's what people call "giving a game a chance". I know that's a foreign concept to the hardcore hivemind of following the leader, but it works wonders. Then you'll have the people once the game comes out who will pretend they've played the game already after it's released and will say they hate it anyway completely screwing over the opinions of people who legitimately played it and didn't enjoy it. Meanwhile, I will be drinking their bitter tears.

In conclusion, game journalism as well as the irrational (not the ones who back up their claims) Wii Music haters can be summed up in one picture:
That's freaking adorable-- I don't care who you are. To be fair, I've only played ten minutes of the game at a friend's house who got an early copy. I enjoyed what I played, but perhaps I will be eating crow next week or the week after when I sit down and review Wii Music. Stay tuned. It ought to be enjoyable no matter the outcome!