Wii Music: A Little Flat

by Jim Valley

One of my biggest pet peeves is game reviews. It seems like the same type of people review hundreds of different types of games. It feels to me that reviews are often based on personal biases rather than a game's merits. Is a guy in his 20's or 30's really the best person to review My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party?

It maybe a perfect game for a little girl, but will a guy named Brad at I-love-to-kill-me-some-zombies.com really take the time to consider that?

That's what kept crossing my mind as I was playing Wii Music. "This game is not aimed at me," I thought, "I need to get this into the hands of someone closer to the target audience."

Meet 7 year old Eliza Valley. She's the daughter of my cousin Sean Valley.

This is her review of Wii Music:

I like playing Wii and I like playing music, but I don’t know how to play an instrument, yet. I thought it would be fun playing the instruments. When we started the game it kept talking and talking and talking, it was talking about the instruments and the types of movements and the controls, and it had me test the instrument movements.

The getting started was fun, but it got boring after one lesson. Littler kids might like it better than me, but for little kids it might be hard to figure out how to change the sounds on the electric guitar. I got really frustrated playing Do Re Mi in a jam session.

I played for about an hour, and most of the time was learning the movements and how to do the jam sessions, and listening or reading Maestro Tute talking. I played the Perfect Pitch Game, and once I figured out how to move the Miis it was a little bit more fun.

My favorite Wii game so far is Mario Party 8, Wii Music is not as fun as Mario Party 8.

Now it’s time for Eliza’s dad Sean to have some input:

Wii Music leaves a lot to be desired for musicianship and realism, but it definitely has a place. As a wannabe musician and an elementary school teacher, I can see great use of Wii Music in a music, general ed or special education classroom. The rhythm alone is a fantastic piece that many students find exceedingly challenging. Wii Music has the ability not only to push them to find their rhythm, it does it in a fun way that kids will really love. The difficulty will be when a student is so bored with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but they don’t have the musical background to understand how important Sukiyaki was to the disco teachers of the 1970’s.

The Maestro game is very frustrating because the directions don’t give you a good indication of how you’re actually supposed to conduct the orchestra, and the orchestra will give you an evil glare if you delay their performance in the slightest.

I found the Handbell game to be kind of Guitar Hero for the Baptist Church Ladies (and I go to a Baptist church). It’s fun, but ringing your bells to O’ Christmas Tree is just not the same as doing an axe-to-axe battle with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.

For those who want a true music experience, Wii Music does not even compare to Guitar Hero or Rock Band. One sitting on the drum set with the Wii Fit balance board will have you wanting to rush out and buy Rock Band II. But, all in all, it’s a fun family game. We all enjoyed it; even my eleven month old had smiles when we were trying to figure out why only one person could earn points in Handbells.

It's Jim back again. Wow. The quote that stands out to me is when Eliza said, "Littler kids might like it better than me." Eliza is 7. You don't get much littler than that. And she, like me, had the feeling that she was too old to play Wii Music.

Thanks, Eliza. You have validated my thoughts on Wii Music: I like the idea of a pick-up-and-play music game, but Wii Music is too simple, too shallow and, ironically, doesn't have enough music.

Wii Music:

2 Short Rounds out of 5