Wii Music Drops At Nintendo World

Wii Music launches this week, but Nintendo had a special preview event at their Nintendo World store in New York City's Rockefeller Center on Sunday, October 19. I was eager to attend because I couldn't quite wrap my brain around the concept of a music game where you don't actually need any skill to play. Of course, if that's true, it's right up my alley!

I had expected all the Wii's in the store to be tuned to Wii Music, but I was wrong. Only some of them were, and you couldn't hear a dang thing in there it was so noisy. As I learned at the launch event for Boogie, it's hard to play a music game when you can't hear what you're doing. So even though it was a pretty cold October day, I went outside where Nintendo had multiple demo units staffed by enthusiastic and helpful employees. They were handing out free Wii Music-branded drumsticks and Wii Music posters to anyone who happened by and gave it a shot. I saw everyone from small children to the elderly playing, and all seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I tried the full drum kit set-up where you drum with the Wiimote and Nunchuck, using the Balance Board for the foot pedals. It wasn't very intuitive, and I struggled with pressing buttons to hit the different drums, since it doesn't actually react to moving the controllers left or right. The employee admitted that it's tough to master, but there are in-game tutorials to help teach you everything. And when she showed me there were three pages of lessons, so I guess it could get pretty in-depth. I then tried the conducting game, which most seemed to be loving. I conducted an orchestra playing Carmen, and it was strangely fun. I couldn't help myself.

I watched as an employee fiddled around with the numerous different instruments available for playing (it wasn't terribly busy because it was so cold out, I guess), and he described to me the way you can just pick an instrument and randomly jam on it, playing music. You can even have backing musicians join you if you want. I had to wait before trying it out myself because the Soul Tigers were giving another performance, and when they get going, you really can't hear the game. They were pretty awesome, though. There's quite a few different instruments, and I fiddled with some piano and drums. Turns out it's kind of like the Nintendo DS game Electroplankton, in that you can just randomly hit notes and it makes sure they sound like music. As long as you're on the beat, that is.

It was playing the Legend of Zelda theme with conga drums that really sold me on it, and I went inside where I picked myself up a copy of Wii Music. I couldn't help myself. The whole thing is so ridiculously entertaining, I couldn't resist its charms. Plus, it came with drumsticks (which I had already picked up outside) and a black tuxedo shirt with the Wii Music logo on the back that the employees were all wearing. How could I say no?