Wii Music (Wii)

Gamecow’s Price	RRP $99.95     Save $10.00 $89.95
Availability
Genre	Party Games
Platform	Nintendo Wii
Release Date	13/11/2008
Rated

Wii Music is all about having fun and making music.  Forget about career modes and long winded missions.  This is just a fun game where you can create music and go nuts.  You can try your hand a different instruments and have a good laugh.

Friends and family will love playing this game together.  This game allows you to create wonderful music with the family.

Wii Music (Wii) Product Information

Create a musical masterpiece with up to four players. Anyone can play the huge selection of instruments in Wii Music with simple motions—like strumming and drumming.

• It’s easy to play improv jams. Musicians in your band jam by simply playing their instruments to the beat of a song or by improvising to their heart’s content. Play faster. Play slower. Skip a beat, or throw in 10 more. No matter what you do, Wii Music automatically transforms your improv stylings into great music. There are no mistakes—just playing for the pure joy of playing.
• Wii controls immerse you in the music. You can play most of the 60-plus instruments in Wii Music using simple motions with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers. Strum to play guitar, banjo and sitar. Drum to play jazz drums, congas and marching drums. Hammer away to play piano, vibraphone and marimba. Unlike most music games, Wii Music doesn’t make you use complex buttons. You only need to imitate playing the instrument.
• Wii Music offers virtually endless ways to make music. You choose the song and instruments and decide whether to blaze through a rock take on classical songs, put a jazzy spin on folk tunes or transform Nintendo classics like the Super Mario Bros. theme into Latin-flavoured numbers. The song list is only a takeoff point—it’s how you improvise with the songs that matters.
• Send your band-jam recordings to Wii Friends who have Wii Music. They’ll see your Mii band members, your players’ improv styles and your instrument selections. They can watch your recordings, or play over parts of your song, then send their modified recording back to you. Improv jams can be sent back and forth over WiiConnect24 and changed again and again.

Beyond the Jam:

Wii Music includes many other modes besides the main band jams, including several musical games and an enhanced video playback mode for recorded jams.

• Play it again: Use the playback mode to see your jam recordings brought to life with dramatic camera angles.
• Pick up the baton: Command an orchestra in the conducting game where you’ll wave the Wii Remote controller like a conductor’s baton to lead a Mii orchestra through orchestrated music. Make them play quickly, slowly, strongly or gently.
• Ring a bell? Play a handbells game where you’ll swing your Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers to play your two handbells as part of a larger ensemble. Everyone on the team has a job to do: Play one of your notes only when the tune demands it.
• An ear for music: Take a tone quiz that tests your musical ear by giving you challenges, like putting note-playing Miis in order from lowest to highest pitch.
• Bang the drum: Play a virtual drum set in the drumming mode, the one mode in Wii Music that also uses the Wii Balance Board accessory (sold with Wii Fit™). You’ll use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers as drumsticks, and place both feet on the Wii Balance Board—which work as virtual pedals for the bass drum and hi-hat cymbal.

Wii Music (Wii) Review

True musicianship has taken a hit recently with all the music-based videogames captivating today's youth, and Wii Music will surely be the next virtual music experience replacing real music for everyone. As a classically trained musician, I might take offense at this -- except that Wii Music gets it really right. Using the Wii Remote, Nunchuk, and (optionally) Balance Board to mimic the motions of real instruments may have seemed like a bad joke when the game was first announced, but in practice, it works amazingly well. It's worth it to take the time to learn the four different instrument motions (drums, guitar, horns, and violin) because the game offers so many varied opportunities to pretend-play all of the dozens of instruments in the game, and knowing how to wave your arms and press the buttons just right makes the crucial difference between a stupid-silly game and an actually fulfilling one.

I love how the three mini-games -- Mii Maestro, Handbell Harmony, and Pitch Perfect -- challenge your rhythm and your ear in legitimately musical ways. They're easy at first, but you have to listen closely and think about note values to succeed, especially in later levels, and it's based just enough in classical theory that those with musical training will probably find the games a bit easier.  The way the game fills in the right notes for you gives an astonishing feeling of having performed a real solo. If you need guidance, the game provides a note pattern for you to follow, which is handy.

Like Wii Sports before it, Wii Music really takes off when you get a group together to form a band. You can perform a "quick jam," where the game assigns songs and instrument parts randomly. This is best for getting people into the game easily and without much explanation. The "custom jam" -- where you choose musical style, instrument line up, number of parts, and venue -- is where Wii Music shows surprising depth and flexibility, and those who have actually learned the controls unique to their instrument will be rewarded.
Wii Music may have a hard time winning over the sceptics who just want to laugh at it, but give the game the chance it deserves. You just might realise it's pretty damn fun being in on the joke.

Full review 1UP