The Montreal Wii connection

by ERIK LEIJON

Montreal’s biggest players have recently graced the Wii with a pair of ambitious titles. EA Montreal has rebuilt the company’s premier snowboarding series with SSX Blur (Wii/EA, EA Montreal), while Ubisoft Montreal has adapted one of their major franchises, Prince of Persia: Rival Swords (Wii/Ubisoft, Ubisoft Montreal).

I give all the credit in the world to EA Montreal for turning the usually adequate SSX series on its head. They could have implemented some haphazard Wii remote functionality while rehashing the same levels and modes, but Blur is such a dramatic sea change that initial plays were as painful as my first black diamond run. Players steer with the nunchuk, by tilting it slightly right or left, and the remote controls tricks. Making precise movements is tough and bunny-slopers might give up before having mastered the techniques. Casual gamers may scoff at the five intense hours needed to grasp the simple manoeuvres, let alone the übertricks.

Even after much practice, sliding down the slopes will never become second nature. When turning properly, the nunchuk motion-sensor, coupled with the analog stick, feels like a front and back foot moving, but the sensor is a bit finicky; flicking the ’chuk too far or not keeping a straight wrist can mess up the sensitive controls. Another problem is that shaking off a wipeout and jumping rely on similar remote movements, so your boarder will often jump unintentionally.

VALIANT EFFORT: SSX Blur

The trick controls are equally inconsistent. It’s unnecessary to learn how to execute individual moves, since moving the remote randomly always results in something cool happening. The special übertricks require some effort, and are accomplished by drawing the corresponding symbol on the screen with the remote. For reasons unknown, there are no indicators to guide your hand movements, so it’s impossible to know how precise one needs to be in outlining the symbol (answer: too fucking precise). Although a valiant effort by EA Montreal, SSX Blur will test your patience.

Less ambitious but more solid is Prince of Persia: Rival Swords—a new version of 2005’s Two Thrones. Again using the nunchuk and remote, the game combines both the action-adventure acrobatics and sluggish monster-killing that PoP fans are familiar with. The sword is controlled with the remote and the analog controls the prince’s movements. Although cumbersome at first, shifting the camera by tilting the remote poses few problems, although an auto-centre button is needed.

There are numerous sword moves available, but they’re as useless to learn as SSX’s tricks. Mindlessly swinging the remote is effective in defeating the dumb-as-rocks AI, and the reduction of most early Wii games to arbitrary wrist flicking is a rather disheartening trend. The timing-based attacks give the fighting much needed depth and hopefully they will replace the current scheme entirely.

Rival Swords is a good indicator of where Wii games might be going; instead of trying to re-invent the wheel conceptually, Ubisoft Montreal carefully inserted motion sensor elements into both the fighting and adventure modes. It’s an impressive feat, because the Prince of Persia series was rebuilt on elaborate level design and airtight controls and the new Wii features could have easily disturbed this gentle equilibrium.

In both titles’ cases, the graphics are a step below even the PS2/Xbox SSX and PoP, and the Wii appears unable to handle certain fog and smoke effects. PoP’s visuals are especially muddy.

None of the first generation Wii games could be considered mind-blowing, but thanks to Montreal’s best, the building blocks are in place for adapting the industry’s greatest brands to the Wii world.