Nintendo Okie

I can officially call myself a hypocrite.  I’ve been talking since the beginning days of this console generation that I would only buy multiplatform games on Wii.  Any game that would be available for all three systems I would only buy on Wii because that was my console of choice.  Of course, in the very early days that was easy to do because I only owned one system.

Since December of last year I’ve been a two console owner.  I own both a Wii and a 360.  I’ve stuck to my thoughts of only owning the Wii version of multi-platform games.  For most games that wasn’t an issue.  There was enough of a difference between the games on the two systems that it was easy to justify one purchase over the other and sometimes they would be completely different games.  Titles like Prince of Persia: the Forgotten Sands was a completely different game on the Wii than it was on the 360.  The same goes for Transformers: War for Cybertron or Cybertron Adventures.  They were completely different games even if they had the same title.

Sometimes that was a good thing, as was the case with Prince of Persia, which was a quality product built for the Wii and utilizing the strengths of the system.  Other times, as with Transformers, it was a bad thing.  A dumbed down version of a solid game that was built with what a company “thought” the audience of the system was.

But today marks the day that I can officially call myself a hypocrite.  Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 releases today.  I bit the bullet and pre-ordered the game from Gamestop.  It’s even the Collector’s Edition that costs $20 extra so I can get some behind the scenes stuff and some collectible magnets.  The reason for this is because I’m a total Harry Potter whore.  I can’t get enough of that franchise.  I love the world, I love the story.  The only other things that I do that for are Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings.

The reason, though, that I can call myself a hypocrite is because I’ve pre-ordered the 360 version of the game.  Why are the reasons I did this?  For all intents and purposes the games are identical in gameplay.  There’s nothing missing from the Wii version that’s included with the 360 version.  Well, for one, the kids have been playing the demo on the 360 so I know exactly what to expect when the game releases on that system.  They’ve gotten used to the controls and can fly through the demo levels blindfolded if I asked them.  They’ve played all the other Lego games on the Wii so that’s almost a silly argument.

There are some differences that I can use to justify this purchase over the other.  The 360 version of Lego Harry Potter looks better.  This only comes from the fact that details are smoother and more vibrant on the 360.  The Wii version doesn’t look bad by any means, but it’s less polished than the HD versions of the game.  I’ve always been on the gameplay over graphics side of the argument and this is one of those styles that fit’s Wii brilliantly so that’s not an issue.

Cost also is not an issue this time around.  Generally 360 releases cost $10 more than their Wii counterparts.  This isn’t the case this time around as both games cost $50 regardless of the platform they release on.  This, more than anything, will many times justify my purchase of the Wii version of the game over a 360 game.

I think, more than anything it comes down to the fact that I was able to play the game on the 360 before I was able to do it on the Wii.  If I had been able to sample the game before hand on my favorite console then things might have been different.  Maybe it’s the controls?  I don’t know.  I can’t really pin down any one thing over another that’s causing me to purchase this game on the 360 first.  Maybe it’s all the features of the 360’s community that’s leading me towards this purchase.

I talked to my wife about this last night and that I was wavering back and forth on which version of the game to get.  I said I had the 360 version pre-ordered.  She asked if everything on the games was the same and I said it was.  She assumed we were getting the 360 version because that’s the one that the kids had been playing and they’d be used to that game and I mentioned the fact that all the other Lego games we’d played were on Wii.  She chalked it up to the controls first because they had been playing the game on that system and they’d gotten used to it.  I figure that’s the case, but I don’t know. 

Either way, for the first time I can call myself a hypocrite when it comes to games.  Ultimately, I don’t really care because I’m going to be playing a great game regardless.  At least that’s what the early reviews of the game say.  It’s just a weird feeling to say “give me the 360 version” when there’s a perfectly good version to play on the Wii.