In the past month I’ve finally gotten around to buying myself an HDTV. Sure the TV is bigger then any wall in my apartment so it stands halfway into my kitchen door and my closet, but who cares when you can see the worry wrinkles on Marcus Fenix’ forehead. Of course the best part of this story is, I just bought an HDTV and yet I don’t even have basic cable… Ok, so maybe I don’t always make a lot of sense, but I want my games to be beautiful!
Then I hooked up my Wii. Yes, I purchased the HD Cables, yes, I set all the Wii system settings to HD, and yes, I know it only displays at 480p, but woah, those graphics look terrible in HD. I just recently picked up No More Heroes and what a jaggy aliased mess. This isn’t an attack on NMH as much as it is just shock over Nintendo’s HD support. I know graphics aren’t everything but they are something, and we should give credence to them, just as we don’t just talk about Jurassic Park, we talk about how realistic the CG looked within the film. This is true even when we talk about non-blockbuster titles, when we speak about Mega Man 9 we don’t just talk about its old school feel, but its old school look as well. Now, Capcom could have easily made Mega Man with the same gameplay as the original Mega Man with HD sprites, ala Street Fighter II’s recent facelift, but they decided to go with the original sprites because graphics truly mean something. You know it, I know it, so lets not pretend they don’t.
So if that is true, why ever did the Wii not choose atleast 720p support? Was it to cut down cost? That’s my only guess, but then why even bother with an HD option at all? I remember reading awhile back about a possible upgraded Wii that has HDMI support, but I suspect that is right up there with the DVD Gamecubes that released in extremely limited quantities in Japan. Obviously this isn’t stopping me from enjoying my time with No More Heroes (it’s a really interesting experience for me, especially since I missed out on Killer 7) but I definitely find it harder to get behind all the style the game is pushing when everything in the game looks like a jag-fest.
