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You are sitting on a wooden chair in the corner of a tiny, crowded room. You are groggy from lack of sleep and you are very much aware of the fact that you just knocked over a bottle of water beneath your seat; you have created a wet patch on the floor, but nobody has noticed. Nobody has noticed because a brightly-dressed Japanese man is bouncing up and down on a rubber mat. He stops and falls to the floor to catch his breath. Then he stands and turns to you, says something in a language you cannot understand. He wants you to take your shoes off. He wants you to play Family Trainer.
To be honest, we were a little disappointed when we first found out that Family Trainer was not, as we initially assumed, a Wii-based training manual for human reproduction. Our disappointment didn’t last long, however, as it turns out the game is a selection of really rather fun mini-games. Alright, so the Wii needs another mini-games collection like Jay-Z needs another problem – but this one is being made by Namco Bandai, who are long-time veterans of the genre. Random trivia: Back in the 1980s the firm made a whole series of Family Trainer titles for the NES, including one called Come come! Fallen Corpses: Baby Fallen Corpse’s Amedia Great Adventure. No, really.
Like those titles, the new Family Trainer involves jumping around on a thin plastic mat that connects to your console. The button layout is similar to that used by arcade games such as Dance Dance Revolution, with a central pad surrounded by directional arrows. In the first game we saw, our enthusiastic demonstrator run on the spot to send his on-screen Mii hurtling along an obstacle course, dipping to either side or leaping in the air to avoid obstacles. Because your speed is being controlled by the frequency on inputs to the pad, the speed and performance of your avatar is directly related to how how often you’re stamping your feet. It’s button mashing for the lower regions: imagine playing Track and Field by standing on a giant gamepad, and you’re pretty much there.
The next challenge we saw was a competitive challenge where two players stand side-by-side on a ledge while large logs come rolling at them from off-screen. Failing to jump in time sends your Mii staggering closer to the edge, until one of you topples into failure. It’s a simple enough affair, but one that proved to be surprisingly amusing on a sleep-deprived Leipzig morning – even if our total lack of co-ordination cost us the match. “It’s a fun game to play, but also a fun game to watch,” beamed the developer, via his translator. And he was right too. Like many of the best Wii games, it’s easy to imagine Family Training taking off in a relaxed social environment – after coming back from the pub, at a party, or during a particularly lively funeral.
This, of course, is the true meaning of the title – this is supposed to be something that everyone can play together. One minute you’re with your sister, leaning sideways to steer a mine cart around a rickety-track; the next you’re watching grandpa tap-dancing on rodents in a Whack-a-mole style contest. Surprise surprise – the graphics we’ve seen so far aren’t much to shout about, but they’re bright and colourful, and they use the Mii-like avatars. In other words, they’re perfect for casual gamers. That may irritate the many of you who are still awaiting “serious” Wii titles, but there are plenty of people out there who will be delighted with this… or at least, that’s what Namco Bandai hopes.
The most serious hurdle that Family Trainer faces is the runaway success of Wii Fit. Having already shelled out seventy notes or so for a Balance Board, it may be a hard sell to convince Average Joe to open his wallet again. When we asked our demonstrator about this rivalry, he fired off a chatter of Japanese and stood on one leg, pensively. We knew what he was saying long before the translator piped up: Wii Fit is largely about poise and balance, whereas these games are frantic, show-off experiences. That’s certainly true, but it’s questionable whether AJ will notice the difference. And with other games like Raving Rabbids already jumping upon the Balance Board Bandwagon, it may be an uphill struggle for the humble mat to find a place in the public’s heart.
