Redman Weighs the Wii
as told to: Kevin Yuen
photos: Joshua Wildman
The resounding success of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 created a monstrous demand for home consumer games with first person interaction. Eventually, after years of endlessly shooting at aliens/demons/zombies/Nazis, technology finally enabled gamers across the land to also dance awkwardly and pretend to play the guitar. Of course, the next logical step, the culmination of the idea that every single game should be a little more like Duck Hunt or Dance Dance Revolution, comes in the form of the Nintendo Wii, which features a movement-sensitive remote controller (or Wiimote) to involve the player physically in each game. Bundled with each console is the much bandied Wii Sports, party game extraordinaire, so Mass Appeal felt it was appropriate to seek out the exuberant Redman to help us check out what all the Wii hoopla was about. Reggie Noble, who cites Doom on the Atari Jaguar 64 for his deep love of gaming, had a few minutes from promoting his album Red Gone Wild and schooling noobs on Counter-Strike (his online handle is Gun ‘Em Down) to create a customized virtual version of himself (a Mii) and go a few sporting rounds with us.
Soopaman Gamer
“I’m a gamer. I make sure I get all the top of the line games before Christmas and whatever. I got [the PS3]. I been had that, before Christmas, just like I had the Xbox before last year. I had the Wii too. I been on the Wii a lot. I’m not going to lie, [my kids] actually play the PlayStation and the Xbox. I play the Wii for now because it’s got the motherfuckin’ golfing game on there. I get me and my girl on the bowling game. Sometimes I get mad at her ass. She be wylin’ on that shit. Me and her bowl. But boxing? Eh. It’s tiresome. It’s good though, I ain’t gonna lie. It just need a little more speed to it.”
Bowling
“I like bowling, but I never really liked it until I started playing on this. Now I want to get on a real bowling alley. I bowled one time and it’s like this because you do have to curve the ball and throw it from an angle. Techniques I couldn’t learn on a real bowling alley, I learned on this system here. I started learning about frames and stuff, because I didn’t really know about all this shit. And it definitely puts you in the alley. It’s great and I love it.”
Tennis
“[Hits the ball out of bounds] Oh! Son of a bitch! We need some room here, man. I hit that shit into the audience. This shows that I suck at tennis. This is accurate enough to be real tennis. I just have to learn the accuracy part on this because I haven’t got it right. You need a lot of room, you need a big screen. I agree with tennis. I gotta play this one more.”
Baseball
“[Redman strikes out looking] Son of a bitch! Shit! I ain’t really never play this, but I like it. I can see right now me and my niggas would be fighting. When I learn how to pitch, it’s going to be a wrap, ’cause I be gunning them shits. I wasn’t giving nigga time to breathe. I was like, [makes rapid arm movements similar to swatting flies]. I like hitting too, but I like pitching.
Golf
“I learned a lot of shit from this game. I learned why which clubs, the putters, drivers, are used: [Putters] for short action, drivers for the long action. And if you have a big plasma screen, this shit is fuckin’ out of control. I got a 50-inch I play on. My player is big as hell and when you hit the ball it’s big. [Hums along with elevator music-like soundtrack] They got Kenny G on the background of the Wii system. It’s cool, though. I see the approach they went with this like, ‘This is golfing.’ You ain’t supposed to be partying up on the lawn, barbecuing and shit.”
Wii-nner
“I want to see some more. It’s not a fad. I believe it can go other places with games. A first person shooter would work [with this controller], hell yeah. It’s going to be hard, I want to see how they do it, but I want to see what’s good. I like that you can make a person, you can download your photos. It’s more than just a game. Any other game is more than just a game now, but Wii allows you to do, I think, a whole lot of other shit because it looks like a drive, and is small and compact, you can bring it anywhere. It’s like a disk drive with a lot of functions.”
