http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/09/12/042758.php

The general consensus on Wii Music, at least based off their disastrous E3 press conference showing, is that the game is utter garbage, a waggle-fest geared towards the preschool and the extremely elderly. However, after getting hands-on time at PAX with Wii Music, I can tell you those perceptions are incorrect. Wii Music is not nearly as bad as the E3 crowd might have made it out to be. It's not perfect by any means, but it's not utter garbage.

First off, if you are a "hardcore" gamer, this game is not designed with you in mind. Some people may take an interest in certain aspects of the game, which I will give detail on in a bit, but the simplicity of Wii Music is clearly geared towards those new to the gaming scene.

At PAX, the free play and drum set modes were available for play. The free play mode is the one you are most familiar with. Free play has a "no-fail" setting by default, meaning you can't lose no matter what you play. And yes, there are note charts for each of the songs, but you don't have to play along exactly on the right beat. This turns free play into more of an experiment than anything else, but there will be close to 60 instruments in the final version of the game, ranging from the now-infamous dog suit to drums, guitars, and saxophones. Each of these instruments has different motions that are used to play it, and pressing different buttons on the Wii remote or nunchuk will produce different notes. At any time, up to four players can participate in a song, with six total musicians on stage: a minimum of two musicians are always computer-controlled, but you can select which parts you want to play.

The PAX line-up featured only 5 songs, including the themes from Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda; when the game is released, a full roster of 50 songs will be available, mixing more modern songs along with classical tunes and Nintendo themes. In this sense, it'll probably be similar to Nintendo's previous music game offering, Donkey Konga. Each of the songs can be played at a number of different tempos and in a variety of different styles, including Japanese, reggae, rock and country among others. It's a nice way to change the game up a little bit, but it's not the only way.

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3169686&p=44

Surprisingly, I like Wii Music.

Maybe that's not surprising to you, but it certainly caught me off-guard. When Nintendo revealed its upcoming music game at E3 (if indeed it can be called to be a game; creator Shigeru Miyamoto regards it more as a toy), I was skeptical. When I actually played it, I was even more doubtful. It lacked focus or structure; it was, in short, fairly pointless.

But Nintendo has a slightly more fleshed-out version of the game on display this weekend at Penny Arcade Expo, and despite this version sporting only a few modest tweaks, I think it has won me over. The difference: A sense of purpose. While the game's primary mode remains the same -- a group of faux musicians jamming together and playing individual notes or beats of a predefined music track -- the single-player mode now has added depth. Rather than simply pantomiming music with a phantom backing band, you can record their own personal renditions of each tune's six tracks, including melody, harmony, rhythm and percussion. You can save performances, then splice them into the standard rhythm tracks, allowing you to effectively create a complete custom performance of each track. This also works for group performances, although it has more impact with a single performer.

SCREENS: Click the image above to check out all Wii Music screens.

I sat in for a show floor jam session with 1UP's very own Andrew Pfister and developed a better sense of how Wii Music's cumulative music feature works. Andrew took percussion (a drum set) while I sat in on harmony with the NES Horn (a woodwind shaped like an NES controller which emits 8-bit square and triangle waves). You play the drums by mimicking drumming motions with the Nunchuk and Wii Remote, while you use the NES Horn like a flute, with the Wii Remote held at mouth level while you tap the 1 and 2 buttons to create notes. Our initial performance of the Super Mario Bros. theme seemed fine, so we played through the tune a second time. This time through, the game used our previous performances for the percussion and harmony tracks...which made for a cacophonous din once we began performing with our second set of instruments.

The instrument selection has expanded drastically, with some unconventional choices. Besides the NES Horn, the new build of Wii Music features such oddities as the cuica (a wheezy samba percussion instrument), the Cheerleader (a teenage girl in cheerleader get-up shouting cheers in time to the music), and the Cat Suit (a cat costume which causes your in-game avatar to belt out cat noises). In other words, it's going to become the bane of parents everywhere with its vast and discordant "musical" possibilities...but on the other hand, it's non-violent and might even foster creativity, so they probably won't complain too vigorously.

Wii Music is hardly a me-too music game, and there's no guarantee that gamers will accept its unstructured approach to collaborative tunesmithing. Then again, everything Nintendo develops seems to turn to gold these days, and Wii Music's simple track-mixing feature seems like a potentially addictive element that could reel in even the skeptics.

I still think that without a reward/fail system the game lacks sense, and will get boring after two minutes. They should add a Guitar Hero like systems with notes you have to time correctly, otherwise where's the fun of the game if whatever you do you don't do better or worse?

So you CAN record your tracks! But still just tracks of yourself playing a pre-rendered song. Hmmm... I may have to revise my prediction (see sig) but not yet, I'm still not convinced this has any mass appeal, but that certainly is the type of thing I'm looking for.

If this gets decent reviews, I'm going to laaaaughhhhh.

Seriously though, I'm getting it.

I'll never doubt Nintendo ever again... :O

Still hoping it'll allow you to make your own note chart... it would give the game much more lasting power, which it needs, since unlike Guitar Hero I doubt it's getting a sequel. I actually don't think the reviews for the game will be that bad - not much less than a typical JRPG, anyway.

@zexen_lowe:  This isn't a rhythm game - they don't want to punish you for trying to be creative. The fun is trying to make something that sounds pleasant, and they're leaving it up to the players to decide how to go about it.

BTW the first link didnt work...

I might get it. It looks fun.

I was already getting it, but if one of the instruments is an Ocarina that looks like the Kokiri or the Orcarina of Time I will know I'm getting my moneys worth.

That makes Wii Music a far harder game then Guitar Hero.