My Wiiview

You all may be familiar with my Wii saga. Janine told me on my birthday in March that we were going to purchase the console which made me very happy. I figured both of us would be able to enjoy the Wii so it was a better value. Being at least two hundred dollars cheaper than the other new consoles help make that an easy decision too.

Little did we know that we were in the midst of trying to find one the most sought after pieces of hardware since Tickle Me Elmo. I remember going to at least 5 stores in March only to find laughter when asked if they had any of these Wiis in stock. The manager of one store even told me that if I get in early enough, there may be two consoles, but I better bring a bat because the soccer moms trying to find them as well may have rabies.

So Janine and I pretty much gave up on finding the new Nintendo console until last week when I was shopping for her iPod Nano. Sitting there in the back of the store were three Wiis. So now I have my toy hooked up and after a few days of play, I wanted to give my thoughts on the Wii.

The unboxing was a thrill. I had so much fun just taking out the parts and putting everything together. There was nothing difficult about setup outside of having to reach around our honking big TV to plug everything in. Once I got it running, there was very little set up.

The unique figure of the Wii is the wireless controller, or the wiimote. Not only does this device serve as the game controller, but it also serves as a remote and a wireless mouse. The sync was simple, all I had to do was point and click. Now I did lose my sync at one point with both wiimotes, and resynching them was a bit difficult. I'm not sure what I did, but there's a runaround that involves taking the wiimote apart, resetting it several times, and hitting a sync reset on the Wii console which is hidden with the memory card.

The interface is beautiful. You see several channels in a grid which houses space for the game that you have in the console, space for classic games that you can download over your wireless network, and their unique features such as a survey channel, their Opera browser, and a local news and weather channel. Everything is flawless. Of course typing in a web address with a remote is a pain, but we've been able to watch videos on YouTube and I've been watching some of my podcasts through the Wii.

The Wii games are very basic, but fun. A lot of movement is involved, but overall gameplay is a lot of fun and I can see the universal appeal with older people, women who are not gamers at all, and children alike. Janine and I have a lot of fun bowling. I just wish I could get those scores playing an actual game of bowling.

The ability to play classic NES, SNES, Sega, and GameCube games was the selling point for me. I grew up on Nintendo. I grew up playing the original Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, Mike Tyson's Punchout, and on and on. I am able to purchase points and download these games for the equivalant of five dollars per game. More are being added almost every day. I think I'm looking forward to Metroid. The big drawback however, is to play a lot of those games, a seperate controller is needed. We did not pick one up, much less the two that we would need to really enjoy those games.

We did get to kill two birds with one debit card by purchasing Wii Play which comes with a second wiimote. We have hours of gameplay now. I also wish I could play pool as well at a real pool table than I can virtually through the Wii. I can't wait to purchase new games as they come out on the Wii, including new Zelda games, and Madden 08, which comes out real soon. This console, like the other two are notorious for nickel and diming their customers with all these extra purchases, the base price is only the beginning when you account for the extra games, controllers, and points cards just to start playing.

The drawbacks though are very minor. I love this console. I am so grateful for Janine purchasing this for me. I am so happy that we can enjoy this together and have something for our guests to play with too. Eventually I will have that PS3, but I can wait for the console to drop in price, and I can definately wait for games to become available and for me to eventually look into purchasing that HD television.

Thank you, Janine, no one has ever been this good to me. I love you so so much!