Wheee!

Some fellow posters on this site have been asking me the same two questions all week; 1) Why aren’t you posting more, and b) Why haven’t you told us how you like your Wii. These questions have the same answer, and it is that I got a Wii on Monday, leaving little time for posting or any other forms of communication.

I have always been a Nintendo guy, ever since my days on the NES and the Super Nintendo – the last console I ever bought. I do not consider myself a ‘gamer’ (see: huge dork), and have abstained from owning any Playstations or X-Boxes. I like a good game of EA Hockey as much as the next guy, but don’t see it as a particularly good way to spend time.

When the Wii was announced, with a price tag of 279 CAD before GST (Goods and Services Tax – Canada wouldn’t be a good little socialist country if we didn’t tax people on absolutely everything), I was intrigued. Here was a console, made by my trusty Japanese friends at Nintendo, that had the lowest price point of the three new consoles (PS3 and X-Box 360 being the other two), and was offering something different: an opportunity to swing your arms around like an idiot in your living room and watch a little guy on the screen mimic your actions. For my dollar, that is worth checking out.

I sought to get one upon release, but they are impossible to get unless you monitor chat boards all day and don’t have a day job. I gave up 2 weeks in and convinced myself I didn’t care, but last weekend a friend was telling me he got one and how he bowls in his living room, and I got jealous and made a decision right then to buy one on ebay. This was causing me so much emotional stress dealing with the fact that I wanted one and could not get it, that the slight premium I paid was a small price.

Bring on one of the shadier transactions I have been involved in. You ever met a guy at the recycling bins by a Safeway to exchange valuable electronics equipment? Regardless of the situation, you don’t exactly feel like you are abiding by the law. The seller was nice enough to waive the inflated premium for shipping if I did the exchange in person. So there I was Monday night at 8 PM. Back at home, Wii (and original receipt – that looks real) in hand. I told my girlfriend I would see her in about a week, even though we live together.

Rather than take the boring prose approach that I have thus far, I will continue with listed, A.D.D. friendly, comments about the product.

Console: Slick and small. Easy to set up, I had this white (with blue lights) beauty going in about 5 minutes.

Interface: Also quite slick. Very bubbly and cartoony, but easy to navigate around. You have your Wii home screen, and you can point at smaller ‘channels’ (they look like little TV screens in a grid) to go where you want. There is one for the game you have inserted, one for weather, one for news and so on (connection required – I don’t have it online). There is one to manage your Mii as well.

Mii: The Mii is a character that you create too look like yourself and name. Takes 5 minutes, and once you play games that use a Mii (such as Wii sports) it uses your likeness, complete with the body type you designed, as your player in the different games.

Wii Sports: Wii sports has 5 games. Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing. These are pretty fun.

Tennis is very realistic in your movements. You chop a little backhand or lob a forehand, and so does your Mii. You don’t really move the player, just the swing, and you can control where you place it. This is one of the better sports games. I give it my all with squash style form, start the windup early, and keep that eye on the ball.

Baseball is pretty limited, but the bat mimics your movements well. You don’t play the field, only pitch or bat, but it is kind of fun. I have only hit one homer so far.

Bowling is quite fun. You can put spin on it, and align yourself. It really mimics the movements, and is a fun one-on-one game (only need one controller, as you pass it back and forth). This is where I can see how people ruin their TVs. Sweaty hands + bowling release movements = even I put on that dumb little wrist strap.

Golf is pretty boring. You have three clubs to select from, and its hard to get it right on.

Boxing is pretty cool. You get one controller in each hand and go to town. You can block, dodge, and throw jabs, uppercuts. This might be the most fun game. You are sweating when you have gone three rounds in this one.

All these games are simplifications of what an EA Sports version would be, but they achieve their goal of resembling the actual sport play, and making it pretty entertaining. All in all, this is a fun suite of games, but would get old pretty fast if you didn’t have other ones too. Like (one of) the two reviewed below.

WarioWare: Sucks. Thought this might be fun for my girlfriend. Maybe if she were 7. All you do is a series of 5 second tasks in a row, like sheering a cartoon sheep, and there is this creepy music with Japanimation going on. I can think of some ‘states’ where this might be more fun.

The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess: La piece de resistance. My god. I have had two sessions playing this game, and my only complaint is that because I have started, I have less remaining undiscovered game. They start you off with a little session in your village that lets you use your problem proving skills, and your physical prowess. It makes good use of the controllers, and when you get a new weapon or skill, they find a way within the plot of the game for you to practice. So you are always keeping up with the things you are obtaining.

The graphics are great (maybe not compared to PS3 but who cares) and there is great variety in the tasks. If you like nerding out in the plot of a game, and swinging your arms around like an idiot while you fight off evil beings with a sword, you will like this.

The original Zelda is possibly the best game of all time, and this does the franchise proud. My only complaint is that if you swing your sword forehand, then you still swing it backhand on the screen.

Wii Remote: This becomes fairly intuitive to use, and if fairly accurate. At one point during Zelda, my calibration was off, but you can go into settings and adjust. You need two of these (system comes with one) to play head to head in things like tennis etc.

Nunchuk: This is not used in most sports games (save for boxing), but is used in Zelda. You use this to navigate yourself, and the other controller to use weapons and tools etc. It’s a pretty good set up that you get used to quickly.

Effect on Relationship: Not clear as of yet, but if you are going to buy a console, this is the best. So far, I am still in the good books by including my girlfriend on bowling challenges, golf, and other Wii sports. That is when I am not tuning her out as she talks about her day because I am trying to find the sword in one of the village houses. This is not a purely male geek console, and I think if any console will appeal to a large audience of females, this might be the one.

My Take: In summary, I am not totally blown away, but I am enjoying the console immensely. My only concern is in depth of game selection. After I restore daylight to Hyrule and the land beyond, I will need a new game, and have no indication as to how the ubisoft first person war games work with the console. Since Zelda is obviously their flagship game, I am a little paranoid that is it downhill from here. They may have a challenge making the unique controls relevant to many games. If they overcome this, the sky is the limit.