Wii love it

Carina purchased a Nintendo Wii as a late Christmas / early birthday present for the twins. As they enthusiastically jumped for joy I thought they were going to break the floorboards! The Wii is, in my opinion, a brilliant device. It supports our investment in the GameCube by playing all the games, as well as having inputs for GameCube controllers and memory cards.

The Internet connection on the Wii was supremely easy, and within minutes of having plugged the thing in it was downloading an updated firmware. I found the weather map to be extremely interesting. I haven’t yet tried the “News Channel” or any general Internet browsing, but I’m looking forward to it.

The Wii comes with Wii Sports, which provides bowling, tennis, baseball, boxing, and golf. I watched the girls play an energetic game of bowling. Halfway through, Tayler remarked “We’ll never need to pay to go bowling again!” Indeed, the game was remarkably satisfying, and the ambiance provided by the bowling alley sounds made it very hard for me not to start talking like The Dude. After bowling we tried a round of golf. Overall the controls are quite sensitive, but we all found putting to be a real challenge. I’m chalking this up as a learning experience, since we haven’t yet mastered the art of the Wiimote.

I tried boxing, which was entertaining but not the kind of thing I see myself playing with any regularity. I’m really looking forward to Metroid. Carina picked up Zelda for herself, and started playing that. It looks fun, though I must admit that my enthusiasm for the game was quickly cooled as I watched Carina attempt to go fishing in the game.

The Wii Wario game is high on my list of titles to acquire, as is Wii Play. I’m very excited to see what game developers can do with the Wii. It’ll be nice to see some real innovation in game play, and a departure from button smashing.