OK, I admit it. I still haven’t grown up.
It’s Christmas and I have a wish list for Santa. Actually, one wish – the much-sought-after Nintendo Wii. Pronounced “wee,” as in “Wee, that’s fun.”
I say, “When grown men are willing to sleep outside of electronics or department stores for days on end, just to have first crack at the latest video game system, it must be worthwhile.”
Ahem, you may note that in some ways I have grown up. I chose to stay married and decided it would have been a very bad idea to have camped out beside any of the gamers who spent nights outside of retailers nationwide.
Instead I now read e-mails or get phone calls from sore-bodied friends who have been developing the “way of the Wii.”
I truly feel like the only kid on my block who didn’t get a Red Ryder BB Gun.
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I’m even forced to listen to a certain achy-bodied co-worker whose boyfriend snagged one of the sleek-looking consoles that was introduced in the U.S. on Nov. 19.
Why is their soreness working to feed a Wii bit of my envy?
For those of you who may be living in a cave, sorry GEICO commercial guy, the Wii is touted as the interactive, fun-for-all-ages system. It features wireless controllers with cool names like the “Nunchuck,” which plugs into and works with the standard Wii remote controller. The accessories interact with players’ movements and send signals to a barely-noticeable sensor bar, which can sit above or below a television set.
You can hold the remote controller (about the same size as your TV remote) like a golf club and try to beat Tiger Woods, or just your friends if you’re playing one of the sports games that comes standard with every console.
Wii Sports features golf, bowling, baseball, tennis and boxing.
At $249 – compared to the $399 Microsoft X-box 360, out for a year now, or the new $599 Sony PlayStation 3 – the Wii looks to be the way to get more gaming bang for your buck.
Microsoft’s latest box may have been first to market, but the Nintendo name still strikes a juggernaut-sized chord with gamers like me.
My gaming prowess developed ten-fold in the late ’80s and early ’90s thanks to the original Nintendo Entertainment System. At that time the company took gaming to a whole new level and, perhaps, foreshadowed what was to come when it introduced the PowerPad – which I owned, coincidentally.
The PowerPad was a mat where players could stand and chop their feet on the appropriate circles in order to make their characters perform. There were only a handful of exercise and track-and-field type games. So-called cheaters were able to kneel and beat their hands against the mat (think drum roll) in order to make their characters run at light speed.
Anyway, the pad didn’t last. But with Nintendo’s latest approach to interactive gaming, I’m betting that the Wii is here to stay.
If you play one of the sports games you can create a Mii, the Wii version of you that appears in all of the games.
Want your mini-Mii likeness to throw a pitch on a baseball game?
Press a button on the controller, go through your regular wind up and watch him deliver the pitch. Just cross the fingers on your other hand and hope your opponent can’t swing like a healthy Ken Griffey Jr.
Need to backhand a volley on the tennis court? Go ahead, reach across your body with the controller in your dominant hand and backhand away.
Have a bunch of friends’ Miis on your system? They’ll appear on your baseball or bowling teams, too.
In case there’s any doubt – the Wii version of gaming is not only interactive and physical, but it gets right to the heart of why you should choose to play any game. It’s just good, clean fun.
If Wii continues to blaze the trail it has so far this Christmas season, parents everywhere will soon lose the “don’t lay around playing video games all day,” lecture that I distinctly remember from the summers of my youth.
Game Cube owners looking to upgrade can smile, too. The Wii is completely compatible with games and controllers from the Cube.
But just in case you’re lazy and feel like reminiscing, the Wii allows you to download classic games from Nintendo’s last 20 years directly to its hard drive.
The company has acquired the libraries of other gaming consoles, including Sega Genesis and Turbografx16, available for download, too.
There is one catch though.
If your a reveler of games past, you’ll have to buy a soon-to-be-termed throwback controller that’s compatible with the Wii console.
In my opinion, it’s all money well spent.
By the way, if Santa reads this, I’ll settle for an IOU until the elves make the Wiis more readily available.
Click here to read complete article, (Source: wii - Google News)
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