Nintendo Wii
The line was pretty tame, and nowhere near as crazy as it was for the PS3 launch (which involved murder and other scary things). Best Buy handed out tickets that guaranteed the holder one Wii. Since I was at the largest Best Buy in Manhattan they had a lot of units, approximatly 100. I was number 48, but by 6:30 they were sending people home.
Inside the box you will find the Nintendo Wii unit, Wii Sports, a Wiimote and the nunchuck. You definitely need to purchase at least another Wiimote and nunchuck, because the social aspect is what this console excels at. Although single player games are fun, you are just not getting the full Wii experience without playing multiplayer games. I also picked up two games, Excite Truck and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
I couldn’t wait to get my hands playing this thing and trying to see if the Wiimote really worked as seamlessly as Nintendo promised. It was the first thing I did when I got home. But first I want to reflect on the large amount of time that went into the design of the Wii itself. Even the packaging of the system has improved since the days of the NES. It seems that Nintendo has taken a page out of the Apple handbook on presentation. Actually the whole system evokes Apple-ish detailing – the sharp lines of the system, the cream white finish and the blue glow of the slot CD-ROM’s drive.
The first game we tried out was Wii Sports, which serves as a tutorial for the Wiimote and nunchuck controlling system. Once you get the hang of how the controls work, it seems effortless and you don’t really need to think what buttons you have to press. This became evident when my mom (a technology neophyte) came and started whipping my sister’s butt in Wii Tennis. That evening was one of the most fun times I can remember in a while, because within 15 minutes of me opening the box I had nearly the whole family playing and laughing. The system is like a party in a box.
This was Nintendo’s plan from the begining. The Wiimote was designed to make it easy for people who never play video games to just pick it up and play. But how does it work for “real” games? Well at first it feels quite awkward. When I was playing Twilight Princess, I could only spend half an hour before I had to take a break. But by my third sitting I was comfortable with the controls, and although I don’t think they are perfect they do add another dimension to game playing. It really gets you into the game when you actually need to move your arm to swing your sword or aim your weapon instead of just pressing a buttom. I will cover the controller details in my Twilight Princess review.
When you turn on the Wii you are greeted with Nintendo’s Wii menu, which allows you to select from a series of channels. The menu gives you access to Wii Weather, Wii News, the Wii Connection, and your Miis. A little bit of a disappointment for me was that not all these Wii services are available at launch. It seems that Wii Weather won’t be available until December 20 and Wii News January 17.
The Mii channel allows you to create your own avatar. This avatar will be used in Mii enabled games (such as Wii Sports). So instead of seeing some generic preprogramed image, you will be able to play as the character that you created, which is quite neat. You can also transfer your Mii to the Wiimote and bring it with you to another person’s home. This allows you to play with your Mii wherever you go.
The Mii channel also has something called the Mii Parade. I wasn’t able to get this to work. It could just be that I didn’t give it enough time to find other Miis. Nevertheless, it is supposed to allow you to meet other Wii users. By setting the “mingle” option in your Mii settings, you Mii will travel to other Wii consoles that are accepting other Miis. Once a Mii has traveled to your Wii, you will be able to communicate with the other person. All these features can also be turned off for privacy issues as well as for security of children using the system.
The Wii Connection channel is where you can purchase old games via the Virtual Console. At launch, Nintendo provides various games from their own systems (NES, SNES, and Nintendo64) as well as Sega Genesis and TurboGrafix16! Games can be purchased through a point system, with 100 points costing $1. Points can be bought 2000 at a time and each game costs anywhere from 500 to 1000 points (determined by the age of the system). The purchasing process is fairly smooth. I added 2000 points to my system and was able to download such classics as The Legend of Zelda, Mario Brothers, and Sonic the Headgehodge. Each download took less than a minute, with Mario racing across the screen as the process indicator. Nintendo also has plans to have a web browser (created by Opera) for purchase to integrated into the Wii; however that won’t be available until January.
Although the Wii is great fun to play, there are a few drawbacks. First off is that the visuals came second to the user experience. Although the graphics are by no means terrible, it is just not the leap expected (especially when compared to visually focused systems such as the PS3). I certainly prefer Nintendo’s new control system over the PS3 SixAxis, I just wish they put a little more effort into the Wii’s graphics capabilities. It feels more like a GameCube+ then a whole new system. Another problem that I had is with the Wiimote’s gyroscopic motion sensing. After about four days of use, one of the Wiimotes stopped functioning in games that required the Wiimotes special functions. Apparently I am not the only one; however I don’t think that this is a widespread problem. I have notified Nintendo and hopefully the repair unit will come quick.
Overall I am quite satisfyed with the the new Nintendo Wii. Nintendo was clearly going for a wider market than Sony or Microsoft with their latest console and I think it will definatly pay off. I never thought my mom would be playing video games, but the Wii changed that. And the fact that Nintendo has exclusive games like The Legend of Zelda make this console the one to look out for.
Michael Petnuch is a graduate math student who enjoys walking on his hands, drinking diet coke, solving math problems, and being silly!
