This past Christmas I didn't really need anything, so when Steph's family asked what I wanted I defaulted to my good old standby - BestBuy gift cards. Later that day at Steph's aunt and uncle's I was introduced to the Nintendo Wii for the first time. I just played Wii Sports, but was instantly hooked. I vowed the gift cards would go towards the purchase of my very own Wii. Unfortunately, the were out of stock everywhere and repeated trips to BestBuy left me empty handed... until yesterday. I headed over early, waited in line for about 40 minutes and got my Wii. Fortuitously, on this same day BestBuy had also received a shipment of the very-hard-to-get Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii. So I also picked up a copy of that along with an extra controller.
Let me just say, WOW! I've never been a very big fan of video games, mainly because I lacked the dexterity to be any good at it once they added more than two buttons to the controllers, but Colin, Steph, and I must've played Wii for about 6 hours yesterday. It's the coolest toy I've purchased in years. My arms and back are actually sore from repeated boxing and tennis matches. It's super simple to play and you don't feel bad for playing for a few hours because it's a full-body workout. I also like it because it's so inclusive, i.e. it wouldn't be fun playing by yourself like a Halo-type game.
I know Kevin and Ted, die-hard Xbox and PlayStation proponents, will give me hell for this purchase because it's simply a game system and doesn't have any additional features like HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, but what can I say? I'm man of simple pleasures. Plus, I can purchase and play the original Zelda and Super Mario trilogy (and Metroid and Kid Icarus and Castlevania and Excitebike and every other awesome NES, Super NES, N-64 (including Starfox) and Sega Genesis game out there) through the online store. I can even get Donkey Kong and film my own documentary (see post below).
Anyway, I'm sure it'll get some heavy use when everyone is in town next month. And for anyone who's in the market for a new game system, I highly recommend it.
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3 comments:
Ian, I won't give you any crap about the Wii. You're right about everything! Simply put, it's the best video game system on the market. I've played it a few times, and the first time I did the boxing game I almost threw up because I so exerted myself.
Also, I've read stories about how army veterans wounded in combat are using the Wii for their physical therapy - the medical corps say the average wounded soldier is a male between 20 and 25- and these guys get in more PT through the Wii because they have fun doing it. Even fat people are using the Wii for weight loss because it makes them move around in motions they wouldn't ordinarily perform.
All-in-all the Wii is the best system going for people who want an inclusive, affordable, fun system and don't need high-end graphics or advanced multimedia systems.
I also agree the Wii is tough to beat. However, I hope that everyone in this family has JNES (a Nintendo emulator) and a bunch of NES ROM files. If you don't, download JNES today. I have a collection of ROM files for almost EVERY GAME IN THE HISTORY OF NINTENDO. I could .zip them and email them to you since each game is about 16kb in size!!!
As for gaming platforms, I will not be purchasing another one from the current generation. Maybe if they come up with some amazing system in the future. I'm at the point in my life where I just don't have the spare time anymore. Sucks, but true.
I WILL be anxiously following the iPhone SDK. This is going to open up the iPhone as a portable game platform. It has twice the processing speed and video power of the PSP and Gameboy DS. That could be really fun given my collection of ROMs.
Anyone heard of a game called Spore? Look it up, may be the next huge thing.
man, i'd love to have a wii, but i am extemely happy with my ps3. being able to watch blu-ray movies along with playing guitar hero iii and need for speed: carbon make it sweet. i do miss mario something awful, though.
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