Nintendo Wii, hands on review!

Well, it finally has happened, I’ve have a hands on review of Nintendo’s Wii. First of all I have to thank my wife, for the wonderful birthday gift. So for starters it’s a lot of fun to play, even the free game that came with teh system “Wii Sports” is awsome.The console is pretty small and does look like some video game sitting in my living room which is cool. The sensor bar, that needs to be either on top of the TV or below the TV for the Wii remote to work, does stand out a little but overall not to bad.

The graphics are good but certainly not the best I’ve seen. I would say they are a slight upgrade over the PS2 or Xbox, but no where near the PS3 or the Xbox360. The menu is easy to navigate and your do have some neat extras like local weather and news headlines, if you have your Wii connected to a broad band connection. The Wii has built in wifi, but if you are still using wires you need to buy an adapter. The virtual console is pretty cool and for a small cost you can download classic games like “Super Mario Brothers” and “Mario 64”, the cost range from 500 Wii points ($5) to 1000 Wii points ($10). Of course the best part of the Wii is the cool controller, the controller(s) is comfortable and seems really natural when you use it. The only draw back so far has been trying to find and extra one in the stores. I wanted a second one so me and my wife could play “Wii sports” and had to go to eight stores before I found one. Another slight draw back is the cost of the controllers, I needed a second remote ($40), a second nunchuk controller ($20), and two classic controllers ($ 20 each) to play classic games via the virtual console. Ouch, another $100 just so my wife and I could play together without sharing one remote. The Wii did have a couple of points I thought would be useful for parents.

First the Wii “inbox” has a daily message that can not be deleted that keeps track of everything you do on the system, from what games were played and for how long to any online activities that were done through the Wii.

Secondly the Wii has built in parental controls that are password protected and does not allow certain game ratings to be played. So if you don’t want your kids to be playing mature games, they can’t, at least not at home, and if they figure out your password, you can see all of their activity in the Wii activity report.

The Wii came with “Wii Sports” for free, which is basically a collection of small sport games highlighting the Wii’s controller. Games include tennis, baseball, bowling, boxing, and golf. The games themselves are very addictive, especially the bowling, basically your swing the remote just like you’re bowling for real, it’s a lot of fun. Although I will warn you I was very sore the next day after a long night of Wii bowling.

So overall the Wii is worth the price if you are looking for a fun family game system.
The cost at $250 is a bit deceiving if everyone wants their own controllers because the additional cost will add up quick, but you could just share one remote if you really didn’t want to spend the extra money. So if you want a new game system that everyone one in the house can play and have fun together I recommend the Nintendo Wii.