I got to play with a Nintendo Wii the other night.
I was surprised that there are four different physical pieces: the charging pad, left-hand control-pad, right-hand wand, and the cpu system itself. It seems rather unelegent for a gaming system of such exalted k00l status. Right off the bat, though, I was impressed that you can charge the controllers by just placing them on the charging pad. This presumably uses similar tech to my Sonicare toothbrush, which has no metal contacts. I.e. I just place the toothbrush in the cradle and it magically charges. The first time I noticed this I thought “How did they do that?!” followed immediately by “Why doesn’t everything that charges do that?!?”
I could see how someone would have trouble deciding where to put all the pieces. In this case the charging pad was on top of the TV. I assume that this also contains the device that tracks the wand movement.
Otherwise first impression is that it’s quite sturdy and will withstand a lot of abuse, just like all Nintendo products (Granted, the last one I seriously used was the SNES. Also, remember that issue of Nintendo Power in which people had run over their their NES with cars but they still functioned? That was awesome.)
The golf game is enjoyable but I was disappointed that the graphics were not more fun, like being able to put Luigi’s head on Princess’ body and adjust her breast size, etc. I guess they were preoccupied getting the gameplay just right, which is admittedly the whole point of the Wii and yes it is very natural and is fun to play.
Another game involves first-person perspective shooting blue cartoon blobs at holes in trees, presumably to make use of and train you in the art of using the wand and trigger. After you master that you get to shoot at gladiator-like minotaur creatures with axes. You know what I’m talking about; nearly all Nintendo games contain this creature. This is where the Wii really gets fun. Firing off blue blobs is satisfying in a physical way that I have not experienced with video games before, and if that sounds funny that’s because it is funny. It isn’t satisfying like heroin or like the game from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Game, but it definitely stimulated my cortex.
For some reason the system also comes with a copy of the orginal Final Fantasy game from the NES, but with updated graphics. Not cool 3D modern looking graphics; they are still pixelated flat ones but with better resolution and more detail. So where the little Orko-looking mage was once 8×8, now you get at least 8×8 worth of just his little skeletony hands. It’s good clean nostalgic fun; I presume this is included only to give the Wii extra nerd points. Anyway, the game was (is still?) great, so i don’t think I would mind playing through it again. It made me want to play Ultima 6 again too.
Now, aside from PS2 Grand Theft Auto games, I don’t find myself wanting to play video games very much these days, but I am really looking forward to trying the Wii again after the game developers have really had a year or two to come up with some more sophisticated games that really use the Wii interface. It’s defintely more immersive. In other words, the world may finally get the TRON game that it’s always deserved.
In the interest of Full Disclosure I should mention that this actually happened in a dream I had (while sleeping). I have never actually seen or touched a Nintendo Wii, so any resemblence to the actual Wii experience is pretty much anecdotal. YMMV. Also, Nintendo totally paid me to write this.