Nintendo Wii (and a Few Wii Games) Reviewed

I went over to a friends house last night. He called me over to check out his Nintendo Wii that he got for his birthday. Well, technically he bought it for his kids but any gadget over $249 that parents buy for their kids is quickly joint owned.

Seeing the Wii in person for the first time, aside from bringing tears to my eyes, made me think of all of the people that had been destroying expensive household items when the controller flew out of their hand. Naturally, I had to examine the controller for myself. The strap that attaches to the controller is ridiculously thin. I have seen dental floss that was thicker than this strap. I asked my friend if I could try flossing with the strap but he wouldn't let me.

After checking out the strap, my friend and I started a game of Wii Sports Baseball. It turns out that Wii Sports Baseball is more of a home run derby than a baseball game. One person pitches the ball and the other person hits it. That's it. All other tasks including picking up the ball, running bases, catching the ball, and magically floating up in the air to catch an out are performed by the Wii computer. While this does make for slightly boring game play, the boredom is quickly outweighed by the awesomeness of using a wireless remote to pitch and hit a ball.

After playing home run derby (I refuse to call it baseball), we tried Wii Sports Bowling, the very game that is allegedly responsible for countless TV, DVD player, window, and cat impalements. Bowling is a big leap forward from Wii Sports Baseball. Mainly due to the fact that the very nature of bowling only requires one swinging movement and one person playing at a time. We played two games of bowling and I completely sucked at it, but it was still a lot of fun. You know something is great if you can be horrible at it and still enjoy yourself.