Adam Wilcox; tea drinking Brit with fondness for the media and tech.
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Nintendo Wii 17 March 2008

As a PC gamer all my life, I knew that buying a Mac would probably end my gaming addiction. Gaming on the mac is a fairly lonely existence, even though the Game section of the Apple website seems to suggest otherwise. Either way, I knew it was time to break a habit of a lifetime and buy a console.

We are currently in the seventh generation of consoles… apparently… personally I find that as revolting as the phrase ‘Web 2.0’ but maybe I am just naturally grumpy. My options are the Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360, and the Playstation 3. The Xbox and Playstation boast some seriously impressive graphics hardware, Blue-ray and/or HD-DVD playback, and some titles that I would kill to play, Assassins Creed, Halo 3, Bioshock.

However, I went with what I know, and bought the Nintendo Wii, a system with hardware well bellow the competitors, no DVD/Blue-ray/HD-DVD playback, and a stick-wand thing for a controller.

Eat, Sleep and Wii

The deciding factor was that I could play the Gamecube games I’ve inherited since my brother has gone off to University. Apparently I am not alone in the choice of a Wii, because last September the Financial Times reported that sales of the Wii have overtaken those of the Xbox 360, making it the world’s best-selling next-generation games console in spite of having been on the market a year less than Microsoft’s machine. Originally titled the ‘Nintendo Revolution’, the later announcement led to plenty of raised eyebrows, (including mine), and comments such as ‘Eat, Sleep and Wii’, appearing across online message-boards.

So the stick-wand controller thing. The wireless controller gets some getting used to, and on first impression appears to be a Fisher Price gimmick, however the sensitivity of the controller is a force to be reckoned with, as I will come to in my review of Mario Galaxy.

The controls are fairly self explanatory, the wand has a two main buttons, (front and back), which serve as a trigger or menu confirmation button. Inside is a motion sensor and on the top is an optical sensor which is picked up by a bar on the top of the television screen. The nunchuck attachment sits in the other hand, and has the traditional analogue stick similar to the one found on the Nintendo GameCube controller and two trigger buttons.

Internet access gives you the ability to browse the web, as well as receive system updates, will shortly allows online multiplaying, and also allow you to buy and download games from a range of now defunct systems including the NES, SNES, N64 and Sega Mega Drive.

The system itself is tiny, (think of three DVD boxes stacked together), and is barely noticeable sitting on the rack along with the Sky+ box, and DVD player, my intention to add an AppleTV box when movie rentals are released in Europe will match the cool white colour scheme I’ve got going. As such I have been able to pack it up easily in my bag and take it with me to play in various locations including a smart-board in an educational establishment after all of the little horrors had gone home.

So far, I’ve been nothing but impressed. For pick up and play type games, (Wii Sports, Wii Play), it is great for challenging friends at. The single player games I’ve got Splinter Cell and Tomb Raider- are great, personally I think Tomb Raider makes much better use of the unique controls that the Wii offers, but more on that later.

I’ve taken the Wii to friend’s houses and it has been generally well received, for people like Darren the graphics are lacking when compared to say the PS3 it was sitting next too, but daft little games like the cow racing in Wii Play and Duck Hunt are simply fun to play and don’t need anything graphically wonderful. In future posts, I want to review the following: