About a month and a half ago, Cary and I bought a Nintendo Wii. We already have an XBox 360, but it was apparent that Cary wasn’t really getting as much entertainment out of that system as I was. She just couldn’t find any games that she really enjoyed aside from a few downloadable casual games on the XBox Live online service. So we thought that a getting a Wii would be a good idea, but it’s well known that the Wii has been in short supply since it was released in 2006. Knowing this, we weren’t going to go out of our way to get one. While we were out shopping, I happened to just call a local Gamestop on a whim, and as luck would have it, they had a couple in stock, so we picked one up.
Even though I had read about it online, what really surprised me is how much of a social toy the Wii is. We took it to the beach, and everyone loved it. Even people who don’t play video games were interested in just watching us play. Wii Sports — a collection of sports games including Bowling, Baseball, Tennis, Golf and Boxing — is included with the system, and that tends to be what gets the most play.
Until now, I can’t ever remember having sore muscles from playing a video game.
The only real drawback to the Wii is the software library. First-party games — those created by Nintendo — are usually very good. Third-party titles, however, are seldom very good. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, third-party software is sub-par. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that many developers were eager to quickly ship games to take advanatage of the popularity of the Wii. Unfortunately, most developers have yet to figure out how best to use the Wii’s more physical controllers. Hopefully, they’ll wise up soon, because there are some really BAD Wii games out there. I’m looking at you, Emergency Mayhem.