Wii haff ways of making you jump around your living room!

I finally caved in and bought a Wii this week.

I’ve had a weird relationship with consoles. Ages ago, I wanted to go halves with my cousin on a super hi-tech Atari 2600. The problem with that was that my cousin lived in Germany and I lived in London. Since he was older than me, I’m pretty sure I’d never have seen that console.

I also have some vague memories of walking through Bentalls or John Lewis and overhearing a boy trying to explain to his father that he was after a joystick, not a joss stick, and that he wasn’t trying to buy drugs (for a while in the early ’80s there seemed to be an idea that joss sticks were marijuana).

I haven’t actually owned a console since the early 1990s, when I briefly owned a second-hand Gameboy. I got a bit fed up of it, since I had a PC and preferred to read on the go, rather than play games in pixellated black and white.

Rebecca kicking my ass at Wii Sports

So why did I take the plunge and buy the Wii in the first place, given that I spend arguably enough time on the PC as it is? Well, the main reason is that it is incredibly fun and incredibly social. Instead of going head to head with Sony and Microsoft to produce the biggest, most powerful console, Nintendo have put together something very different. The Wii isn’t about having the best graphics, it’s about having fun and making gaming accessible to people who don’t usually get involved with gaming.

The really stand-out thing about the console is the much-talked-about control system, that uses a combination of infrared and accelerometers to work out what movements you are making with your hands. Thus, the little remote becomes a tennis racket, baseball bat, golf club, or your hands in the case of the bowling game or the boxing game (see photo of Rebecca beating the bejesus out of her opponent).

Pretty soon after setting the thing up, Rebecca and I were leaping around the room like crazed apes, playing the included game, Wii Sports. The controls are incredibly simple and accurate – swing the controller like a putter and it putts, swing it like a bat and it bats. It’s very easy to pick up. Anyway, without further ado, here are the results of our first, fairly drunken, fairly epic evening:

  • Tennis – Rebecca won
  • Baseball – Rebecca won
  • Golf – Rebecca won
  • Boxing – Rebecca won with a Knock Out
  • Bowling – Rebecca won after getting three strikes in a row.

So it’s official – Rebecca is a natural, and I have all the gear but no idea.

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