I feel old: a brief review of Nintendo Wii
Plently of people in the gaming industry media have weighed in heavily on the Nintendo Wii, but who cares? Ignore all reviews except this one, because I’m going to give you the best review of the Wii … EVER.
Here it is: Find someone that owns a Wii. Go over to his/her house. Play “Wii Sports.”
Trust me, it’s the best review that can be done. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve read about the Wii or how many of your friends have told you “Oh, dude, it’s awesome!” Screw that. Get off your duff and befriend, beg or threaten people you know until you can hold that wonderful controller in your hand and play it.
I had the opportunity by near accident this past break to play a friend of a friend’s Wii, and after about 30 minutes of Wii Sports, I’m convinced this console is the most fun I’ve had gaming in a long time.
Nintendo has never really been about making high-end, heavy duty graphics machines. They don’t have some HD-DVD player crammed into their box or some absurdly expensive processor. Instead, they thought “Hey, what’s fun about playing games?” Notice: “games” not “video games.”
It’s like going back to the arcade when you were a kid. Sure, you went to the Pac Man and Asteroids, but you also probably did some skeeball or maybe played some version of Whack-a-mole. What was fun about the arcade was getting out all of that aggressive energy you had as a kid. Throwing stuff. Smashing things.
Well, guess what the Wii lets you do. You can throw the remote and smash your TV, should you so choose. But the concept is the same. The folks at Nintendo did a delightful job of thinking about gaming as something that you actively participate in, not passively react to. It’s more competitive and it’s damned innovative for a console.
And I love it.
It’s like going to an arcade these days and seeing the most random people on a Dance Dance Revolution machine. Moving their feet around in synchronization with moving arrows across the screen in perfect harmony. You might first think, “Wow, that looks dumb.” And then you try it and think “Damned arrows!” and you get addicted to it because of the competition it drives in you. The Wii is just like that, except with your arms and in the comfort of your own home — plus a few extra buttons.
Wii Sports has this great feature that lets you do a fitness test by completing a series of games. It determined I was 70 years old, much to the laughter of my friends as they saw me completely fail at Wii bowling.
The best thing about the Wii is that I think it’s the kind of video game console that non-gamers could actually get into. It’s a bridge to an older generation. It works as a get-together game with friends. I dare say that it makes gaming a social activity.
The Wii is a step up. It ignores the traditional “gaming experience” that console games typically try to introduce with amazing graphics, ambient surround sound and multiplayer deathmatches and instead says “Hey, want to be a kid again?”
I do. I want to be a kid. I want a Wii.
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