DigitalSandbox

There is only one word that can describe the Wii. Awesome.

As I mentioned previously, my brother-in-law bought a Wii and we got to play it over the Thanksgiving break. The thing is simply awesome. I don’t want to get too in depth with this, but I thought I would share my impressions of the system with you.

Graphics

Let’s just get this out of the way. The graphics on the Wii are good. They are not great. They are not Hi-Def. They are a bit better than the Gamecube, but not close to the graphics you will find on the XBox 360 or Playstation 3.

That said, I will tell you that I am firmly in the camp of “a great game is not defined by the graphics.” Many of my favorite games have less than stellar graphics. I grew up with an Atari 2600, and then the original NES. I appreciate good graphics, but I appreciate fun and innovative gameplay even more. To that end the Wii is a killer system.

Gameplay

The Wiimote is a great controller. I applaud Nintendo for coming up with a new way of interacting with the game. Old-school button controllers are fine, but it is so much more satisfying to move and have that motion translated on the screen.

Wii Sports is just incredibly fun to play. And it is so natural. Bowling behaves very closely to bowling in real life. You can even put spin on the ball and make it curve. Tennis was a blast play, and golf was almost like playing the real thing. I could be happy to buy a Wii and play just those games for a log time.

Virtual Console

I’ll admit it. This was one of my most anticipated features. I love the old games and reliving my youth. I was very much looking forward to playing them again. I liked that Nintendo was making this system not just backwards compatible with the Gamecube, but with the NES, Super Nintendo, and N64.

What I didn’t expect, was virtual consoles for other systems. They have games for the Sega Genesis, and the TurboGrafx. We bought Altered Beast and had fun playing that. The selection is pretty small right now, but it will grow over time. I will say that if you plan to do a lot of virtual consoling ? like I do ? plan on getting the Classic Controller. I have too much muscle memory for these old games to learn a new layout.

Final Thoughts

The cool part about the Wii was how everyone could compete. It was so simple to understand. To hit the ball, swing the controller like a racquet. To bowl, you move the controller like you’re bowling. My six year old nephew could beat his dad at many of the games. Even my dad got in on the action. And my sister’s and The Wife played it too.

That’s the magic right there. As video games became more advanced, they stopped appealing to certain people. My sister’s haven’t played video games since they were kids. The Wii made it fun and got them involved. We even had a time where the whole family took turns competing. We laughed and played and had a good time.

After last weekend, I am convinced of what I already strongly suspected. The Wii is a winning combination. Gameplay is fun and uncomplicated. The virtual consoles will let me play many of my old favorites. And the whole family can enjoy it. I definitely will be picking one up, not immediately, but in the near future I will be joining the revolution.