Nintendo Wii - First Impression

I received my Nintendo Wii last night and have proven to myself yet again how little impulse control I have. At least I waited until I was done studying to dig it out. It was pretty easy to setup - the only thing that wasn't intuitive and required the manual was when I was trying to sync my Wii Remote to it. Turning the Wii on is like that first time when you logged onto the internet and realized your whole world had changed. I felt like the 'less-advanced' people who come into contact with Picard and the Enterprise, and their world has suddenly become a lot larger. For someone in a technologically-advanced field, I feel really behind!

The Wii I bought came with Wii Play, and even though I really wanted to play some Gamecube Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, I also didn't have a lot of time and I really wanted to try out the Wii Remote.

Back when the Wii launched there were stations set up in amusement parks and other "touristy" places. You could go there and test out the Wii interface on one of the Wiis set up with big screen TVs. But like the tester model of game consoles at Best Buy and Wal-Mart they were usually broken. So Link could only turn left and you couldn't swing your sword. Not really a great way to be introduced to something so revolutionary.

If you want to unlock all the games on Wii Play and save your progress you'll need to make a Mii. A Mii is a cartoony player avatar that saves/tracks progress in some games and also participates in internet-related capability that I haven't figured out yet. The Mii creation process is similar to creating a new Sim in The Sims 2 except it's not nearly as customizable. You can control some aspects of the appearance but not all.

So now I have a cartoon version of me. Yay. Now let's play some Wii Play.

Wii Play is a handful of minigames that makes a good primer on using the Wii Remote. When you first start the game you only have access to the Shooting Range game; to unlock the other games you simply have to play through the game that precedes it. There is no score you have to beat in order to unlock the next game, although if you score high enough you win a medal. Then when you go back to the Wii home page you see that the game has left you a note congratulating you on the medal and a "helpful" hint on the game.

Shooting Range - This is Duck Hunt 2.0, with targets, clay pigeons, and soda cans.
Find Mii - I was doing all right on this game until I got to the level where I had to find two identical Miis in a moving crowd.
Table Tennis - Virtual Ping Pong. Try to get to 100 volleys.
Pose Mii - This was the most annoying of the games. Using a couple buttons, you can cycle through several different poses. Bubbles drop from the top of the screen, with a silhouette outlined inside the bubble. The goal is to align your Mii on the bubble with the same pose and rotation. I just couldn't figure out how to match up the pose and rotate the Mii fast enough for the game.
Laser Hockey - This is just like Pong with an Air Hockey theme and Neon.
Fishing - It took me a little bit to get the hang of this game, but it's pretty relaxing. Just drop the hook in and wait for a fish to bite. You can guide your hook over to fish you want to catch, and they usually bite.
Billiards - 3-D Pool. Pretty fun, and a lot easier than Pool in real life. You can use the A button to get a top-down view, and the grey line really helps you line up your shot.
Charge! - I had a lot of fun with this game. Your Mii rides a cow, and the goal is to mow down scarecrows and get to the finish line in under two minutes. It took a few tries to figure out the right movement for "jump".
Tanks! - Blow up the other tanks on the screen. It's fun. :)

I don't think I'll play too much more of this, unless I want to kill 5 minutes by mowing down some scarecrows or something. But it was a good primer on using the Wii Remote and I look forward to seeing how other games utilize (or not) the interface.