Excitement 2

The Wii has been released, and after waiting six hours in line at a Mustang, Oklahoma Wal-Mart, I have one. The big question, though, is was it worth it?

The build up has been great, with varying websites both praising and bashing it, but in the last 48 hours since the little white box has been in my apartment, I have grown to love it. The little bugger just sits there all cute and shiny. It definitely looks neat, as opposed to the recently released PS3, which looks just…stupid. I guess I’m just biased against things that look bulbous and ugly. Now to the good stuff:

The controller feels good. Really good. You’ve never really thought about it before, but once you handle the remote and nunchuck, you definitely feel less restricted. Take the motion sensitivity out of the equation for a moment. The controller feels great because you can simply sit nearly however you want. I’ve been playing Zelda for the past few days while laying on my couch with my head propped up with my left hand (while holding the nunchuck) and having my right hand lay lazily on my hip pointing the remote towards the TV. The controller just allows for more relaxed sitting positions.

As far as its sensitivity, it’s very sensitive, as you probably have heard. It’s very easy to select buttons and write messages to send to friends online. Games like Trauma Center are very precise, which is good for slicing up patients. Wii Sports is equally sensitive, allowing for spin on bowling balls and varying speeds for baseball throws. Best of all, the controller is easy to hold, feels good, and doesn’t put people off from it. My dad and I played Wii Golf, and after quickly explaining how to do everything (which is pretty much “just hold A and swing”), he was used to it fairly quickly. This is definitely good news.

A couple of things before I go back to playing Zelda:

• Downloading old NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, etc. games is very easy, but uses a point system. Each point equals about 1 cent, and you can buy them at $10 a pop for 1,000. Then it’s very easy to waste those points.
• Getting messages from internet friends is cool not only because you’re getting a message, but because if you have the console in standby mode (it never turns off unless you unplug it) the disc slot will start to pulsate in a wicked cool blue color to inform you of the message. It’s fun to wake up to that.

I might have more impressions later, but so far I’ve had an incredible amount of fun. I was hoping to have been farther in my games, but everyone has been in my apartment playing Wii Sports for the past two days, so I believe I’m not alone in thinking that it is very fun.