Before I post anything else, let me go ahead and preface this by telling all of my family members that are reading this, that all my kids absolutely loved your Christmas gifts! They were big hits, and the kids are truly enjoying them.
However, the big hit for the whole family, has been the Wii. This is the first thing that I have seen that has gotten four out of the five family members hooked on it. My Wife is the only one that has been able to maintain any sense level-headedness over the absolute need to play it. Of course, we just think she’s crazy!
Both Brian and Will are having a blast with bowling, boxing, and tennis on Wii Sports. They are also enjoying Super Mario Galaxy and Rayman’s Raving Rabbids(Don’t ask). Victoria has gotten to be quite good at bowling, and she and a few of her friends were absolutely hilarious the other night playing tennis.
And while I am interested in all of the games we have so far, I have spent the majority of my time on the Wii playing Tennis, baseball, bowling, and golf. It has seriously become something of a workout regimen for me. Now most of you that read this know me, and know that I am not the most active person in the world, but spending a few minutes boxing or playing tennis will seriously get your heart pumping.
Another nice thing about how Wii sports was designed, is that it does not care of you are young or old, tall or short - there is at least one sport that you can excel at. For instance, Will and Brian play against each other most of the time and while Brian dominates Will in Tennis and Baseball, he can never seem to get the better hand in boxing. In fact, it’s pretty funny watching both of them shadow-boxing with the television and tiny little Will delivering that knockout punch to his big brother! And while Victoria struggles with her swing-timing in baseball, her form in bowling - and the hook on her ball - is something to see…. And me? Well, it’s not quite fair, because I can play on it all night once everyone else goes to bed. I have reached the PRO level (at least 1000 skill points) on bowling, and tennis, and I am very close to reaching it in golf. However, I am not that great in baseball, and I just right-out suck at boxing.
To say that the Wii is getting a lot of play time is an understatement. It has built in Wi-Fi, so it connects to my wireless network and lets me browse the web, or connect to the Wii Virtual Console Channel and download all of those kewl old skool Nintendo games like Donkey Kong or Mario Bros. They also have some old Sega and Neo-Geo games, like Sonic2 or Street Fighter2. I can also turn it on and it will give me the latest weather forecast and a list of news headlines as well.
Downsides? Well, there are a couple… One thing is to take heed of all the warnings that come up on the screen about making sure that the players have enough empty space around them. More than once has someone got unintentionally whacked by the overzealous player. The other? Well, let’s just say that if you are out of shape, you really need to start off playing fairly conservatively. After the first night of playing, I could barely get around the next day.
Now if I could just get my hands on Guitar Hero 3, Tiger Woods ‘08, and Zack & Wiki…
[tags]wii, games, fitness, sports[/tags]
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