Wednesday, December 06, 2006

To Wii or not...

Maybe I am one of the few that did not quite like the hot selling new Nintendo gaming console. I have played much computer games in my life. Mostly on the C64/Amiga/PC, but then I also got an Xbox when they came out. After getting kids, there was not that much time to play anymore also.

Then I read/saw the new consoles and the Wii definitely caught my interest. It sounded so fun and according to many previews, also seemed so well implemented. So I managed to get one last Sunday. Unpacked it and hooked everything up. Loaded Wii sports and started playing. It is fun, there's no question about it. But how much fun and for how long? I pretty soon became disappointed with the accuracy and the implementation of the Wii Sports and the controller.

For example, the golf game. I am a golfer, and I have always kind of liked golf games on computers and consoles. And I can understand that they do not expect the average gamer to manage to swing the controller correctly. But any type of real swing will lead to overpowering the shot and get random slice/hook. In addition, why limit the clubs to Putter/Wedge/Iron/Driver? And why have the notion that hitting out of the rough will be ok as long as the power is low, and if the power is higher, hook/slice is "mandatory". The worst part is the implementation of the putting. Getting reliable putting power was just ridiculous.

In the Tennis game I had a hard time getting over that the game would not "understand" the difference from a "lob" vs. a "smash". I.e. hitting from under or over the ball. The result was not that big difference.

Anyways, instead of buying more games and spending more time, the console went on sale on Craigslist. Needless to say, it was gone before the sun went down. If it turns out that I "trashed" the Wii because of a bad implementation of the Wii sports, I can always pick up a new Wii next year, and probably save money.

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