So it is about Xbox 360 and winning the next generation console race. EXCUSE ME but Xbox 360 is NOT next-gen and don’t get me wrong neither is PS3 or Nintendo Wii. They are CURRENT generation of consoles. Let us have a look:

Previous generation

• Nintendo: Game Cube
• Sony: PlayStation 2
• Microsoft: Xbox

Current generation

• Nintendo: Wii
• Sony: PLAYSTATION 3
• Microsoft: Xbox 360

Next generation

• Let us wait and see what they will announce in the future.

Sure there are also ‘older generations’ with Nintendo 64, PSone, SNES, Dreamcast and many more.

When PS3 and Xbox 360 was announced they became Next-Gen then they got released and therefore must be current generation of consoles.

Oh, and who is going to win the current generation race; who knows. My guess is that they will all 3 be winners, one way or another.

Anyway this is just my opinion on this. I’m sure not all will agree.

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Sure you should not compare the game to World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online as it is rather… Hmmm… Different.

Guess you can only compare it to other Super Mario games but even here it is different and I’m not only talking about the flipping between 2D and 3D (got to love that) but the visuals and the story is brilliant. I sure understand why the game got 10/10 some places. I’m sure that I will be playing this Mario game more than any other previous Mario game; until I get Super Mario Galaxy.

Anyway, I only played the first 3 worlds and just had to show the games to the kids the other day. Here I ran into one issue, the game got SO MUCH text; both as introduction; story telling and while you are playing. I told them to skip it as quickly as possible and told them what they needed to know. They had no problem with this and I’m not sure they would have followed the concept of dimensions and the whole void taking over the world.

So here we are; playing the first levels. My son understood the good old digital controls right away and often checked with the Wiimote if there where hidden objects. The flipping between 2d and 3d was also no issue for him, sure I do have to remind him from time to time to check in 3D but he got it sorted. Now with controlling two characters, having 2 Pixi’s to choose from it starts to get more tricky.

Then after awhile we got to the first real big end boss. Do not continue reading if you don’t want the solution to passing this end boss (flying dragon). I showed him the big red flying dragon and told him the story about it when I played it earlier. I spent don’t know how many hit points trying to hit the antenna on the head of it; NO success at all.

So I ended my first day with Super Paper Mario been annoyed and just turned off. The day after Google helped me ;-)

WidgetBucks – Trend Watch – WidgetBucks.com

Anyway, as I said, I showed the dragon to my son and he was like: “yeah, that’s cool… How about you jump up on his back” I just froze in motion; put the game on pause and looked him deep in the eyes. I told him that I’m impressed with his logic thinking and that I never got that idea myself. Either that tells something about him and games or it tells something bad about me and games.

So we did this and got pass the dragon; played some more yesterday and finished the hamster part ;-)

Point of the story is ‘never underestimate kids and their thinking/logic’. They keep on surprising me again and again, not only in games but in all areas.

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This should be from unlocked Paradise Mode. The movie features guns formed as Dolphins, shooting water bubbles, killing with banana (down the throat) and jet skies looking like swans. If anyone thinks this is the ’soft’ version of the game; then think again as it actually rather brutal.

So did this make me consider getting the game; nope… I need to see more from the ‘real’ game. I wonder if the developers had a good laugh when they did this part of the game; must have been a good change in the normal boring work.

Watch the movie at your own risk. Do not blame me if you end up having nightmares or wet dreams because of this…

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I finally got around calling Microsoft’s XBox 360 the other day. It went very smooth to explain the problem with ‘The Red Ring of Death’, guess it was not first time for them :-) Just had to mention the problems with the light and the girl at support took over, just one question from her (beyond identifying me) and that was about the light on the power supply. A good friend of mine had already mentioned this so I had the answer ready; he also called Microsoft the same day, to get this 4th XBox 360.

So now I’m waiting for UPS to show up with cardboard box so I can return it again with UPS. The repair time should be around 15 working days. So now the race is on with my friend, does it go faster in Germany or here in Switzerland.

Game ordering of the day

I don’t expect any problems with the repair/replacement so I went ahead today and ordered Halo 3 and Sonic Hedgehog for XBox 360. Sonic Hedgehog is more for my son than it is for me; I never liked the Sonic games after they went 3D. I remember getting the game for Dreamcast but only played it a few times. But my son plays the demo often and since the game dropped a good bit in I decided to get it also.

I also ordered Super Paper Mario for Nintendo Wii, one game I have been looking forward to for a good time. I never played the Paper Mario before so it will be rather interesting.

The final game I ordered was The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo NDS, first Zelda game I get for hand held. My only Zelda experience was on Nintendo Wii; I never completed it but was very fascinated by it.

So time to sit back and wait for the games to arrive and then it is gaming time.

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I consider Pikmin for GameCube to be among some of the greatest games ever, sure it helps that I love cute games and that I for a long time wanted to do a game with flowers!!! And I’m not talking Halo FlowerPower.

Guess it is time to find Pikmin and Pikmin 2 for GameCube again and enjoy some time with it. Unless of course the sims in MySims will start a revolution and disable GameCube support (Hmmm. Bed time for me I think, starting to talk nonsense).

Anyway, do click the image below and see one more picture from the French page. I wish it was possible to buy a small Captain Olimar to play with…

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What have surprised me recently is all content from Nintendo that isn’t about games. First the Internet Channel then Forecast Channel and then followed the News Channel and recently also the Everybody Vote Channel. I got to admit that after the Forecast and News channel I was wondering what would come next, I sure didn’t expect the Vote channel. I do think it is great that Nintendo is offering these Channels as we have not seen anything like it from Microsoft or Sony.

I’m not going to mention the Mii Channel, Photo Channel or Shopping Channel as they where in from beginning on, so this is just about what happened since launch.

So a few words about the various channels:

Internet channel

This is the internet browser from Nintendo / Opera. This Channel is still in Beta but works very well. I have tested several sites and had no real problems. One thing I did do for this site was to install a plugin that makes the site more useable (Just found out that it is not working for the whole site). I will not be using the Internet Channel much as I use a PC all day at work. But I can see it interesting for people who do not have access to internet during the normal day.

Since this is just the beta player I hope they will improve a few things before final release, such as the flash player in it, so Flash Element TD can be played this way.

Forecast Channel

I use this Channel from time to time; if I go somewhere then I check here, I also check from time to time when I sit in the living room and talking to people on the phone, just to see how the weather is where they are. One issue; it seems that the number of weather points is very different from country to country. Here in Switzerland I see more than 20 towns but in Denmark I just see a single one!!! Maybe I would see more towns in Denmark if I changed my settings to Denmark but that’s not really how a weather system should work.

I really like the globe and how you can see the world in 3D, but if I do remember right the North Pole should be of ice so white just like the South Pole. Guess Nintendo and weathernews/NASA (and Google Earth) got different ideas about that. There isn’t even a North Pole but there is a South Pole. Oh, never mind, it is seldom I need to know the weather there.

News Channel

The first few times I tried this Channel I had to wait a long time for the data to download, very disappointing as it should be using WiiConnect 24; but at least you have the Help Cat to entertain you. This has later changed and it is faster to access. What I’m missing here is direct access to the 3D globe, got to click a news message before going to it. Anyway, the Channel gives easy access to news from around the globe; all presented in a nice way. Again a Channel the ‘internet’ people don’t need really. Still nice to be able to check the news when having a coffee in the living room (no need to mention that of course BBC World and CNN is also on the TV).

Everybody Votes Channel

No one really expected this Channel; came as surprise. Lot’s of people still are wondering what Nintendo was thinking when they decided for this. What’s the purpose of it? I found it a bit funny/silly that when I registered I had to select language; well that is okay as we here in Switzerland have 3 main languages: German, French and Italian. I could choose between these and DUTCH. Don’t know why that was listed as I only know very few people here who speaks Dutch, I would have thought English would have made much more sense. Anyway, I selected German as I do read that, so I got the system in English and questions in German. I did my votes and predictions… Saw the results of one voting today, the result I got was written in English and German mixed together (See, I told you, English would make more sense): Schlafen has most votes.

Nintendo put a good effort in creating this Channel; lots of nice graphics features; such as the 100 small Mii’s running into the screen to show the result of the prediction. But what is it all good for? Just as entertainment? If so then fine, always a good laugh to see what people think. Do Nintendo use the results for something? I don’t remember a EULA been shown given access to my private data :)
How about letting people win some Wii Points if they answer right?

What comes next from Nintendo?

After the voting channel I would not predict what would come next. Hey, maybe that would be a good vote for the Vote Channel “What do you expect Nintendo to come with next?” Answers could be: “Local pizza ordering Channel” and “Cartoon Channel”. Actually, the cartoon one could be done… I would not mind some ‘local’ services, such as ‘Local Events Channel’ but would be a hell lot of work for them to keep updated.

So what can we say, Nintendo is about entertainment in more than one way, so not just about games.

(Side note: Just found out that I need to check my site with the Opera browser as it shows some things differently from what I expect).

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Part from the article:

Just like the PlayStation 3, the Wii’s honeymoon is over. Now that we’ve become accustomed to looking at the same face every morning, is the Wii still fresh and exciting? Most important, after two months of play, is the Wiimote still as exciting and refreshing as it was back in November?

(As you can see, they are not in Europe… as we still have no PlayStation 3) The whole article can be found here at Ars Technica and it is worth reading.

I got to agree pretty much with all they write in the article. The Wiimote still feels great; the kids still love to play on the Wii. But I wish that some of the games were more kids friendly. The last game I got was Rayman 4: Raving Rabbids and the kids love it but it often ends with me sitting and playing for them. Guess I need to give Wario Ware: Smooth Moves a try as next game.

Sure would be great with some more online games or at least some more player vs player interaction. Sending Mii’s to your friends are not as fun as it used to be and right now there is not much else you can do really. Sure we got the weather channel and soon we will have the News Channel. Oh, we already got a news channel on the TV, such as BBC and CNN ;) But I’m still looking forward to give the News Channel a try.

I would expect Nintendo to tell a LOT of Wii’s this year; yes, I know PlayStation 3 is coming at the end of March, so what ??? I compared the price to the Wii; you got to pay just about 2.5 times the price of a Wii to get a PlayStation 3. No doubt that the PS3 is way more powerful than the Wii and yes, you might get what you pay for; maybe more than 2.5 times Wii. But that does not really matter if you don’t have the cash or if you are not willing to spend that much for a ‘game console’. I have to say, would like to have a PS3 to give it a try but there is no way I can afford one for a long time.

Anyway, I still need to complete Zelda & Rayman for Wii ;-) and more Virtual Console games to get.

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The user interface got the same look and feel in all the build-in software, the Channels and in two games. It might be used in more games but so far I have only seen it in Wii Play and Wii Sports.

I’m using a normal TV which does support 60Hz (480i) but I also did some tests with 50Hz (576i), never had any problems with either. I was not able to test EDTV/HDTV (480p). I used standard settings of 4:3 as my TV does not support widescreen (16:9). In case you do have a widescreen screen then it would be great if you could leave a comment and let people know about how well this works.

The main menu on the Wii is called ‘Wii Menu’ and it is here you can select between the Channels, as well as selecting Wii Options and Message Board.

Controlling

The whole system is controlled by moving a pointer (cursor) on the screen; this is of course done using the Wiimote. Just point on the screen and move the pointer around. Since multiple Wiimotes can be connected each controller has its own color for the pointer, so controller 1 is blue, controller 2 is red. I don’t know about controller 3 or 4 as I only got 2 controllers. (If you know about the colors then please leave a comment).

The way the pointer is moved around works very well; it is very intuitive and after a few minutes, worst is if you get back to a console or a game that does not support this. It feels so 80’s to move the pointer with a pad. It is possible to rotate the pointer by rotating the controller, not that this matter (might do in future software) but is a nice touch.

When the pointer enters an area on the screen that can be selected (such as buttons) then the Wiimote will vibrate a bit. Some times (Wii Play & Wii Sport) a short sound is played in the Wiimote when the A or B button is pressed when doing a selection.

Smoothness

For some strange reason the pointer does not move smooth in the Wii Menus or in the Channels, this is very strange as I would expect the Wii to have enough power to handle the Menus and Channels without any slow down. When you then enter Wii Play or Wii Sports then the pointer moves very smooth. I find this a bit disappointing to be honest.

The look

It is always very clear what on the screen can be selected, often big buttons are used or animating arrows. One nice touch is that in channel selection the arrows will zoom up when the pointer is above them and show a + or -; this is to indicate that the + and – buttons on the controller has same function. In some screens with text where it is possible to scroll up down the buttons will be shown as the digital pad from the controller.

The pointer does resemble a hand, some say a cartoon hand but this hand got 5 fingers and most cartoon hands got only 4.
Text is written with large fonts that makes them very readable; even on a normal TV.

Customize

Some might have wished that the main Wii menus could be customized, either just colors or with a whole theme. This is currently not possible and I don’t expect it to be included in the future. IF it did then how much should be customized? All the Channels? The games that uses the UI? In case they did add themes then they would have to be stored in the internal storage space, so they would have to add a theme manager so people could remove and download new themes to save the space.

Sound

When using the Wii Menu as well as the Channels there is ambient sound in the background. Each channel got its own sound. Here I really miss the possibility to turn off the background sound. There are no place where sound volume can be set. If you sit and design the Mii’s then it can get rather annoying to listen to the same sound again and again. So here is there a small minus point for the UI.

The sounds that are played from the Wiimote can be disabled from the HOME menu; it would have been perfect if the status was remembered from game/Channel and that it wasn’t a general one used all over.

Home button

Pressing the button on the controller with the small button will almost always show a ‘HOME Menu’ screen. From here it is possible to return to the Wii Menu or to reset the software. It is also here the settings for the controller can be found, it is possible to adjust volume and enable/disable the rumble. The battery level for each controller is also shown.

Message Board

There is often one message when you enter the message board (if you played anything or used some channels). This is kind of ‘today’ message where you see a summary of what you have done. This includes how long you spent in each game or Channel. It can be rather distributing to see that you played 4 hours Zelda. Actually I would have liked an option to turn this off as I don’t really need this. Sometimes you also see messages created by the games, such as “The Mii BLAH was added to the game XYZ” you see these and you probably delete them right away. But of course you can also see messages from friends here, which can be deleted or you can leave them and of course you can also reply. The messages might flash which indicates they are new, or at least that was what I thought but they would often continue to flash after I read them.

Writing messages is very easy, there are two modes, one where you see a keyboard on the screen (looks like a PC keyboard) and you just press the keys with the pointer. The other reminds me of a mobile phone, with the 3 by 3 buttons for the letters. Both support prediction of words which I never use, often quicker just to enter the word than look it up. Only small thing missing is support for graphics smiley .

Black screen

When changing from the different menus and channels I often had a black screen, as if the Wii was loading the new menu/channel from the internal memory. Just watching a black screen for a few seconds often brings one though to my mind “Did it crash?” When returning to the Wii Menu it is as if the Wii will do a reset, making the whole delay longer. So far it didn’t crash but I think they should have avoided the black screen, just something animating would have helped with the overall experience. (Correction, found some other crashes, see below)

Crash / Bad user interface

I started Wii Sports and wanted to change to Wii Play, so I changed the disc while Wii Sports was still active. I then just for fun tried to select an event in the game, ended up with a black screen (was after all the wrong disc). After awhile I got an error message, telling me to eject the disc and turn power off and restart. Well, I was not able to turn power off by using the power button on the Wii nor did the reset button work. I had to unplug the Wii.

I did a few more tests today of the same type and was presented with the screen I expected, telling me what Disc to insert (with the name of the game), so it might be that the Wii does handle this automatic and that I yesterday just found the one sport where it didn’t work.

Localization

I have the Wii set to English but I decided to give it a try in another language. My Wii supports following languages: German, French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch. Since I just speak German beyond English I changed to German, the change was instant without any restart. I went through some of the menus and Channels and also Wii Sports and Wii Play and found no problems anywhere. This is as people would expect it but earlier on Xbox 360 I have seen many cases where it didn’t work, text overlapping graphics, downloading bars overlapping text but this has later change.

Conclusion

The user interface is as I would expect it from Nintendo: Useful, simple, easy to use and intuitive.

The few issues I had (sound, no smooth pointer no smiley…) might be changed in later updates.

Oh, one small issue, they should make it easier to find ones own Wii Code (select address book and go left!!!) I had to tell a few friends how to do this but I only knew this because I looked in the manual.

So all in all I’m a fan of how Nintendo did the user interface. They should just force other game developers to use the same system for selection (with the pointer), some games (Rayman 4) requires the user to use the pad for options menu when you pause the game.

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The shortest version would be: Super

I will now do a quick summary and finish up with a pro / con for the Nintendo Wii. Will try to keep it short this time:

Setup: The whole system was very easy to setup, including sensor bar, wireless connection.

Controls: Got to love them. The combination of the Wiimote and the Nunchuck is awesome. Young kids might have to spend some time to learn how to point correctly at the screen, but as we all know; Kids do learn very fast. The Nunchuck can be tricky for kids to use but not all games require it. The classic controller works very well with all the Virtual Console games I have tired, a must have if you plan to buy Virtual Console games.

Getting connected with friends: Takes a bit time to get used to the way it all works with Wii codes, but then it works well. Just don’t expect messages to be sent instantly. Sending and receiving Mii’s is a whole experience for itself.

Expansions: The system supports up to 4 sets of Wiimote and Nunchuck (Not all games uses Nunchuck), SD card for extending storage and for photo viewing, 4 Gamecube controllers for playing the old GC games, 2 Gamecube memory cards. The system got 2 USB ports which so far aren’t used.

Games: I will go into details with the games in a later review but one thing is for sure, the quality of the games varies. Do not expect to find only top quality but also to find a few disappointments. Games I can recommend right now is: Zelda, Wii Sports (Bundled for us in Europe) and Rayman 4. I’m sure my son would recommend Monster 4×4 a lot. Different people = different games.
It is also possible to play all the Gamecube games so if you have some of these games already then no need to get rid of them.

Build-in software: Very short overview, more to follow at a later stage.

• Photo Channel: I only tried very quickly but it seems to be great for slide shows.
• Forecast Channel: See the weather forecast locally/global. Got a nice globe to turn around and zoom in/out to see various areas. Works well but some countries have few locations.
• Internet Channel: Still in beta but works remarkable well. Wonder what the final price will be.
• Shopping Channel: Here you buy your Virtual Console games and other software (Internet channel!). Would have liked to see some full screen shots of the games. Can feel a bit slow when browsing the games. Also here you add Wii points for shopping, I tried with Wii points bought in a store and with a master card, works as it should.
• Mii Channel: Here you create/modify your Mii. These are virtual people / avatars that can be customized in many ways. They are used in some games (Wii Play and Wii Sports). Creating these can be rather enjoyable; can say that my daughter loves it.
• News Channel: Not available yet. So why show it?

User interface: Simple and very useful. One comment I got from a friend was that he found it very childish (big comic hand) and wished that you could change the theme. I will get back to this at another time but I got to say that I’m happy about how the user interface is. Cursor, name entry, menu selection all works well with very readable text.

Virtual Console: This for the retro games from NES (Famicom), SNES (Super Famicom), Megadrive (Genesis), Turbo Gfx and Nintendo 64. The quality of the games varies a lot of course as they are from different time period. I tried several of them and will write about them later but the system does what it promises: Deliver a lot of old games, some classics, some less know (depends on who you are). Some people will not enjoy this as much as others, depends on if you loved the old games and if you can live with simple graphics from the past.

Pro / Con: Starting with the Con as I find the Pro to be more interesting and I want you to leave with a good feeling.

Con: Had a few problems with my SD card but seems to be fine now. Controllers sometimes looses the sync with the Wii but can often be solved by pressing the sync buttons. I had to change battery once for both controller sets (Not really a bad point). Visuals and audio are not on pair with XBox 360 and PS3 (Only a bad point if you expect it to be). No online multiplayer games but that will change this year.

Pro: Low price compared to XBox 360 (not by much really) and PS3. The unique controller system will result in new innovative games in the future (and already now). Small :) Noiseless (almost). Large library of games as it runs Gamecube games. Good collection of Virtual Console games already with MANY more coming this year. Zelda & Mario…

Conclusion: If you like game-play then I will suggest you buy this system. If you require that games to look as XBox 360 and PS3 then don’t buy it (too bad, loosing all the fun). I can say for myself that I’m happy I got it right away and that I’m sure I will be spending many hours playing Wii games but I will return to Xbox 360 from time to time. I will recommend the system to anyone with young kids but do check the age rating on the games as some are from 12, 16 and 18 years. If you like to play with your friends (party games) then you should also consider it; Rayman and Wii Sports are ready for party gaming The year 2007 will be an interesting year for gamers that wants new innovative and games with great game-play.

In case you have some comments or if you agree/disagree then please leave a comment, always interesting to hear what other people think.

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I will in this review only write about the Wii, so no game reviews or information about the various channels (build in software). I will also not write about the lovely Mii’s which I have to say surprised me in a positive way, the kids just love to create and modify their Mii’s (same with me actually). Oh, already got started on a subject I would write about in a feature article…More another time. So this is about the hardware but not about how many MHZ/GHZ, how much memory, how many polygons…

Getting the Wii

Let’s turn time back a bit. On the 30th of August 2006, World of Games (WOG) here in Switzerland opened for preorders of the Wii. I had at that stage already decided that I would pre-order one so I was ready for it. This turned out to be a good plan, as within a few hours they close the pre-ordering, all units already gone. They later had another pre-order session which also went over quickly.

On the 23rd of November 2006 I received an invitation to a midnight launch event held by WOG; this would take place on the 6th of December, where the Nintendo Wii would be handed out at midnight. I went and got the Wii at that event, to read about this and see the pictures please go here (including un-boxing). I later heard that WOG sold around 130 units that evening.

Setup of the Wii

The setup of the Wii was extremely easy and all went very smooth. I got to admit that I did read in the manual but it was more because I was very excited about it all. I was rather surprised that the Wiimote controller worked right away with the sensor bar. I had expected that it should be calibrated before it would work.

Next was setup of the wireless connection, lucky I already had a wireless router. People who have a router without wireless will run into some issues.
There are some adaptors that can be used together with a PC. Nintendo will also be releasing a USB adaptor for the Wii so a normal Ethernet cable can be used (Heard this today in a store in Basel), should be ready in March. There should be some adaptors on the market already, just not from Nintendo. Anyway, the setup of the Wireless connection went without any problems, I just had to select what wireless access point I wanted to use (found some other ones here in the building).

The Wii itself

It is small… I have it standing next to the TV and it adds style to the whole thing. The Wii can also be used lying down, so it could fit into a small rack. A nice touch to the Wii is that it got some blue lights inside it; at the disc drive which turns on if there is news or a new message. The Wii never turns fully off (unless you unplug it), so it might download messages and new material while you have it ‘turned off’. One of my friends asked if there where anyway to enable the blue light all the time… On the front of the Wii there is the slot for the discs, no tray coming in and out. Put the disc a bit in and it will pull it in. There is also a slot for a SD card which can be used for storing data, more about that later.

On top of the Wii there is space for 4 Game Cube controllers as well as 2 Game Cube memory cards. On the back of the Wii it got the power connector and also 2 USB ports.

There are 4 buttons on the Wii: Power, Eject, Reset and Sync (Hidden).

Controls

There have been written a lot about the new controller system for Nintendo Wii, both before and after the launch. The system came with the Wiimote and the Nunchuck. I bought the Classic controller at the same time as I got the Wii. So a few words about the controllers:

• Wiimote
  This is the controller that got the same form as a normal TV remote control. Actually it got the same size as the one I use for my TV, just a bit thicker. It got 8 buttons and a direction pad (dpad). One button is the power button which is used to turn on/off the Wii. There is also a ‘home’ buttons which often is used to pause any game and decide if the system should exit to the main Wii menu; it is also here the settings for the controller are changed. The remaining buttons are used in different ways, all depending on the software.The controller also got a build in speaker, but do not expect high quality sounds. I got to say that the speaker is a brilliant addition to normal controllers, some actions in games will trigger a sound in the controller, adding more ‘feel’ to the games.

  There are 4 blue LED (lights) on the Wiimote, used to indicate the number the controller got, up to 4 controllers can be connected to the Wii at a time. (Wireless connected).

  Oh, and there is a strap on the Wii which should be around the hand when the Wiimote is in use, lots and lots have been written about this and problems with it. I will just say we had no problem with it… yet.

  The controller also supports vibration which most people will expect from a controller. The vibration is used heavily in the user interface of the Wii; small vibration can be felt any time the Wiimote points to something that can be selected.

  Enough about this, what is SO unique about the controller is how it works beyond the few buttons. The controller has several sensors build into it, so that it can detect tilting, rotation. At the same time it receives data from the sensor bar which has to be placed in front (below or on top) of the TV. People first thought the sensor bar was receiving data but it turned out it is a bar with some infrared transmitters. The Wii can with the sensor bar detect where the Wiimote is relative to the screen.

  All these unique systems open up for controller usage never seen before. It is possible to point the Wiimote to the screen and have a cursor moving around, you can rotate it and the cursor rotates with it. You can swing it and use it as a tennis racket, a fishing rod or a sword. Tilting and rotation is used heavily in racing games.

  For me the controller just felt right from start on, never had problems with it. The same can not be said about when my kids tried to use the Wiimote (4 and 7 years old). The main problem was to be able to point directly at the TV and not just point with the arm, but holding the controller as an extension of the arm/hand. They got rather frustrated about this in the beginning and almost gave up. This has now changed and they both much more in control of the… controller.

• Nunchuck
  This controller does not work on its own but have to be connected to the Wiimote. The wire for this is around 90 cm, so not too short and not too long. The Nunchuck just got 2 digital buttons but also an analog controller on the top. First it felt a bit strange to use this. Depending on the game you can actually relax and have the hand laying on your leg or couch and just chill out. But some games require the Nunchuck to be moved, yes, this controller also got some sensors build in, not as advance as the Wiimote, as it got no infrared reading (How the hell does it then work in boxing where you hold it up to your face to protect yourself). Actually I once got hit in the face by the wire, took both hands up to block in boxing, did it a bit too fast I guess.

• Classic Controller
  My first thought when I got the classic controller was “Oh damn, it is wired”. I was already imagining the kids playing with it and pulling a bit hard in the wire and then the Wii would come crashing down. Would not happen with other consoles as they are heavy…Anyway, I was so wrong. Well, yes it is wired but just like the Nunchuck it is wired to the Wiimote. So you plug in your classic controller, selects the game to play and then you put the Wiimote on the table, couch, lap or wherever, just not too far away.

  So what is it good for? It is used to play the games on the Virtual Console, works with all games as far as I have seen. It got the analog controllers for N64 games, all the digital buttons for SNES, NES, TurboGfx games and Sega Megadrive (Genesis). It should be featuring rumble according to Nintendo but I have not yet been able to test this as the only downloaded N64 game so far is Mario 64 which does not support rumble at all. So future games might support it…

  I really like the design of the controller and it feels right when playing with it. Oh, I’m still wondering what the ‘button’ on the top does, seems it moves some plastic at the two holes on the back.

  One note, most Virtual Console games does NOT require the Classic Controller but some will require it, so keep an eye on what controllers are supported by what games.

• Gamecube controller
  The Wii supports up to 4 Gamecube controllers to be plugged into the top of the console. Here I’m again worried about too much pulling in the wires; time will tell if people will have such problems with flying Wii’s when going crazy.
  The Gamecube controller is needed for playing Gamecube games but some Virtual Console games will also support it. One example is Mario 64 which requires either a classic controller or a Gamecube controller.

SD cards

The Wii supports SD cards for extending the storage space (512 MB is build-in to the system). When I bought my Wii I decided to get a 2 GB SD card right away. Thought it would be enough for tons of Virtual Console games and for photos and music. My first experience with the SD card didn’t turn out well at all. Just didn’t work, got messages that the card inserted was not working/valid. Not sure if it was bad formatted but it also failed on my PC using a card reader/writer, but worked fine on the notebook. I was then able to format it and then it worked on the Wii also. So what can it be used for, can Virtual Console games be downloaded and stored on it… Nope. Well, indirectly yes. It is possible to move content from the internal storage to the SD card, but only for backup as you can not use the content directly from the SD card. You can of course store pictures and movies on the SD card and view them using the Wii’s Photo Channel. This works very well and you can this way do family slideshows. There are no Music Channel but MP3 files can be played from the Photo Channel as part of a slide show. Rather strange way to do it… Interesting enough some games (Excite Trucks, not released in Europe yet) should be featuring a build-in MP3 player.

One day I was moving some downloaded content to the SD card, just to test it out and then suddenly I got errors, the SD card was corrupt and could not be used. I was not worried about loosing the data as I could always download it again but I was rather shocked that it could happen. Thought that I had to format it again (what would people without a PC with card reader/writer do?). I took the SD card to the PC, all worked fine. Then just for fun I copied a few pictures over, mainly to check if the pictures worked so I could impress the kids. Keep in mind; the photos are not stored in directories on the card that is used for Wii content. Went back to the Wii and tried the card, ALL problems gone. I will be doing more tests to see if I can trust the SD card for backup of downloaded content…

Getting connected with friends

A few of my friends also bought the Wii, so of course we would get connected so we could write messages to each other. Nintendo uses the same system as on NDS where people use a code to identify each other. This is a 16 digit long code, often written as 4×4 numbers. Mine is 8732 3017 9917 4072, not easy to remember (I’m not even trying to remember it). This is the bad side of the system, remembering a nickname from someone else like ‘NovaVoidCon’ is easy, to remember ones own Wii code can be done, but if you ask someone about their Wii code then you will likely forget it, unless you use write it on a post-it as I do. Now the funny thing is that you can register your friends to the address book by entering their number, but you can not communicate with them before they also registered your code on their Wii. Both good and bad, would be nice if I could enter a Wii code of a friend and send a message ‘Hey, Sam here’ and then they could choose to register or not. Then again, the good side of the system is that you don’t get spam, see, I wrote my code before well knowing that people might try to register me, but hey, if I don’t have their code then what’s the point. This also means that parents do not have to be worried about ‘dodgy’ people starting to talk to their kids.

Anyway, after getting connected you can write messages, send photo, send Mii’s to your friends. Not much more at the moment.

Text entry

Nintendo implemented a simple but very useful system for entering text and numbers when using their menu system. What I do feel is a bit strange, it seems it is not a part of the OS of the Wii but just their own implementation, would have been nice to see it used by other games. Some games actually got a system where the Wiimotes pointing system is not used at all, seems SO wrong. Anyway, the system shows a keyboard (QWERTY) on the screen and there is a pointer that can be moved around, small vibration can be felt when it is over a letter. Just press and the letters are added to the text. The keyboard layout supports shift, caps lock, backspace and enter. After been using it for awhile and then go back to XBox and write a message there it feels wrong to move the cursor around with an analog pad.

What to expect from the Wii?

Some people will be disappointed with the Wii if they compare the visuals with XBox 360 and PS3, same probably goes with sound. But visuals and sound is not everything (some will disagree). Some will complain that the Wii does not support HD, but how many of them have a HDTV?

I myself just have a normal TV which does support 100 Hz (so it is not all crap) and it does have stereo (and some simulated Dolby.. I think). Good thing is that all games are then designed and tested in low resolution and not as XBox where it seems people develop using HD and when the game then is shown on a normal TV the text is unreadable. Anyway, if you do expect visuals on pair with Gamecube then you will not get disappointed. Some of the current games do look like Gamecube games but I’m sure we will see better quality in the years to come. Just look at Resident Evil 4/Biohazard for Gamecube, this is one of the most impressive games for Gamecube, to be compared to even more powerful systems.

I don’t know if the audio is much better than Gamecube, it sure works fine. If I had a surround sound system then I would be able to tell.

Nintendo’s force with the Wii is the unique controller system, no doubt about that. This might attract a lot of people to the system, especially in the early days. It is impossible to say if it continues like this for long, only time can tell. It will also require game developers to rethink the control system of the games and will make it possible to play with ideas that were unheard of before. The low price point of the Wii is also a factor not to ignore.

I’m looking forward to see what 2007 will bring us, some might say that the current release schedule for the Wii does not look that impressive, but the year is not over yet. As long as there is one interesting game pr month that is worth buying I will stay happy.

Problems

I did run into a few problems while playing with the Wii. The controllers lost sync with the Wii a few times, often this could be solved by pressing the Sync button on the Wii and on the controller but I had one case where I had to turn the Wii off before it worked again. I recently also ran out of battery for one of the controllers. I didn’t know it was that, one of the games complained that it lost connection all the time, but I could just press a button a few times and it worked again. Turned out that the battery was almost empty, could see that when I pressed the ‘Home’ button. Changed battery and was playing again without problems.

Future hopes

Of course we all hope for new innovative games that will redefine what we think about game play. But what I would like to see very soon would be online multiplayer games. To be honest I’m a bit disappointed that no game in Europe/US supports this yet. Tennis or some of the Wii Play games would have been SO nice with online multiplayer, even just 2 players.

I read that this will changing in March, that the first multiplayer games will appear. Then I just hope they will somehow enable voice communication with a headset, loved this on XBox 360, been able to chat with a friend when we played a game. Of course allowing 8 players to talk at the same time is also nice. But to be honest, does the Wii have enough power to handle that???

The end….

There is SO much more to write about, all the channels, Virtual console, Mii and Mii creations, the games, but I will leave that for another day.

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