by Dee Wells

Created on: January 20, 2007   Last Updated: April 12, 2007

Nintendo Wii Review

Well, after a bit of a wait, my hook up at the local Game Stop called me as said, "Hey Dee, you want a Wii?", to which I was a bit ambivalent about. I already knew that the Wii would have no Hi-Def output (and all but 1 of my TVs are now HD), and outside of Zelda, I didn't see that many great games coming down the pipe. Still, after some thought, I called my pal back and said 'sure, I'll take it'. And while I'm not ready yet to review any software for the Wii, I will deliver to you dear reader my initial impressions of the hardware.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Once out of the box, I was really impressed with how the Wii looked. It is sleek, easy to set up, and the controller combo of pointer and left hand joystick felt great. Once on, the Wii quickly recognized my unprotected Wi-Fi transmitter, and I was on-line instantly. And the point and click interface showing the current game in the drive, the on-line store (to download the virtual titlesmore about that in a minute), and the current weather, was easy enough to navigate. You could say I was impressed by the initial presentation.

Things got even better! While the sports games that came packed in with the Wii are nothing to write home about, the graphics were 'cute', and they are fun for the first hour or so, and _very_ easy to understand and play. If you consider yourself part of the DDR/Guitar Hero crowd, I'd dare say you'd be calling all your friends over for a round of bowling or golf right from the get-go.

Then we plugged in 'Red Steel' and 'Zelda'. After the initial learning curve in navigating Red Steel, it's hard to say Nintendo didn't hit a home run with this title in terms of sheer fun and game play. Chris (my son, DJ Valis on our myspace page) played the title for nearly a day straight, and kept yelling up to me "Dad, you've got to check this out!" while I was in the middle of Xenosaga III battles. The Zelda was not as impressive at first, but again I'm not really reviewing software titlessuffice to say that I've heard from enough players that I trust that once you get a few hours into the game, it gets _way_ better (at least that's the word on the street).

So what could possibly be wrong with the Wii you ask? Here's the answer: I thought the same system was pretty good when it was called GAME CUBE. Because my friends, that's what the thing is.

The graphics, music, video output, and general spec (as much as Nintendo will publish) are pretty much the same as the Game Cube with

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