Thoughts on the Wii

Yep, we bought a Wii.  My youngest opened the Wii at his birthday party yesterday and his eyes almost popped out of his head.  He was pretty dang happy.  He pretty much overlooked the other presents he received, much to the disappointment of his grandmas and grandpas attending the party.  But, hey — the parents get to give the best presents, right?  There’s nothing cooler than knowing you scored big time.

Of course, I had to set the thing up immediately.  Setup was quick and easy.  I didn’t even read the instructions (who does?), I just plugged in cables and the kids went to town.  Which brings me to my first gripe…when do *I* get to play?

We bought an extra controller, so we now have two of them.  One of the games we bought was Mario Party, which immediately taught us that you really do need four controllers for some of these games.  There aren’t too many multi-player games for the Wii right now, but enough of the kids’ favorites are available to warrant buying an additional two.  We’re off to GameStop in an hour or so to pick up two more controllers and probably a couple more games.  Our son also received over $100 cold hard cash for his birthday, so he’ll be using that to stock up on Wii accessories and games.

We’ll definitely be picking up the Wii Play because it comes with a remote.  It has some pretty cool games with it — hopefully, ones that Dad will get to play.  I can also see that the Charging Station is a must-have accessory because the batteries in the remote controls are going to get used up pretty quickly.  We’re also looking at Super Paper Mario and Zelda.  Both have received rave reviews.

I’ve been reading a bunch and it looks like having a Classic Controller is also important for some games.  While the new Wii controller is cool, some games are much easier to play using a regular controller.  The one they say that is really tough to play with the new controller is Ultimate Alliance and the kids will have to have that game.

Wish me luck that I’ll get to play today.