I wrote this for my universitys newspaper. Enjoy or hate my Nintendo Wii Review

In my first draft I had intended to use the quote, "Are you not entertained?" to help describe my feelings toward the Nintendo Wii. Sadly for the people reading this, I ran out of ideas after the third line. With that in mind kind people of ACU, please take this sadly thrown together review with a grain of salt. You see, the thing with all reviews are is that they are nothing more than a general overview no matter how good the writing is; in other words, you won't know if you like it or not till you actually give it a try.

System: B
The Nintendo Wii is what one might call, a sexy work of electronicness. It has that oh so hip Apple White color we have all come to associate with trendy, a stand that lets it sit vertical so it sits high and mighty, and a glowing blue light that surrounds the disk drive slot when the system has a update available. Based on looks alone, if it was a girl, I would date it.
However, a video game system needs more to go on than just it's aesthetic appeal (which it has a lot of).
First let us talk about the thing that might seem most important but in reality matters the least, the graphics. Developers were given what you might call, modified Nintendo Gamecubes, to design the first batch of Nintendo Wii games. This shows in the current line-up of games for the Wii. If you are looking for the next visual masterpiece, the Nintendo Wii will not deliver plain and simple. This is not to say that the games are ugly, but in no way will you ever see PS3 quality graphics from the Nintendo Wii. Thing about graphics however is that, no matter how pretty a game looks, you won't play it unless it is fun. On the other side of things one does think that with a year gap between the Wii and the 360 some graphical advances should have been made.
Next let me bring your attention to what I will refer to as the Home screen (as in the screen you see when you are not playing a game/Menu screen). If Apple were to make a video game system, the Home screen of the Wii represents what Apple would make. This Home screen is very minimalist and straight to the point. You have pages of "channels" you can pick from each one having a different use. Present is your Wii/Gamecube game channel (yes the Wii is backwards compatible with all your Gamecube games and Nintendo Licensed controllers), your Mii channel (to be discussed later), shopping channel, weather channel, internet channel, news channel, and channels for each of your purchased Virtual Console games. I realized I mentioned a platter of things with no description, fear not true believer, your time has come. The Mii channel is almost a game in of its self, once inside the Mii channel you can create your own personal avatar (digital recreation of your self). It is surprising how much depth is present inside the Mii channel. I have seen all forms of characters made (which will show up in games such as Wii Sports and Wii Play) from Harry Potter to king of the snakes, Samuel L Jackson. After the Mii channel you have Nintendo's shop channel. Using the systems built in Wi-Fi internet connection you can hop onto Nintendo's little shopping center. Here you have two categories, Virtual Console and Software. All you will find in the Software section is a free downloadable internet browser for your Wii (the browser is Opera based). In the near future Nintendo hopes to provide other things here as well. Then we have the Wii's love glance as I like to call it, the Virtual Console. Here you can purchased Wii Points (one penny equals 1 point) with said Wii points you can dive into rebuying your childhood. NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, and Turbographic 16 games are the treasure that awaits you in extange of your Wii points. You can find it all here, from the popular classic such as Bomberman and Super Mario 64 to some of the cult favorites like Gun Star Heroes and Star Soldier. And if the current line up of Virtual Console games somehow don't get your mouth watering in a festive manner, Nintendo drops new games to buy every monday. Games are all well and good I suppose, but what about my inner longing, that lustful desire to know the weather in places like Mt. Everest? Fear not, the Wii has you covered.
The Weather channel is simply put, a weather channel mixed with google maps. Awesome yes? Indeed. The only down side to the Wii's weather channel is the fact that it doesn't update the weather in anything but 6 hour intervals.
This isn't all the Wii has in store for us, the system also uses bluetooth for all its wireless needs. The system comes with 512MB of storage with a SD card slot in case that isn't enough for you. I do wish the system had shipped with a hard drive because 512MB of internal storage is awfully small once you own a few games and get to buying things of the Virtual Console, at least Nintendo was kind enough to give us the SD card slot.
Overall the system itself is very strong and my main complaints are that the internal memory storage is small, the current graphics are good but could have been better (as with any console, the true power of the system won't surface until well into the systems life) and the online marketplace pales into comparison to what is offered on the Xbox Live service (however, the Wii's virtual console and internet browser more than make up for a lack on content).

The Controller: A
The controller, or Wiimote, is the true heart of Nintendos new system. The Wiimote is shaped much like your basic home TV controller. It has one trigger button underneath and on top it has a directional pad, home button (for returning you to the home screen of the Wii), A and B buttons as well as a Plus and Minus buttons. The bottom of the Wiimote holds a expansion port for other accessories that you can plug into the Wiimote. The first of these is the Nunchuck attachment which comes packaged in with the system. The Nunchuck has your basic analog stick very similar to the Gamecubes, and two trigger like buttons, C and Z. The unique thing about the Wiimote and it's attachments are not simply their shape or layout, but the fact that you use motion to control your on screen character. Take the first party Nintendo launch title Excitetruck for example. Excitetruck is a racing game where you actually turn the Wiimote sideways and use it to steer your car just as you would a real car. Perhaps the game that shows off the Wiimote the best is WiiSports, the game that comes bundled in with the Wii. When you play Wii Tennis you actually are encouraged to stand up and do full motion swings as if you were actually swinging a real Tennis racket. Even when you play Wii Bowling you can tell the intuitiveness of the controller as you slightly twist your wrist to put that important spin on the ball to pick up a spare. The uses of the controller are only limited by the minds of the people making the games. There were outcries around gaming communities about the controller feeling gimmicky, I am here to tell you this is not the case. One last really cool thing about the controller. The Wiimote actually contains a small speaker in it (as well as a rumble feature) that when playing Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess, adds greatly to the enjoyment of the game. As you pull your right arm back to pull back the string of the bow, you actually hear this represented through the speaker in the Wiimote. Nintendo also thought to sell the VC controller which is designed as more of a standard controller (no motion sensing though) for the small price of 19.99. Sadly, the Wiimote clocks in more expensive than most would like. The Wiimote itself is 39.99 and the Nunchuck attachment, which most games require, is 19.99.

Games: B-
What good is a new system and fancy controller with out games? Not much good at all, thankfully Nintendo gave us some games to play. I am sure by now most everyone has heard of Zelda, if you haven't...well I have no follow up. The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess is without a doubt the biggest game on the system. Neatly enough however is the fact that if you somehow could not come up with the meger 250$ to buy a Wii, you can also purchase Twlight Princess for the Gamecube and you are getting the exact same game minus the new Wii controls. Zelda is good, that is all you are getting from me, I really do not want to ruin the experience of a fresh new Zelda game. So let me talk about the games for the Wii that you might not have heard of or the ones which you might not expect to me good.
First of these games is Madden 2007. EA's Madden franchise has been growing stale since 2002. Year after year we are shoved the same basic game with updated graphics, roster, and one or two new features. I am hear to cry with a loud and powerful voice that football fans and non-football fans can rejoice! Madden is more enjoyable than it's ever been. I am not going to sit here and say that Madden 2007 is a pick up and play game for the Wii, quite the opposite, the controllers are a tad hard to get used to. That being said, once you do get used to them it feels like using the bathroom, oh so natural. Everyone knows what football is, so I will spare you the description of a 4 quarter game, what I will talk about are two of the addictive mini games that will have you shouting for weeks on end. The first of these is good ol fashion 2 on 2 football, grab a friend for this one and prepare for the time of your life. This is a very fast paced version of regular football with two teams of two players each with 4 downs to score a touchdown and a thinner field than normal football. How do you get things done in Madden on the Wii? Like I said, a lah natural. To throw you simply pick a reciever with the directional pad then "throw" (don't actually throw it) the Wiimote. Faster you throw, faster the pass and slower the throw slower the pass. To tackle you actually take the Wiimote and Nunchuck and thrust them forward as if you were grabbing for a damsel falling over a cliff. Let us say you are a running the ball and you want to plow through a defender, you use the same above mentioned motion. Now, when you are playing with your friend and you are both doing the same motion with the amount of vigor only a viking could contain, things turn epic in a most comical sense. Next in Madden 2007 is the kicking mini game. Player one will go up to kick, to do this he will point the Wiimote down, then swing it up to the sky as the kicker approaches the ball. As the ball takes flight the game turns frantic. Once the ball has left for the air both players must them "drum" the Wiimote and Nunchuck as fast as they can to turn the wind in their favor. The amount of fun you will have is on par with punching Superman in the face, painful because you will be tired, but awesome because of what you just did.
Apart from the ports the Wii has (which are also a lot of fun for the most part, Marvel Ultimate Alliance for one), the Wii also carries a good number of good titles not to be found elsewhere. You have Elebits which is a charming game of hide and go seek with 100's of small creatures. There is Trauma Center: Second Opinion where you slide into the shoes of new surgeon Derick Styles and use the Wiimote as a medical tool to save lives. Then there is Rayman Raving Rabbits. Take that title in for a moment, yes, it is as ridiculous as it sounds. Rayman Raving Rabbits is nothing more than a long series of mini games designed to put the Wiimote to the most interesting use. Just to give you a small sample of the games present in Raving Rabbits I ask you to picture this: On a beach there are 4 outhouses, 4 Rabbits enter the outhouses and it is your job to make sure you slap the doors shut (done by aiming at the door with the Nunchuck and then doing a slapping action with the Wiimote) before they fall open exposing the Rabbits in all there natural glory and splendor.
The thing about games for the Wii is that almost all of them have some sort of fun factor in them despite how bad the game might be. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is one such example. This game is flat out annoying in every way I can think, but the second you get to the fighting, you are treated to a very fun and surprisingly deep fighting game that feels right at home on the Wii.
Right now the games on the Wii can be very hit or miss, thankfully enough most of them are hit (even more so with groups of people). The future of the Wii holds much promise with the likes of Metriod Prime 3, Mario Galaxy, Smash Brothers Brawl and the just released Wario Ware Smooth Moves.

Nintendo has brought the world something truly unique and inventive. The Wii will no doubt shape the way video games are made in the future, just look at Sony for example. Sony realized that Nintendo was on to something with the Wiimote and added in motion sensing abilities with their PS3 Controller. Right now I place Nintendo's Wii into what I will call the 1st place 2nd choice console. If you were to get just a Wii and own a Wii alone, you will without a doubt be a happy child. On the other end however, most people already own other systems or picked up a 360 to have the first next-gen system and the Wii makes a perfect addition to your 360. Sure the PS3 is there with its very pretty graphics but it's also sitting there with it's $599 price tag for the premium system and its very underwhelming line up of games (If you are interested in a PS3, give it a year. More games will be out and hopefully a system price drop as well). For the final test I ask you to head to Gamestop this weekend with some friends and try out the demo unit of the Wii, if you walked out unimpressed, well, at least you have another $250 to put towards an iPhone.