Sunday, March 09, 2008

Wii Moments in Family Life

On Friday there was no elementary school for my youngest son, Isaiah Sender - something about teacher-parent interviews. He used his day off to line up ridiculously early in front of the Future Shop in the hopes of scoring an almost non-existent Nintendo Wii.

I guess it paid off because he came home with one. The power brick died on our Xbox 360 so we all have been playing the Wii. I discovered that golf sucks just as much on Wii as it does in real life - but bowling rocks. The Last Amazon suggests bowling rocks in the Wii world because there is no cheesy music, greasy food or smelly shoes smell in our home. She may have a point.

The Amazon and I have both discovered that we need to stand way, way back from either of the boys when they box on the Wii. The only truly safe thing to do is just to leave the room though it is rather an amazing work out the boys get over a game of virtual boxing.

My older son has been lecturing my youngest son, on how he went all wrong in getting the Wii. Apparently, just saving up enough to cover the console and taxes is not enough and you must also be able to cover the costs of all the necessary add-ons e.g., tennis racket, gun, cross bow, recharger kit and the sword.. So to teach his younger brother a lesson, Montana is taking him out shopping for the Wii necessities whose cost will be paid for out of Montana’s pocket. I am not sure how this translates into to teaching Isaiah Sender a lesson in prudent fiscal management and when I did try pointing out this glaring error in their thinking - I got a great deal of “oh MOTHER!!!!!” and much eye rolling.

I am not at all convinced Isaiah Sender has not sold himself into permanent indentured servitude but I am excited about playing Zelda with a sword and a crossbow.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Want to play in real wii tennis tournaments? Go to www.virtualtennistour.com and qualify for our master events.

Gil Mayron
#1 Wii tennis player in the world using the Prince Wii Racquet

Chris Taylor said...

Now we will have to trade Wii console numbers so we can have a big Amazon-Taylor rivalry, like Annapolis-West Point football games!

I avoid the addons because they are basically just fancy carrying units for the Wiimote + Nunchuk, which you get anyway. Any Wii game (even Guitar Hero 3) is playable with the Wiimote, without any wacky addons (aside from the Nunchuk -- if it's required, a little blue Nunchuk icon on the game box will indicate it).

The racket, for instance, just ends up making the remote bigger, but it's not going to change the way you play the game. You still hold the remote the same way and execute the same motions.

Don't blow a giant wad of cash on those 3rd party Wii-specific recharging batteries and cradles, either. I just went to Wallyworld (WalMart) and got an ordinary Duracell 15-minute rapid charger and some 2650 mAh AA batteries. (Stay away from the shorter-lived 1200-1800 mAh units and go for at least 2400 mAh.)

I actually like the Wii Sports golf because if you mimic what you'd do in actual golf, the results aren't too different. My only complaint is that I'd like a bigger range of clubs to choose from, but then I guess that's better handled by a golf-specific game.

Check out Metacritic for reviews on the Wii titles. There's a lot of crap out there, but there are some really terrific titles too.

K. Shoshana said...

Actually that sounds like fun...if I could get the boys to stop playing Super Mario Smash Bros version xxxxwhatever. It turned out the shopping 'spree' wasn't much of a spree - a skin, a charger and a couple of new games. Alas no crossbow or sword for me...and they decided independantly from any input from me against most of the add-ons.

Chris Taylor said...

Super Smash Bros. Brawl... I just got mine yesterday, and I'm sorry to say it's a lot more challenging than its predecessors. I had to bail out after a couple of rounds and go back to the juvenile potty humour of Rayman Raving Rabbids 2.

K. Shoshana said...

Rayman Raving Rabbids - shame. shame. shame.

Chris Taylor said...

Don't knock it til you've tried it... some of the games (smack the kid-rabbids who misbehave in the car, talk on your cell phone in a movie theater without getting caught by the manager, etc) are just plain hilarious when played with 3 other people.