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« A To B Without A C | Main | "Fundamental" » January 14, 2007Wii-ha!Last weekend, Kristen & Aaron hosted their monthly "Game Night", inviting the usual merry band of malcontents and tricksters to come over and best one another at high-stakes "Risk", "Taboo" and "Trivial Pursuit." (Elaine and I are both malcontented and trickster-ish, so we're on the list.) The novelty of January came in the form of a Nintendo Wii, which Ryan was kind enough to bring ("Santa brought it for my boy," he said, "And I thought I should share"). Now, as K & A have converted their downstairs into a shockingly effective Home Theater On The Cheap (TV projector, shining brightly on a white Target-acquired shower liner ... you get the idea), we had a great place to plug in said Wii and put it through its paces. Holy cow, it's awesome. Truth be told, I'm not much of a gamer. Yes, I loves me some Roller Coaster Tycoon now and again, and Stan and I blew most of Christmas doing the slack-jawed, crazy-thumbs, boy-gamer-on-the-couch thing while we finished "Gauntlet." But those are exceptions. The Wii? It makes me want to play video games. Much ink has been spilled about the Wii's revolutionary and innovative new controllers. In case you're not familiar, it's pretty simple - the Wii controllers don't have wires that connect them to the core console. While that's pretty nice (the XBox 360 does this, too), the kicker is that the controllers are able to communicate all kinds of information about their location in space back to the console. Step closer to the Wii, and the machine knows it. Move your controller hand up and down rapidly, and the machine knows it. And so on. What this means, in effect, is that you play Wii games by holding the controller and moving naturally. Wanna go bowling? Fire up Wii Bowling and start throwing strikes. Notice -- you're really throwing strikes, because the controller tells the console when you're moving your arm, as well as the position of your hand at the apex of the swing. The faster you throw, the harder you throw the ball. Wanna play baseball? Fire up Wii Baseball, put the controller in your hand, put your hand behind your head, and start swinging at the virtual pitches (in a stadium that looks suspiciously like Safeco Field). Pitching at the opposition works much as you'd expect: over-the-shoulder fastballs, baby. We simply could not get enough of this for the course of the evening. We tried tennis, boxing, all kinds of stuff. The natural movements, coupled with the large screen, meant that we were "in" the game in a very real sense. This was particularly true of boxing. To box, you plug in an attachment to the Wii controller called a "nunchuck". Put the controller in one hand, the nunchuck in the other, and square off against your opponent. Wanna block a punch? Hands in front of your face. Wanna hit the other guy? Throw a punch. Wanna hit him hard? Throw it faster. Wanna avoid him? Move your feet! Go! Go! Go! I was winded after boxing. And, believe it or not, still sore two days later. (And, not to make it sound like I'm an out-of-shape nerd or anything: I boxed a lot. And I totally whipped some ass.) Wii-related injuries have made the news of late - controllers accidentally thrown through windows, and so on. I can totally see why - Ankur was going mano-a-mano with the tennis game, and, in a particularly aggressive overhand serve, managed to smack the ceiling with this controller. (Try that while playing Halo.) This has led my buddy Patrick to coin the self-explanatory terms "Injur-Wii" and "Fatali-Wii". So, yeah, we're addicted. Elaine tugged my sleeve midway through the night and whispered, "Can we get one of these?" (Who am I to say no?) If you've yet to try one, I can't recommend more highly. Posted by Gavin Shearer at January 14, 2007 8:26 PM. Posted to Cool | Entertainment. CommentsTwo days after K & A's game night, I managed to pick up a second controller for our Wii. My wife Kim challenged me to a boxing match and much to my chagrin and shame, beat the everloving piss out of me. Damn. At least I am good at Tennis. I am looking forward to additional games in the series, including Wii Play (with Billiards, a Duck Hunt-type game, and seven others) and Wii Musical Orchestra, which allows you to conduct an orchestra or play drums. Posted by: Ryan Ositis Some more details on the home theater setup, which cost far less than a big-screen TV of comparable size (6' x 5') and quality (SVGA):
Posted by: Aaron Louie at January 17, 2007 11:22 AM The Wii was tons of fun... Thanks for bringing it, Ryan! And nice review/description, Gavin! Aaron forgot to mention that he programmed the InFocus projector so that it would project its image backwards (onto the back of the screen!), so that those sitting (and boxing!) in front of the screen don't interfere with the projected image. Also, this set-up is quite nice for people who move often (as we used to). The projector and other electrical components are much smaller than a big screen TV, and the screen rolls up easily. Posted by: netsirk Post a commentThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out) (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |
