Nintendo Wii
 

LOL Heck yes! I want a Wii really bad... I'm more excited about this console than any other in a long time... It's really nice to see some true innovation out there and not the same ole crap with the only changes being better graphics.

Right, the other guys are stuck (for years and years) on, what, another 20% better graphics or whatever...who cares?! Meanwhile, Nintendo has completely re-focused on playability. As if to mock the other consoles, Nintendo has exaggerated the cartoon-like quality of the characters. Granted, the graphics are likely to develop further, once we get past the stage of these "training" games, but honestly, it doesn't matter whether the game characters are super-ultra-realistic or not, if the game is actually fun to play. :::hint-hint::: other guys?

The Wii actually interfaces you, the person, with the game, in a new way. Love it. (But, damn! My arm is really sore!)

The interactivity with the game is what I am most excited about! I mean your controller can be a sword, golf club, tennis racket, gun, fishing rod, etc... and at least with this too, gamers aren't just vegin' in front of the tv, they are actually up and doing something.

If your arm gets any worse, I'd be glad to take the Wii off your hands for a while :D

Nah, that's alright. I've always wanted to learn to play tennis left-handed. (Might transfer something to my drumming, huh?)

The potatoes ... uh, I mean.... we potatoes will have to move again. :blush:

Just use the wrist strap and hold on tightly to the controller so as to NOT lob the controller into the telly and break it.

(The telly, that is.)

A dude I know hurled the Wii Remote the TV, because the wrist-strap actually broke off. (Of course, he should have been hanging on better.)

Yeah. That's one of the top ten things that need to be fixed on the Wii according to 1up.

Yeah, though I suppose it could be an advantage for those of us with 13-year-old TVs. ("Gosh darn honey, I guess we have to buy a new TV.") (For the record, I'm hoping to get another year or so out of it and let the rices on the newfangled stuff come down a little more.)

Fuck "new" shit - if I didn't need it yesterday, why do I need it today? Does the "old" one do the same thing? Then keep the "old" one, and your $$$

We couldn't agree more. PC games this year.

Well a new one would be more than 26", and there would be that high def thing!

I saw a Wii in action last night. I had to drag the kids with me to my orchestra's dress rehearsal. They were hanging out in the lounge/snack bar the college operates in the same building as the auditorium, and a couple students hooked up a Wii to the TV. When I got done playing all the Christmas medleys, the kids were playing the baseball game, one pitching, one batting. Of course now they want one . . .

Wii The People
 

I saw the demo/promo thing at a Target yesterday and have to admit that it made me depressed. Not the design of the games, just that people are now "doing" all these sports in their livingrooms rather than actually going out, let's say, bowling. Virtual this and virtual that. When they perfect the virtual sex thing, nobody will go outside and actually "do" shit.

I've never owned any video game; but I was really good at that Track & Field game in the arcades...:rolleyes:

I'm just enjoying the fact that our newsreaders are reading stories about people queueing up for a Wii, not bheing able to get a Wii, and how only the lucky ones will get a Wii for Christmas. But then I'm childish like that...

Pangloss do you really think this will turn away from real sport in favour of this? Surely it will just encourage the people playing games at home to do it in a more active fashion? The appeal of real live sport is very different IMO.

Wii-style games appeal to me far more than any previous consoles. I'll give it a year and see how much this year's Christmas presents are going for on eBay :)

Keep it Real
 

They already have. Studies prove it. Our children are fat and getting fatter for all the time they spend in front of any number of "tubes."

There will always be sports, but a lot more people watching than actually playing.:neutral:

Sorry, I wasn't really clear. I meant would people who play sports now (in a world where there are already console games, PC games, internet etc) stop playing in order to Wii.

I accept your answer may be the same.

Games People Play
 

Probably not.

I have nothing against Wii in general. But it is a little scary to see the kids not doing all the stuff I used to do as a kid, like just goofing around outside, throwing rocks at cars (other kids), building homemade bombs, riding bikes to your friend's house to look at his Playboy collection in the tree house, crawling into the abandoned building, making a jump for your bikes and getting injured from the same, skateboarding inside the halls of the local college, whacking chestnuts with a tennis racket over the neighborhood...things like that.

i did ALL of that stuff. but we used acorns, and aimed at aluminum sided houses.

I see your point, regarding people sitting in front of the TV, or playing video games, and then suffering from "health" problems which amount to get-off-your-ass-itis. I don't have a TV signal going into my home, nor have I actually owned a video game console since Turbo Grafx 16 (16 bit), although I do play occasionally on friend's systems. Where you're wrong, in my opinion, to point this out in regards to the Wii.

Consider a few hypothetical groups of people:

#1
Active tennis players. Will they stop playing tennis in favor of a video game?

#2
People who don't currently play tennis, and very unlikely to ever take it up. Does the Wii have any effect on them?

#3
People who don't currently play tennis, but intend to add it to their workout regimen. Will they play a video game instead?

#4
Avid video game players. Up until now, they were on the couch, inactive. Now they are up on their feet, getting a workout.

I call this a net positive effect. A video game console that gets you physically involved in the game. This is a step in the right direction, not a sign of impending doom. Active sports players are not going to stop playing sports, and video gamers are going to start getting a workout. That's all good.

Personal anecdote: My nephew's birthday party was at Putt-Putt, I had a cup of free tokens. After playing the Wii recently, I was disappointed in almost all of the available games, and passed them by. I ended up spending my time on a game that detects real-life motion of a plastic samurai sword, and I worked up a good sweat playing that one. Afterwards, I went to the batting cages and hit some balls. I was reminded of how fun that is, after doing some batting practice on the Wii. That's right: I played baseball on the Wii, and then, because of the Wii, I went out and played baseball in real life. How is that bad?

"Print is Dead!"
 

Uh-huh.

And since the introduction of internet discussion boards, people have stopped "going outside" to talk to each other face to face. Riiiight.

Dear Chicken Little,

The sky is not falling.

Sincerely,

Your friends in reality.

The Wii is dope. I just wish when I swung my sword or racket it would follow it with precision, so I could slice and dice my enemy accurately, unlike the New Zelda. That's all the complaints! Tennis and bowling are disgustingly fun!

I don't play sports. I <3 my Wii, and it certainly gets me more active than any other game system. Flint made a comment (though I guess it was about TVs?) that one shouldn't waste their money on new shit if it doesn't do anything the old version didn't. Well, thats what makes the Wii awesome, because it does. It really is unique as a household system (as opposed to say, an arcade machine).

That's right, I was talking about TVs, as in: if my current TV displayed visible images yesterday, it still does so today, regardless of whatever "better" TVs are available today. Sure, the "new" ones may look much better, or be much bigger, but if I wasn't complaining about the old one, then...uhhh... why shouldn't I just keep my money?

Regarding the Wii, you're right, nothing like it has ever been available before, it's "apples/oranges" to other consoles. The other games systems may have made slight improvements to hardware, but they still do essentially the same thing as they ever did, the same thing an Atari 2600 did. The Wii, however, is a whole new thing, and the fact that it gets you up off the couch is definitely a positive development.

I'm wondering how many degrees of distintion the Wii remote can communicate, or if ithe limitation exists in how the software developers wrote the game. Is there an upper limit to expression with the device? I'm curious to know. I hope that the games will continue to improve in playability as the new platform becomes more familiar.

just be careful where you swing that thing!

God dammit. Now that the system is out and has been out, it is impossible to place any pre-orders, place deposits, and no stores will drop any hints as to when they expect shipment. There are no waiting lists and no notifications. No one will hold on for you. When they do magically appear at 8am during the week they're gone well before noon.

Any hints on how to locate a Wii? Do I need to start bribing insiders in the Target electronics department or something?

Look in my family room. :p

Try mall security. That was our "in".

Dangerous things, Wiis. From here:

Corrected. Agreed.

I heard 2 gallons. :(

That's what happened to Terri Schiavo, hyponatremia. Hers was from drinking 10-12 glasses of iced tea a day instead of water, but it amounted to the same thing.

I spent about three hours on Saturday Night playing the new Zelda game. I am not enticed by this experience into getting one.

Expect lawsuits related to carpal tunnel.

Most game controllers sort of rest on your hands as you play. The Wii controller and the nunchuck have to be actively gripped the whole time. It sucks mightily.

I've spent almost 30 hours now on Twilight Princess and it's amazing. From a game design standpoint it's so well done I can't even tell you. Nintendo has always been the best as far as game play goes in my opinion. If you only see the Wii as a gimmick with some controller doobah then you are just being blind to the technological achievement. Link, ftw. (Disclaimer: The Zelda franchise framed my childhood, so I'm a bit on the biased side.)

Can't. Stop. Playing. Rabbids!

The only game that had my sides hurting from laughter.

I'm grinning from ear to ear just reading about your fun! The Raving Rabbids is hysterical! I think my favorite is Choir Practice.

For me, its the dancing. The very first mini-game I attempted was the disco "beat match" game. I completely failed the first time around because I couldn't stop laughing at the bunny pelvic thrusts and air guitar.

I know. I know. :biggrin:

For an even bigger laugh wrt pelvic thrusts and air guitar, try out WarioWare's Smooth Moves. For many of the minigames, the controller is held/placed in non-traditional ways, like on your nose for "elephant mode" and on your palm for "waiter mode" and on your hips for "hula mode". Then you have to make the proper motion with your whole body to get the remote to direct the screen to do the right thing. Very, very entertaining.

I still have some getting used to the controls before I do some of those games, first. I managed to snag Monkeyball Banana Blitz as well only to find that I had a hard time playing the party games because I didn't have the hang of the controllers, yet. The "story mode" game was easy, though, and the tilting world, as it did when I got to play the Gamecube version, made me nauseated.

It rocks. :3eye:

You gotta leeeeeean into it!

Wii, Water, Death

A California woman died of water intoxication while trying to win a Nintendo Wii during a radio station's water-drinking contest.

What do you think? Chris Friedman, Systems Analyst - "Get ready for the most ridiculous series of PSAs in history."

:rolleyes:

Really, Flint. Didn't we already cover this in posts #29-34? Come to class, buddy.

Next!

Nothing really "happens" until it gets coverage in TheOnion.

Radio show audio can be found here.

Idiot morning show DJs

"Maybe we should have researched this, before."
"We know [they can die]. We signed leases so we're not responsible!"

Sick.

I heard some clips from the radio show during which they ran the contest. A listener called in and advised them that one absolutely can die from what is called water intoxication. DJs kinda laughed and blew the caller off with "Nah, I don't think so. I don't think that can happen."

Sadly, I expect them to not be charged due the the release they had each contestant sign.

Notwithstanding the fact that they didn't actually force the contestants to do anything, is there actually a legal document you can get someone to sign which absolves you of all punishment in the event that you should decide to murder them? Because I thought an official "License to Kill" could only be issued by secret spy agencies, etc.

Speaking of that, I just read in the Washington Post this morning that they (the Washington Post) were going to start printing a paper version of The Onion for distribution around DC. WTF?

The Onion has always been a paper version, but with poor distribution. The Post is helping them out in the DC area.

Might be expanding to other cities as well?

One episode of Mr.Show opens with Bob sitting alone on a stool in the middle of an empty stage, reading a newspaper. He's reading The Onion.

Suffered our first Wii-related injury some days ago: there's now a dent in the coffee table, some pain, but everyone (and more importantly, the controller) is OK. The warning about having room to move in Wii Sports isn't kidding!

More purported injuries and damage at Wii Have a Problem. Most of it is a little difficult to believe.

A good friend of mine just bought a new house, with an upstairs game room, and had a 42" TV wall-mounted at eye-level, with the Wii sensor attached to the bottom of it. There is about 10' by 10' of uninterrupted Wii playing space (no furniture!) directly in front of the TV. Wiiiiiii!!!