I got a Wii
First impressions:
My arm hurt as much after playing for an hour as it does after playing racquetball for an hour.
They should have included a real case for the Wii Sports game.
Setting up the network was a pain in the ass. Various errors between 52000-52099, plus 320-whatever-it-was. I ended up having to manually enter all DNS, MTU, gateway, etc info, manually assign an IP, and change the router’s channel to 11.
Miis are excellent. Really, really excellent.
On the other hand, friend codes are stupid. Why not an alphanumeric name?
Wii Sports is the only game I have. It’s a lot of fun, and feels surprisingly “real.”
How many channels do they intend to have? When you go look at the front page, there’s six channels there now, and THREE PAGES of channels to be added. Yikes.
There’s nothing on the Virtual Console that I feel the urge to buy.
All in all, it rocks. But I also then went and booted up the 360 afterwards to see what was new on Live Arcade. I think I need some more games for the Wii. 🙂
19 Responses to “I got a Wii”
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I still can’t find one anywhere in Chicago.
The one day that my local EBStop had one, I was way the hell out in the ‘burbs and couldn’t make it back in time.
I’m suffering from withdrawal. I can’t find Wiis for sale anywhere…
If you haven’t already gotten it, I highly recommend Rayman Raving Rabbids. Especially with kids. I think kids would really really like that game.
I know I do. 🙂
When you buy a virtual console game, I believe it uses up one of the channel squares.
Haven’t tested this myself, since I haven’t seen a game in the store that I’d want to pay for 😉
I believe those empty channels are primarily for games obtained through the Virtual Console. Each game will take up its own channel.
They’re still selling out in minutes here. The Walmart down the street had a line form to buy out their last shipment of ~35 on Tuesday.
I waited in the cold on launch day for mine. Zelda is the game to get, plain and simple. Blockbuster video rents some Wii games, so I tried a few, including Red Steel, Monkey Ball, and Disney’s “Cars”. None I would really recommend as they really don’t do a good job with their respective control schemes. Excite Truck was ok, but not worth $50. The virtual console stuff I will agree with you on, but we know more will be coming. Hell, Japan has much of what I want to download on their VC already! Finally, I can’t think of a valid reason why Nintendo opted for a Wii Friend Code vs. an alpha-numeric name, so I agree with you there.
Couple of other things:
– Virtual Console games each take up one channel space when stored on your Wii (you can move them to SD cards or delete and re-download them later to shuffle space around)
– Nintendo reportedly has quite a few channels in development but hasn’t released much for info yet.
I’m going to add one gripe to the list as well:
– Why can we not play Wii Sports over WiFi with friends? The big N made this big deal about WiFi connectivity, but you can’t play multi-player over it yet? Come on!
Alright that’s all out of me! Congrats on the purchase Raph! Get that Zelda game! Trust me, you can’t go wrong with that! =)
[…] https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/12/08/i-got-a-wii/First impressions: […]
Is the Wii Friend Code something that prevents you from contacting others (beyond limited canned responses and questions) until you have it? If that’s the case, it sure sounds like it’s just a “protect the kids” kind of thing. Maybe, someday, I will find a Wii in the store and then I can find out for myself, I guess.
I picked one up off ebay, it arrived today. I didn’t have the same networking issues, mine joined up right away once I remembered my wireless password. Were you using the built-in wireless? Or the extra adapter?
Wii sports dominated in this house, with my kids, and my very non-gamer wife taking some turns at the games and having fun. I got a quick look at Red Steel today, I know its had mixed reviews, but the control schemes show a lot of promise. I’m going to try and resist buying too many games right away, knowing that there should be some awesome releases coming over the next few months.
We were using the built-in wireless. Apparently it’s not an unusual problem at all, particularly with WRT54G routers from Linksys. A quick Google for the error code numbers showed hundreds of hits and several on Ninty’s site.
The friend code is just like the DS ones — so you cannot make friends with someone you don’t know via other channels.
Sounds like a “protect the kids from the scary people of Teh Intarnets!” kind of thing to me then.
Yep, believe it or not though, security by obscurity can be pretty effective. That is, until the kids become more technical than the parents. 🙂
I’d be curious to hear how using the Wiimote impacts other applications. I’ve already seen it used for some Windows games (e.g. HL2 – YouTube video), but the discussion has been mostly on making it work rather than how well or how poorly it works.
Oh, I wasn’t knocking it. Toontown has a similar setup and it works great.
We got our PS3 this past Thursday night. (paid retail) The kids had no idea we were getting it so we made a big deal of surprising them, built up the suspense by leaving it in the black garbage bag (anti-mugging safety for my wife bringing it home) in the middle of the room while we went to get the camera and they waited on the couch. Took pictures and all.
So after we got over the initial WOO someone said, “wait does it come with any games?” “no” Robert points out that it comes with a movie. “Cool! A high definition movie… what is it?” … “Uh… Talladega Nights” … “oh” “Well… let’s have dinner”
After dinner we all played Wii Sports together. =)
The PS3 remains boxed with original seals unbroken. Mmmm, NextGen
I don’t really see what’s so wrong with the friends code. It’s just like a phone number and those work well enough. It has the advantage of being unambiguous, so rather than having to remember if it was x_angelgrrl23_x or x_angelgrrrl23_x it’s always a 16 (or however many) digit number. And you only have to enter it once, unlike on DS where every game has a different code.
Plus it means you don’t have to pick an embarassing or lame nickname because all the good ones are taken already!
yesterday on saturday my friends zach and i camped outside Target from 8 PM till 8AM today…ohhhhh jesus im so excited!! you hardocre ps3 ppl can have ur high-def games, ill have my innovative, fun, ok graphics zelda…(actually the graphics arnt great, but zelda is still zelda) GOod ShYT!! cant play till after christmas, but ill sneak it. and people who are considering buying it, CAMPING OUT IS WORTH THE COLD, DRY, NUMB 12 HOURS!!! SO WORTH IT!!!
[…] In fairness, Koster is also critical of his new Wii (”friend codes are stupid… “[and t]here’s nothing on the Virtual Console that I feel the urge to buy”), but in the end, pronounces, “All in all, it rocks.” […]