The Wii

This is truly a tale of two cities. The Wii has both made me smile in wonderment, as well as scratch my head and wonder what year it is. The Wii has the ability to do what no game console of my time has done. The Wii has the ability to bridge the gap between gamers, and non-gamers. People who have little or no interest in video games pick up the wii-mote, and quickly smile and laugh at the unique games and certainly unique game play. Boxing, swinging the wii-mote as a tennis raquette, bowling, or even playing air-hockey are all things that will be new to the home gamer, as well as waking up from a night of playing video games and having a sore shoulder. I have certainly found myself addicted to playing Wii sports, and and I would have never imagined playing games with my girlfriend for hours on end, but again this system is making things so unique that there will no longer be a steep learning curve to those that have never played games before and for that I say bravo!!

What I don't like about Wii: The first thing you will notice about that the Wii is the fact that the graphics looks strikingly like that original Nintendo, and in some cases are not even as impressive as it's predecessor the Gamecube. We all enjoy a nice cartoonish game once in a blue-moon, but when it becomes all you offer it's very limiting. While the Wii may very well overwhelm the community I consider to be 'party' gamers, it will most certainly alienate the true hard core gamers of the world. There is no good reason not to combine this technology with some gripping more realistic games to satisfy both communities, we don't all find 'monkey ball' endlessly amusing. "Trauma Center" is a neat title, but it also falls flat on it's face when it comes to visual appeal, as well as having terrible sounds. There is no reason on this earth, that in the year 2007 I should be reading text off of a screen instead of some voice-acting, albeit the voice acting would be over the lifeless cartoon figures that move onto and off of the screen like color forms, but it would be nice none the less. I also find that at times the game-play is more ambitious than the technology, far too often the sensors will think you are swinging that Wii-mote around like a bola-ball, when in fact you are simply on your back swing preparing to make a play on a tennis ball.

Synopsis: While I truly appreciate what the Wii is trying to do for gaming, in making it a different kind of experience, there was no good reason to release it with pathetic looking graphics and sounds. As much fun as I have had playing Wii sports, I still find myself salivating at the opportunity to purchase a similar type of add on for the X-box or the PS3. I would think that the idea should have been to take next-gen gaming and add a new wrinkle on that, but instead Nintendo made a unique thing and left out the modern day gaming experience. Just imagine how cool it would be to hit a tennis ball while resembling Roger Federrer, as opposed to being a blob without arms or legs. Hard to master different tennis strokes, when you can't see your arms isn't it?