Customer Reviews: Read 1024 more reviews...
 Awesome family fun for any age! May 13, 2008
Our entire family plays on the Wii and we all truly enjoy ourselves. It's not one of those family activities that parents have to suffer through for the sake of the kids. I highly recommend this console!
Great! May 12, 2008
Nintendo has gone and done it again. Reminding me that I was once a boy playing their original systems on my parents rugs. Not the fondest of memories, but among the countless hours spent with Nintendo controllers, I can say that this console is the closest to the original fun and excitement. The Wii will change gaming forever!
14-year video game playing hiatus is over! May 12, 2008
I hadn't played a new actual video game in 14 years. No joke!
I was a huge fan of the SNES/NES as a kid. I played those systems all throughout my childhood. The N64 came out when I was about 16, but I never got into what the video game scene became. Video games seemed to become for harcore kids who were really into games and storylines. I never enjoyed games that required such involvement and depended on high quality graphics. Since I used to like to play video games, I loved games that had game PLAY. I really feel many games of recent years focused on new graphics and involvement (thousands of hours, etc.) and forgot about fun.
Then I got the Wii.
I waited a few years because I had long given up on video games. Now, I can't put the thing down. Between Wii Sports and Mario Kart Wii, I am now excited to play video games again. I think Nintendo not only has a hit, but has broken a huge demographic barrier and has created a long term trend. It has once again made video games useable for all ages and people. That's the way to a successful product.
My only dissapointment with the system is lack of a DVD player, but again, watching DVDs on a game system needlessly uses it for something it wasn't designed to do.
If you ever liked video games, buy the Wii. The 1995-2006 demographic of hard core videogamers will be dissapointed. Everyone else will love it!
Addictive May 10, 2008
I was at first hesitant in purchasing the WII since I had recently purchased a PS3, but my wife wanted to get one. I really enjoy my PS3, but the WII is on a different level. The interaction portion makes it addictive. Now it's not so hard to convince my wife to play video games, where with the PS3 it's out of the question. I also like the design of the unit being extremely small and portable with wireless connection features.
WEEEEEEE! I mean 'Wii', but importantly it's F-U-N! May 9, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I waited. I waited several months after the Nintendo Wii came out to buy it, and after one year of using it I am ready to write my review on this product. There is more than one reason to buy the Nintendo Wii: the most important reason is the fun factor.
You may have heard that this is only a gimmick system, like the ill-conceived Virtual Boy and (I dare say it) PlayStation 3, because of Wii-remote controllers used to move the action in the game by actually moving the controllers. Such an idea, critics have said, is to cover up the flaws of the system and the product line, the lack of graphics compared to an X-Box360 and the number of games compared to the PlayStation line. What I have found since my days of video gaming began with PONG and actually having to pay to play 'Donkey Kong' that pretty, tight, and sexy graphics mean absolutely nothing in terms of replay value: the pretty colors and characters are there to cover up the flaws.
I admit the Nintendo Wii, with its base game 'Wii Sports', is not graphics pretty, but Nintendo once again focuses on that 'F-U-N' factor of game play with system ownership: a concept lost on its rivals. With the Wii Remote Controller you have incredible interactivity: use it as a pointer to select your options on the Wii Menu to using it achieve goals in the games you play. The motion sensing of the remote can be adjusted to create either a loose or tight response with little lag. Be it selecting a button, or having to perform a swinging motion to swing the 'Wii Sports' batter in baseball or in tennis or in golf, or jab it forward in boxing, or underhand throwing in my favorite bowling, the Wii Remote just about perfects the remote video controller concept. Sure, again, the graphics of the in-game is not great, but after a year I'm still playing them. Again, it's all about FUN! And once again, Nintendo also emphasizes the group 'all there in the living room' factor as opposed to the recent trend of playing someone else somewhere else.
Although the Wii does allow you to play with or against others around the world via a high speed internet connection it's not the only thing it can do. The Wii Network allows you access News, Weather, and a Nintendo Game Shop where you can download the classic Nintendo Games all the way back to the NES. Although you can't use the Wii Remote on these games the hard link controllers are cheap to get. Plus for Nintendo Game Cube owners don't toss your GCN stuff away: the Wii plays Game Cube games, uses the memory cards and the controllers.
Since the year and the half the system has been out, innovation is finding its way to the system, as well as the games. The Nintendo Wii is not a gimmick: it's an honest game system that is cheap, doesn't demand that you buy it for it's DVD or BluRay capability, and once again F-U-N!!!!! to have.
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