Things That Are Great This Week Part Two: Nintendo Wii

[Currently Listening To: Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream]



If you've been here more than a couple times, you've probably noticed that I am completely, crazily obsessed with Nintendo's upcoming game console, Wii (pronounced "we"). I love it. I haven't been this excited about a console launch since Nintendo 64. I get a tingly sensation in places my bathing suit covers just thinking about it. I want to cradle it and lick it and lather it with baby oil and rub my genitals on it. Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea.

I'm fairly certain that most of the six people who regularly punish themselves with my long-winded diatribes on this website are not nearly as obsessed with video games as I am. And that is exactly why I'm not going to shut up about this. Ever. Because if you have no interest in video games, you're precisely the type of person Nintendo is trying to lure in with Wii.

Over the last couple decades, video games have strayed away from their roots in family-friendly entertainment and become the bastard child of the entertainment world. Despite raking in even more money than the film industry, video games are viewed as lame, low-brow, childish, or incredibly, incredibly nerdy, depending on who you ask. But why? Everyone watches TV and movies, and everyone enjoys them. Wouldn't it seem logical that the ability to actually interact with the images on the screen would be universally appealing? Well, yes, except that the video game industry has backed itself into a corner by slowly whittling its target audience down to a nerdy, socially inept, predominately male slice of the population. Most mainstream games involve guys in big metal space suits zapping aliens, or military soldiers blasting Nazis, or medieval warriors slashing goblins, or thugs popping caps in asses of rival gangs. It's so narrow in scope, and so streamlined to the specific interests of mouth-breathing fourteen year old boys, you almost want to lather Oxy cream on your Xbox.

On top of that, modern games have become harder to play and more unwieldy to navigate, thanks to controllers with two sticks and dozens of buttons and games that require numerous complicated uses of said buttons. For the nerd elite, it's no problem at all; but for someone who hasn't picked up a controller since the two-button NES, you might as well be asking them to pilot a jet aircraft. Even I - card-carrying member of the nerd elite though I am - no longer have the patience to sit with a game like Splinter Cell and learn thirty two different button commands that regularly change depending on what's happening in the game. I don't have a lot of time for video games anymore, so I want something I can pick up and have fun with right away - and, I suspect, so do most "non-gamers."

Nintendo is hoping to address all of these issues and more with Wii, its answer to the increasing lack of innovation and mass-market appeal of the gaming industry. Like its handheld counterpart, The DS, Wii is meant to be a unique gaming experience designed specifically for fun and accessibility, and at its core is the (unfortunately-named) "wiimote."



To play games on Wii, you simply hold the wiimote like a television remote and wave it at the screen. Playing tennis is easy and engaging - just swing the wiimote as you would a tennis racket. Your character on the screen mimics your movements in real-time. It's as simple as that. I played the tennis game at E3 with a friend in his late thirties who has no interest in video games at all. Within seconds of picking up the wiimote he was an aggressive competitor, slamming the ball and proudly gloating when he defeated me. "I didn't realize video games could be so fun," he told me.

I love the idea of video games returning to their roots of people gathered together in a living room having fun together, rather than the current antisocial norm of sitting alone in a dark room, playing against slobbering nerd strangers over the internet. I also love comparing Nintendo's family-targeted marketing from then and now. Like how the 1986 NES family of white-bred Republicans wearing gaudy colors:



...has transformed into the 2006 Wii family of liberal, multi-ethnic Mac enthusiasts who live in empty vacuums of space with their adopted Jewish boy and Asian girl:



It's just like my family!

Anyway, here are some other reasons you should be buying a Wii this Christmas Hanukkah Kwanzaa culturally diverse holiday season:

It Comes With A Game

Remember that glorious day when you got a Nintendo, and it came with Super Mario Bros?? Everything you need to have fun, right there in the box. Those days died after the NES, but Nintendo is bringing them back: Wii comes with the very fun Wii Sports packed in, and that will keep you entertained for quite a while on its own.

The Virtual Console

Wii has the ability to download 20 years of classic Nintendo games right to your system - all of your favorite NES, SNES, and N64 games will be available to play, no cartridge necessary. The system is also compatible with Gamecube games, and there are a ton of great ones available.

Mario and Zelda

My life will be put completely on hold for at least a week when Wii launches, as I will be wholly immersed in the immensely awesome new Zelda game. And in 2007 we get the indescribably fun and innovative Super Mario Galaxy.

It's not a PS3

Launching at around the same time, Sony's behemoth Playstation 3 carries a whopping $600 price tag for the non-retarded version, and promises the exact same shitty games you've been playing on PS2, with the exact same controller, but with better graphics. In fact, Sony doesn't seem to even really care that their new system can play games at all - it's really just a trojan horse to get as many Blu-Ray drives into homes as possible, giving Sony the edge on the ludicrous HD format war. Blu-Ray is Sony's true focus here, and they've effectively slapped gamers in the face by making it clear that "fun" is their absolute last priority. Until sometime next year if not later, PS3s will be expensive, buggy, and scarce. Send Sony a message that you don't support corporate arrogance and market manipulation: Don't buy a PS3... at least until Resident Evil 5 comes out.


Wii hits stores on November 19th for $250 with one controller and a game included. At that time you can expect to never see this blog updated again.