Wiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Okay, confessions first.

I've never owned a Nintendo.

My first computer was a Sears Telegames, which was the Sunshine cookie to Atari's Oreo 2600. Having said that, I loved that system like crazy. I remember the dump-dump-dump of Asteroids. It was like kissing a girl. Of course, maybe a lot of things are like that when you are a kid, and maybe that's why kids smile so much.

I also had a Coleco Adam with a tape drive, which was just as fun. But my friend Mark had a Commodore 64, and that was even cooler. I always seemed to have not quite to coolest thing going, but thankfully didn't care too much. (Thanks Mom & Dad for good values.)

I went several years with nothing until the Sony Playstation came out. I had about 5 games for that, 3 of them football. Jumping Flash was most fun; the Japanese make wonderfully ridiculous games. I got a PS2 about 5 years later because it had a US-Region DVD player and I didn't. Also had about 5 games for that. I got rid of it about six months ago; I just didn't play it, didn't find it that much fun. Took more of my time and life than I wanted to spend on games.

Then last weekend A and I got a Wii.

Oh man.

How do I love Wii? Let me count the ways.

1) Not $600, or even $400. $300 with 2 controllers and 2 sets of games. Not that I couldn't afford more, but you spend that much and you feel bad if you aren't orgasming over the graphics and playing games constantly. And what games do you really want to play?

2) Games I really want to play. I know that it's beautiful how the bullets reflect in the sunlight off the translucent blood in the PS3Box version of Tom Clancy's Oblivion War Hero Resurrection 2K7 XTreme Street Hockey Beatdown. But really now. Games are supposed to be fun, right? Like, something you do and it makes you laugh and relax? The Wii I got came with very simple Baseball, Bowling, Golf, Tennis and Boxing games. The extra controller came with several others, like a little tank hunt, stampeding cows in a cornfield, 9-ball, cartoon fishing. They make me laugh. XBox and PS3 games are basically shooting, racing and sports. Nintendo games are *games* (though they are making a lot of the sports for Wii).

3) Speaking of boxing. A and I were both sore in every muscle in our body after about 3 hours of Wii. We were changing into lighter clothes. My fan came out of the closet yesterday once I started facing boxers who could lean and avoid my punches. Some of this stuff is practically aerobics, yet crazy fun. Exercise from games? Imagine that.

4) The music. Maybe kids would hate it. But dang, it's soothing. I have the Wii Start page right now, and it sounds like an instrumental interlude from something off Sarah McLachlan's Surfacing. Just peaceful.

5) The controller kicks ass. In all kinds of ways. You probably already knew that, but it really does. Your characters end up mirroring your movement, for example. And yes, you really really need that wrist strap.

6) Internet setup. I click on Wireless Search. It finds my router. I put in the access code. It's connected. Never was a setup more easy. And once online...

7) (not "The") Weather channel. Here's where nobody else will agree, but this is my favorite part of Wii. I can see my weather. It's beautifully done. I can click around (this is all done via the remote, no cords) and see 5 day forecasts. Yeah, yeah so what. Well. Then I click on Globe, and I can grab and spin a NASA globe, zoom in/out, click on foreign cities... their weather comes up. I mean, if it is raining in London, I hear rain. And this lovely soothing music. This is the kind of thing they sell in those Sharper Image catalogs for $699. I love it. I love it.

8) News channel. I can read very good news articles, dozens, with the globe spinning to the right location. Better articles that most newspapers except Times/Post. I can click Slideshow and it will slideshow the headline, and I click the remote to view the article. I spent about 90 minutes reading the news on Wii last night. Seriously, after this and the Weather thing, I was reconsidering whether I still wanted cable.

9) Mii. You can make little copies of you and your friends. The detail is great; moles, hair selection, face, skin color, clothing color, glasses, height, probably 200-300 individual bits to choose from. You name them. They are saved. When you play a game, you can choose from your Miis. When I played baseball as Me/ii, A was my catcher. In her brown top and shades.

10) You can download Donkey Kong, Galaga etc (for a fee) direct to your Wii and play them. Those old games that you could just pick up, play, then put down.

I've left out the story of how A and I got the Wii, which is kind of funny. But suffice it to say that if we hadn't thought we had to quickly buy it or it was gone, we might not have. What a mistake. It's not just hype. This is a great, fun system.