Wii'ing in my front room

Yesterday afternoon, after being in the incapable hands of Parcel Farce for 24 hours, the Nintendo Wii finally turned up on our doorstep.




It's not technically mine though. It's actually my brothers but seeing as he wasn't around, he borrowed my MasterCard to buy it and that the package had my name on the box, it was only right that I had a quick go.

The Wii is Nintendo's £180 answer to the XBOX 360 and the soon to come Playstation 3, the so-called 'next-gen' consoles which claim to be High-Definition (even though the XBOX lacks a HDMI port and therefore won't work with the majority of HD TV's and the Playstation doesn't appear to be working at all).

Nintendo on the other hand have stayed away from the Hi-Def gimmicks, realising that not that many of us have Hi-Def anyway.

Instead, they've gone for the 'innovative game play' market and I have to say, they've certainly cracked it.
Take WiiSports for instance. It's a series of sports games that includes tennis, golf, boxing, ten-pin bowling and baseball (pictured above).
Now on your run-of-the-mill Playstation, to hit the ball, you'd just sit still and press an elaborate combination of buttons that you begin to repeat like a robot after just three goes.
On the Wii though, its far more advanced. Instead of a control pad, you have a 'motion sensor remote' which essentially, is your bat. Swing the remote and the Wii picked up on the direction and speed of the swing and in my case, that translates to missing the ball completely and striking out.
The remote also acts as your golf club, tennis racket, bowling arm and even boxing gloves.

All in all, it's brilliant and certainly a long way from the 'coach-potato' gaming geek stereotype. The game play is unrivalled and at almost £300 cheaper than the forthcoming PS3, it's stonking value. Better still, it's make the perfect centrepiece for a beer-fuelled house party.

Will the novelty wear off? Probably but that'd be the same with any console. One thing is for certain though, it's a pretty good distraction from that essay due on Tuesday!