SPECIFICATIONS / KEY FEATURES

Central Processing Unit: IBM Broadway

Graphics Processing Unit: ATI Hollywood

Supported Resolution: Up to 480pSystem

Internet Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g
Internal Storage: 512MB Flash Memory

Optical Drive:12cm Wii Disc & 8cm GameCube Disc. Discs will self-load into the bay

12cm Disc Capacity: 4.7Gb (or 8.5Gb Dual Layer)

Memory Expansion: 2 x SD Memory
Downloadable Games: NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, TurboGrafix16

Disc Compatibility: GameCube
Wii Controller Ports: Wireless

GameCube Controller Ports: 4 Ports

GameCube Memory Expansion: 2 Ports

USB 2.0: 2 Ports

Internet: Wireless IEEE802.11b/g or a USB LAN adaptor. WiiConnect 24 persistant connection, even when powered off

Output ports: AV Multi-output port, allowing Composite, S-Video and Component

The Nintendo Wii. The cute-as-a-button and innovative beyond its price-point gaming system with a name that just sticks in your mind...filed away in your grey matter folders somewhere between “Words That Get Me In Trouble” and “Exclamations Of Delight”. With this ingenious little machine, Nintendo has turned the world of home gaming upside down and inside out and proven once and for all that gaming isn’t always about GRAPHICS but sometimes about plain, old-fashioned FUN.

If there is one thing I am quite sick of, it is the endless debate over video gaming systems and which one is superior to the rest. For some, go-carts are a much more fun way to spend an afternoon than driving in freeway traffic to a second job in a new Audi...even if the Audi is bigger, faster and more expensive. So, in the interest of bypassing this tired tradition of comparing apples to oranges, I will not compare this system to the others; instead choosing only to give the lowdown on the one in question...the Wii. And the lowdown is...this system is an absolute blast to play.

The joy of Wii springs forth from two fountains. One is Nintendo’s long and steady belief in a childlike sense of fun; trading blazing firearms and body count for memorable characters and cartoonish environments. The other is a total re-imagining and redesign of how games should be played. The Wii’s new controller design is nothing new to anyone with the internet, a television or friends to talk to, but let’s take a look at it anyway, shall we?

The wireless controller is actually a two-piece device, one for each hand: the remote and the nunchuck. The “Remote” is a very well designed unit that fits any hand, from age four to forty, with a solitary thumb button and a forefinger trigger. The aesthetics are familiar to gamers and non-gamers alike, as anyone who has used a television remote control understands the idea of pointing and clicking. Even the basic shape is immediately reminiscent of a “channel changer”. A home button brings the user to the Wii’s main system hub and a simple cross-shaped directional pad rounds out the basic controls. This “D-pad” is placed such that the unit can be turned sideways in a parody of the iconic original NES controller for platform style gaming.

My favorite feature of the wireless Remote is the addition of a power button for the system. You can keep the Remote sitting next to you on the couch and, since the whole setup is wireless, both power on and play your system without ever moving. But you aren’t going to want to sit still once this machine is up and running! This is because of the Remotes other operation feature...motion sensitive control. Far beyond an ordinary controller, the remote can be swung like a bat in a baseball game, jabbed like a punch for boxing, aimed like a gun for first-person shooters, or even spun like a racecars steering wheel. The options are limitless and open to game designers, and I suspect the most innovative uses of this remarkable controller are yet to come.

Also worth mentioning is the speaker in the Remote controller unit itself. This audio source is separate and independent of the sound already coming from your television or theatre speakers. When playing tennis, the crowd and opponents noises come from the TV, however the sound of YOUR racquet is played right there in your hand. The stadium full of people and the sounds of the field in the baseball game come from your TV, but the crack of the bat is right there in your hand...complete with rumble! The rumble feature of the Wii Remote is the best I have ever encountered...well programmed enough to add to game play, but also subtle enough in its strength to avoid startling you out of the game. Utilizing the rumble feature while surfing the Wii’s Channel menus is also nice because it is easy to tell when you are pointing in the right direction.

Attached to this Remote is a detachable Nunchuck controller. This ergonomically shaped, secondary, opposite-hand controller is much more simplistic than its partner, but contains all the motion-sensitive properties. A thumb controlled analog stick is combined in a “handle” style body with a pair of index finger trigger buttons. By controlling direction with this thumb stick in one hand and pointing the Remote like a pistol with the other, first-person shooters take on a whole new realism above and beyond anything seen before. This is just one more reason the Wii keeps you out of your seat and moving about in front of the screen...a refreshing change to be sure (albeit one that requires a little cleanup of your front room first and requiring a piece of furniture or two to be relocated).

All of this motion-sensitive controlling requires one other piece to function properly; a Bluetooth Sensor Bar which lays across the top of your television screen or just underneath it. This Sensor Bar ensures that the Wii’s Remote and Nunchuck movements can be sensed up to thirty feet away and the “pointing” capabilities are accurate within 15 feet. Even the largest of rooms are supported by this and four players can easily fan out in a play room with no one running the risk of getting a friend’s swinging Remote in the face.

The controls are extremely easy to pick up, even though your first few moments with each game may make you fear otherwise. The motion-sensing is done SO well that it has almost NEVER wound up troublesome. I had feared that all this swinging and speed control and the like would turn into many botched maneuvers, but this just isn’t the case...at least with the packaged game. I cannot explain enough how intuitive and easy to use the controls are for both games and system functions.

So now that you know why the controls are amazing and unique, lets take a better look into the system itself. The unit is amazingly compact and lightweight, which is a dream if you are one of those gamers that take your systems wherever you go. Measuring about the same size as three DVD cases stacked together, the Wii won’t be crowding out your other electronic gear when added to your entertainment center. And with the wireless controllers, you’ll never be forced to tuck cords or knock over your coffee table drinks with a swinging cable.

Featuring a slot-loading drive, discs are simply inserted directly into the front of the tiny unit...both the standard sized Wii discs and the mini Gamecube discs from your older Nintendo system are supported. A flip-open door reveals the tiny port for your memory card, which in this case is any SD format memory stick...the same type that is so widely popular amongst digital cameras, media players and rival entertainment systems. There is 512k of internal memory to get you started, and with prices dropping daily on large SD cards, you won’t be worrying about storage anytime soon. The Wii will recognize up to four of its own wireless Remotes, and flip open the hatch up top to reveal four additional ports for Gamecube controllers and a slot for your Gamecube memory card! This is complete backwards compatibility at its best with no starting over and the ability to utilize your existing and familiar controllers.

But the fun of Nintendo’s past hits doesn’t stop there. The Wii also comes standard with wireless internet capabilities; most of which we will look at a little later. However, this connectivity can be used to access a library of downloadable titles ranging from NES originals to Super Nintendo favorites and even slightly more recent Nintendo 64 games! While these games are purchased and not free downloads, the simple fact that they are offered is a huge selling point for the system as a whole...and to be honest, some of those older games are far more entertaining than some of the newer ones I have come across.

When powered up, the Wii brings you to a system menu full of various “Channels”. The first of these leads to the loaded disc (either Wii or Gamecube) and if selected will start your gaming experience immediately. You will also be able to access your Virtual Console titles which have been downloaded onto your machine. The other default Channels are the Mii Channel, the Photo Channel, the News Channel, the Weather Channel and the Message Board. The first and what I have found to be the most addictive channel is Mii. Selecting the Mii option allows you to customize personal avatars for use on both your system and selected games. While the avatars are very simple and cute (noticing a pattern yet?), there are so many options from eye shape, to skin color, to lip gloss, hair style, beauty marks and even double-chins, I can assure you that you will spend hours just tweaking your look and creating multiple Mii’s.

These Mii’s can make appearances in the games you play, such as the included Wii Sports. Your avatar is out there on the court playing doubles Wii Tennis, exactly as you designed him/her, or lining up in the lanes of Wii Bowling. These Mii’s also carry with them game information and statistics. In the Wii Sports game for example, stats are tracked for every win and loss as your Mii works his way to Pro Status. Load some of your Mii’s into your Remote’s internal memory and pocket it over to your friend’s house. When you load up a game, your Mii’s jump out of your remote into your buddies system and are available to use in all of his games...carrying with them their personal stats! Such a community minded look at gaming has never been touched upon by other systems, no matter how many online user names they assign.

There are quite a few other fun options open to you Mii’s, from parades to roll call lineups, but we are going to move on to our next channel, Photos. Using the SD slot in your Wii, you can load images directly from a digital camera or other source into your machine. These pictures can then be viewed in slide shows, set to music, or even edited. While the photo editor is obviously meant for laughs and playing around more than actual image enhancement, it is still a great way to utilize the SD capabilities of this console.

The Weather Channel is simply a forecasting tool, using the internet connection to display weather all over the globe. You can use the Remote to spin a virtual globe and series of topographical maps to check out weather anywhere around the world. Similarly, the News Channel is a world wide collection of daily happenings; searchable by categories and topics. With a simple press of the power button on the Remote, you can check out the sports scores, see if you need a jacket, play a few rounds of golf and be out the door and on your way.

Last up on the starting channels is the Wii Shop, where you can browse through those older system titles and start downloading them to your unit. Rechargeable cards can be purchased and reloaded at your local video game store, where cash is turned into spendable online points...or simply use your credit card at the online site. These points are then exchanged for games; playable immediately upon successful download. Other channels are on their way, and the fact that the system loads to the Channels page first enhances the chances that the unit will be used by more members of the family than just the hardcore gamers.

There is of course, a basic internet browser, but this isn’t where the real strength of the WiFi connection lies. The Channels are where it is at, without a doubt, and provide enough of an expanding community to remain entertaining for quite some time. I can’t wait to see what uses the Wii’s Channels will have in the future!

There is no DVD or CD playback supported on the Wii, but I have to be perfectly honest and say...”So what?” Not only do we all have CD players and Ipods and DVD players and DVD drives on our laptops...but these applications are not about gaming. It is refreshing to not look forward to hundreds of dollars worth of add ons, media devices, and other brick-a-brack that doesn’t make your games any more fun. Besides a few aftermarket controllers and skins, you already have everything you need from the get go. Plain and simple, the Wii is a GAMING machine with a few other perks to make it a family friendly device. It isn’t an all in one entertainment package or replacement...thankfully!

The system will come packaged with the five-games-in-one Wii Sports disc. Use your inventive controllers to their utmost when you play a round of golf, knock down some pins at the bowling alley, hit a home run on the baseball field, go doubles on a tennis match, or send your opponent to the mat in the boxing ring. More a training device than an immersive game, I’ll bet even Nintendo would be shocked to know how addictive and amazingly fun this game package is. I am willing to wager it will be some time before gamers are heading back to the store for an additional title after getting wrapped up in this bundled launch game. For a complete review of the game, head here.

So there you have it, plus or minus a few details that I am not tech savvy enough to comprehend or care about. This system is astoundingly fun and instantly addictive. Moving from your old systems to playing a Wii for the first time is like discovering the difference between soaking in the tub with your wind-up hippo or a day at the beach on a Jetski. Whether you are a long time button masher, or rather new to the field, THIS is where you should head next. The Wii is fun in a box, short and sweet. Isn’t it time you had a little more fun?

-aaron-