Gaming Signal: Diary of a Wii Gamer, Part 1: My First Wii Experience

Diary of a Wii Gamer, Part 1: My First Wii Experience

I had my first experience with Wii this week. As an owner, that is. Er..I mean, as the parent of an owner. Yeah, that's it.

Short version: Sweet!

Longer version: Setup was a snap, my kid loves it. In addition to Wii Sports, we also picked up and extra controller packaged with Wii Play. I've connected it to my wireless router but have yet to enable those features beyond the automatic setup until I read through the privacy agreement and see what we're getting into, not that I expect there to be a problem. I just want to have the time to see what's out there.

Some questions for the Wii experts out there:

I notice they sell a Wii HDMI cable for HDTVs. The Wii already looks great on my HDTV...do I really need/want that?

What re your main usage models for the Internet connectivity?

What is your favorite or most-often used feature of your Wii?

The games we have already have yet to be played into the ground. However, for when that day does come, I'm looking for game recommendations for a 9-year old. I figure we'd rent (or borrow) any recommended titles until we know for sure. Any suggestions?

1. As a non-HD TV owner - I would say no, but I also know that the best the Wii can do is 480p from a HD perspective.

2. I use it for the weather and to perform updates. Beyond that I have a laptop if I really need to be surfing the web in the living room. I do enjoy the ability to look at news items on the Wii, but it is not its main use case. My hope is that soon they will offer multiplayer elements, but for now I am good.

3. Games - we play alot of Wii Sports, but I also have a few other titles that I like. It's also nice to have the backward compatibility elements so I can play my older gamecube titles.

4. Raving Rabbids is good for short little shots since it really is intended to be played that way. It is not a multiplayer game, but I heard the next version is. We also like Mario Strikers Charged, but my son is much better at it than I. Beyond that, I think that the new paper Mario is supposed to be fun, but as you said you could rent some titles to get a feel.

Posted by Tim on Saturday August 18, 2007 at 12:34 PM

The upside to the HDMI cable for the Wii is that you can use a single cable for video and audio, decluttering the connection a bit. And yes, the Wii can do 480p which is a step up from the base connection. It isn't amazingly better, just a little bit.

System updates is the #1 benefit to the Wii connection. Being able to download games would be cool if you wanted one of those titles, but so far we haven't wanted any.

Wii Sports gets the most play in my house, but Raving Rabbids is a fun title as well (two words: cow toss.) I have Zelda, but it's too complicated for my son so unless I play it nobody does.

The kids are loving Raving Rabbids. Super Paper Mario is getting rave reviews, and there is a 4-play Mario Party game out there that one of my sons friends says is the most fun game for the Wii. I figure it's good for a rental.

Posted by scottsh on Saturday August 18, 2007 at 1:51 PM

Yeah I think the color is a little better on the HDMI or component cable as well. Composite (the low def cable) color always looks washed out to me. But then again, my Wii is on a 65" HDTV so the "washed out" could be due to the insanely large screen size.

Posted by tditto on Monday August 20, 2007 at 9:43 AM