I wonder if anyone thought that I was doing an April Fool's post about the Wii yesterday? Probably not.
But the truth is, we do have a Wii now. Here's the story:
Teri's mother was planning to get us a Wii for our anniversary, which is in three weeks. As you may know, they're very hard to come by - they've been selling out instantly, everywhere, as soon as they're available.
But she'd seen a flyer saying that seven units would be available at the Wal-Mart in Bellingham on Sunday morning.
So at 7 AM on Sunday Teri woke me up. Personally, I was skeptical. There had probably been people in line four hours already, after all. Teri called Bellingham, and my guess was right; they'd opened at 7 AM, and all the units were gone.
But on the off chance that other stores had also received shipments, we drove over to check the Wal-Mart in Woonsocket.
That store wasn't open yet, but there were a number of people packed into the space between the outer and inner doors. When I walked in, I immediately asked "How many people are ahead of me?"
I was amazed to hear that we were the seventh people in line.
They were an interesting group; among them were a mother and her two sons, shrouded in blankets. They'd slept there since 12:30 AM. But everyone was excited and happy.
We'd locked the doors behind us (it was a group decision), but soon after a couple of tall, creepy-looking guys in their late teens or early twenties started hammering at the door. We called out to them that they were too late, but apparently they didn't even know that Wiis were available; they just wanted to buy a box of dentures, if I understood their mumbled patois correctly. Since the store wouldn't open for another hour or so, they eventually got discouraged and walked away.
Then there was an unexpected development. Frankly, I'd been surprised that we'd been allowed to get inside the first door and wait in the antechamber area; what came next was even more surprising. The manager came over, unlocked the inner door, and started selling us the Wiis - even though the store wasn't open yet!
This presented a problem for us. Teri's mother was driving over with the money for the Wii, but she wasn't there yet. Fortunately, I had just enough money to pay for one myself, after transferring every penny to my debit card.
So we bought the Wii. And it turned out that there were actually nine Wiis for sale, which was ironic since there was only seven of us. As we left the store, Teri's mother drove up with Sebastian in the back seat (he'd spent the night there, since we went to a party for a friend of Teri's the night before; her son is going into the military, which could be a whole separate entry in itself).
She ran into the store (just ahead of several other people who were heading in), and bought a Wii for herself! Incidentally, she did know that we'd already gotten one. I was surprised; I hadn't realized that she wanted one for herself. But later on, after I set it up for her, she really seemed to enjoy it.
So what's the Wii like?
Smaller than I expected, for one thing. It's smaller than any other game system I've owned. The remote is quite small and light too, but not too light; it fits into my hand perfectly, and is a really well-designed controller.
The responsiveness is impressive. You have to use an on-screen keyboard to enter words, pointing and clicking on each letter, and I was shocked at how easy it was to type. I hear that a keyboard accessory will eventually be available, but the on-screen keyboard is really not at all inconvenient. The remote gives a little tremble every time the pointer moves into a new choice area - for example, from one letter to another - which is surprisingly useful.
The Miis were a lot of fun. I think that mine is ugly (I'll take a picture soon), but Teri and Sebastian think that it's very accurate. Sebastian's is cute, although he refused to allow us to put freckles on it, and insisted on a head shape that's not quite accurate.
Teri couldn't quite find a head of hair that suited her, but she still managed to produce a pretty good representation.
I was a little surprised at some of the limitations on Miis. The range of hair and skin color is very limited; only six or eight tones, and none of them really unusual. Clothes can't be modified at all. If you want to make an alien or animal Mii, you're out of luck - at least for now.
Having said that, the Miis are really cute and I wish that there was more that we could do with them. Maybe Nintendo will work something up later. One interesting option is that you can allow your Miis to "travel" to other user's systems and go on parade.
Unfortunately we don't have a wireless internet connection at our house, so we're not yet able to have our Miis travel. Nor can we go online or download games. Speaking of which, if anyone can give me advice on setting up a wireless router, please let me know. I'm hoping it's not expensive.
What about the games? Well, we only have Wii Sports so far. We don't even have a second controller yet, although that's definitely high on our to-buy list. In fact, we're going to need three controllers, one for each of us.
Anyway, the sports were surprisingly fun. I say "surprisingly", because I don't really like sports all that much. But these were easy enough that I was able to do pretty well. And Sebastian knocked out two computerized boxers!
One thing that we all noticed was that the music was a little "Mario-ish" - or, more accurately, "Luigi-ish". It sounded very much like the non-scary music from Luigi's Scary Mansion, in fact. But that was okay.
The Wii has a fitness test which estimates your physical age. Apparently I'm 72. I'd feel worse, but Teri's mother scored in her 80s. :D
The Wii gives a good workout, incidentally - we were all surprised at how much exercising we did while playing.
So how do I like it? Well, after Teri and Sebastian went to sleep, I went back downstairs and played baseball, bowling, and tennis for at least half an hour. Does that answer your question? :D
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