Customer Reviews
My new Wii - By: Mr. G. Bottomley, 14 Jul 2008 
Have just got my nitendo Wii & its great fun & really easy to set up,Wii sports is v good but would advise buying a second controller to make it that much more fun.Will need to buy some more games though asap.
Best thing since electricity! - By: S. Vaughan, 09 Jul 2008 I'm really not a console gamer at all,in fact this is my first console! I was thrilled by the thought of playing tennisin my own home. I have had the Wii for nearly 5 months now & am still absolutely hooked. I would recommend getting some rechargeable batteries as if one if playing every day (as one is bound to do) then you'll need them!
It's fabulous for all ages really - my parents are now hooked too!
It's a must-buy gadget!
I hope it catches on... - By: Spuddy Spud, 07 Jul 2008 Let's compare the Wii to games on other next gen consoles first. Now don't get me wrong, GTA-SA (not seen GTA 4 yet), the Halo & Half Life series, to name but a few, are some of the finest games ever made. But you can't have a QUICK game of any of them because each stage of the campaign might take up to an hour to complete. Playing them requires a dogged mindset, which can feel like having to tackle a sinkful of dishes when you only want a clean cup for a quick brew. A lot of modern games have the depth, complexity & epic scope of Wagner's Ring Cycle, but there are times when all you want is a three-minute pop song. You get the picture. The Wii fills this forgotten gapin the market admirably.
The ethos of old-skool video gaming lives onin the Wii. Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Wii Play, Super Smash Brothers Brawl & even Link's Crossbow Training are masterful, being simple pick-up-and-play games where the emphasis is on a mainlined injection of fun & action rather than the drawn-out, drip-fed satisfaction of strategy & exploration. Wii Sports, which comes with the console, is utterly brilliant. It's a killer app, nothing like it exists (or has EVER existed) on any console, & it's a perfect multi-player game.
The Wii is undoubtedly less technically sophisticated than the 360 or PS3. The Wii does not raise the barin terms of technical umph, but rather limbos under itin a floral shirt, shaking the remote & nunchuck controllers like a pair of maracas. The Wii is primarily about simple, & often mindless, fun, & there's nothing wrong with that. While the Wii may only nibble numbers while the other consoles crunch them to dust, it is still no technical slouch. The graphics & sound are about as good or slightly better than the old Xbox, & much better than the PS2. Campaigning gamers are still catered for with the likes of Metroid Prime Corruption & The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, although the console comes into its own on simpler fare, particularly Super Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart, & Super Mario Galaxy, which is another killer app for the Wii. I would never have believed that the tired old platform format could be given... well, not even a face lift, more like a brain transplant. The technology might not raise the bar, but the gameplay on all these titles certainly does. I've been playing home video games since the days of the Atari 2600 (yes I am an old git), & these are some of the best games on any platform... ever! Mind you, all the games I've mentioned here are Nintendo originals, & not all developers lavish their games with the amount of attention & warmth that Nintendo do. I'll return to that subject later.
As any fule no by now, the unique feature of the Wii is the controllers. They are packed with more clever gadgets than Q's Christmas stocking. They contain speakers which play sound effects, usually to give hints or warnings on some games. With the remote connected to a nunchuck, you have one analogue thumbstick (on the nunchuck), one d-pad (on the remote), & four main buttons, two on each controller. The role of the right-hand thumbstick on traditional controllers is assumed by the sensor bar which you place above or below the TV screen, & the infra-red receiver at the front of the remote. The sensor bar is not aptly named, since it does not actually 'sense' anything, it merely emits two points of infra-red, & the remote cleverly converts it into three-dimensional co-ordinates for your on-screen pointer. That's right, I said THREE dimensional co-ordinates: some games require you to push & pull the remotein & out of the screen like a snooker cue. You can apparently mimic the action of the sensor bar by placing a couple of tea-lights on your telly because they also emit some low-level IR radiation. I don't know if this is true, & I'm not inclined to find out because I don't particularly want to set my house on fire.
As Prince William recently demonstrated on national television, gawd bless 'im (he was on the news playing Wii Sports tennis, I don't know what the story was), the controllers also have motion detectors to recognise when you are tilting or shaking them. This means that most games have you pretending that the controllers are bats, racquets, fishing rods, lassos, hammers, swords, guns & heaven knows what else. You might look a pillock if the neighbours see you through the window, waving your arms around, smashing the light fittings & giving yourself tennis elbow, but it doesn't half add to the fun of playing. The Wii's clever control system makes its games feel distinctively different, not to mention more tempting to people who would never normally show any interestin playing video games, like maybe Prince William. It also means that the Wii lends itself to 'lifestyle applications' like Wii Fitin ways that the other consoles do not. Motion detection & infra-red sensors are far from new technology, but the way Nintendo have incorporated them into the Wii is a genuine innovation, & one which I'm sure had the boffins at Microsoft & Sony slapping their foreheads & asking why they didn't think of it. I'll bet all my saved game files that they will do something similar on their next generation of consoles. Unfortunately, the controllers run on batteries & there is no 'corded' option to run or recharge them off the console's power supply. Given that cheap & reliable rechargeable power packs are putin everything nowadays from toothbrushes to fence-paint sprayers, & most companies are trying to enhance their green credentials, it's a bit thoughtless of Nintendo not to have done the same with their controllers.
If you like a bit of funin addition to 'serious' gaming, you should get a Wii to sit alongside your 360 or PS3. If you are notin the least bit interestedin video games normally, then this is definitely the console you should buy. The games I've mentioned here will keep you going for ages... but it's a good job that they will, because there are also some problems with games for the Wii, as I mentioned earlier.
Third-party game developers do not seem to take the Wii seriously. There are far too many cutesy novelty titles, which all too often are collections of substandard mini-games that have you wobbling the controllers around just for the sake of it. The very worst offender here is Sonic & Mario at the Olympics. My Amazon review has been slated & given umpteen `not helpful' ratings, but I stand by my opinion - it's a high-gloss, polished turd of a game, & ludicrously overpriced. There are others that sink to similar depths of gameplay, but this one was the most overhyped. After that, check out the revolving racks of your supermarket for the glittering array of shovelware on offer - all of it so stinky that not even a dog would sniff it. Then, check out the `hot new releases' section of Amazon for the Wii, or just wander into your local game stockist & look at the Wii racks. Depressing, isn't it? True, some developers (Konami with PES 2008, Capcom with RE4) have taken their games & given them a revolutionary twist for the Wii - but they're about the only examples I can think of.
Bottom line, the Wii is capable of great things, & some of the games available for it are truly modern-day classics. But the third-party games market for the Wii is a pretty barren landscape at the moment, & without them I'm not sure how much patience we Wii owners will have with the trickle of good new games that come out, particularly now that Nintendo have surely squeezed the Mario franchise dry. I hope, with its squillions of sales, that the Wii catches on!
What an amazing console! - By: Electricliz, 06 Jul 2008 Nintendo have really excelled themselves this time. The controllers they have for the Wii are unlike any of the other consoles out there. The range of games out there makes it so everyone has something they like & its for all ages. The Wii is at an affordable price unlike some consoles I could mention plus you get a free game included.
Wii Sports is a fun game that any age can play & with more controllers the more fun you can have. I have had my Wii for awhile now but still play this game now because it never gets boring.
Not terrible... - By: James, 03 Jul 2008 
Ok, first of all, i will try & deter the wii fanboys here from dismissing my review as 'bias'. I have owned a nintendo wii since launch day & have always liked nintendo's products. However although i was pleased with the wii for a small amount of time, for months now it has been gathering dust under my tv.
First the games. Nintendo does it everytime. The exclusives are very hyped & some of them rightly so. I thoroughly enjoyed Zelda until the wolf levels bored me & Mario Kart wii is always fun with friends. Metroid is good because of the controls but lack of variation lets it down as the weapons & enemies become repetitive. Then probably the wii game with the most amount of hype, Super smash bros brawl. I only just got it & it actually made me write this. It is so much fun-with friends. I may not be into it enough but the controls layout & gameplay seem so boring to me that i just cannot bring myself to play it on my own. I have also purchased many retro games & these also entertain for a while but can not make up for the huge disapointment that is third party games, resident evil is awesome, fair enough, but so many other games are pitiful, house of the dead? And so many are just too childish-boom blow & zack & wiki for example. Super mario galaxy is also passable but not awesome like everyone is trying to make out.
But the worst thing about this console just so happens to be the thing that nintendo are selling it on. The controller. Yes it is fun on wii sports for about 10 minutes but after a while you just want a classic analog controller back. I mean they can get away with building a last gen console with ps2 graphics & terrible online but when the core idea of the console is faulted then it is never going to be that good.
Sorry geraint richards & t clarke but it is just not that good
