Wii are disappointed (sort of...)

Well, I finally made the jump and bought a Wii.

It was funny how it all happened, I was walking by the phone in my house and accidentally dialed the number for Gamestop.

They answered, "Hello. Yes we have Wii's in stock!"

I said, "How did you know I even wanted one?"

Gamestop dude said, "Because everyone wants a Wii!"
(He did that each time when speaking and it had the exclamation point too, very strange.)

Needless to say, I was forced out of the house by the kids and into the car. We drove for miles and miles and miles to the nearest Gamestop and 15 minutes later were walking in the store where we saw one of the most terrible sights. There, before us, was a customer with a Wii at the register!!

Panic of course set in immediately and I had to think and think fast. What was I going to do? We hurried ourselves to the end of the line and made like we didn't notice the Wii or the other customer. He complained a bit when I squished him up against the front of the counter and so I backed off having finally acknowledges his existence.

The we waited...

and waited...

Was anyone else coming in...no...thank goodness...

Whew, the guy in front of us finally left. It was our turn.

I asked, "Do you have any Wii's in stock?"

"No."

Gulp! What now.

Gamestop dude then said, "Unless you called earlier, did you call earlier?"

"Of course I did," as if anyone was going to answer that question any other way.

Well, we walked out with a Wii that day and took a few detours to pick up a copy of Wii Play with the extra remote. It was finally done. The console to end all consoles. The most wonderful thing ever devised by human hands. And it was ours!!! YES!

The sad part is that it was more exciting thinking about what the Wii might be than what, in reality, it actually is. Don't get me wrong, it really is very cool and the control scheme is revolutionary. However, they did everyone a major disservice including what I consider a substandard game and then botching the Wii Play product.

Of course, this is MY OWN opinion. My kids would tell you that it is a blast and so much fun. They can't stop thinking about it. That probably is all I should judge it on. The problem is, I know better.

Oddly, all my opinions of the product were based on what other people said and most of those people had Wii Sports and Wii Play. Some grandparents I heard were even addicted to the thing. Who knows, my own mother-in-law might be hooked like a drug to it at this very moment. I might even have to pry the controller out of her hands tonight. That said, I'm still not impressed and for reasons that will probably seem a bit too critical.

First, they have a built-in wireless interface on this thing and don't use it. Why don't any of the included games take advantage of this. For the first time in ages, we have a game bundled with a console. This is rarely done any more. Every Wii out there should be online and playing Wii Sports against the rest of the world. Millions of potential players would have been available on day one.

Even if I can forgive them for this, then they go and release Wii Play. A bunch of games that remind me a great deal of the Monkey Ball mini-games. None of them are spectacular but there are 10 games (I think) and they are fun to play in two player mode. Once again however, NO ONLINE PLAY!! What??? Why not? Surely by this time they had figured this thing out.

Sadly, if you look for multi-player online games there are almost none for the Wii. Maybe that'll change this Christmas Season but I doubt it. One can only hope.

Second, the Wii Play and Wii Sports could have done so much more. There were tons of opportunities to put in dozens of options to modify how these games could be played to spice things up and they did none of them. I really don't understand. Were they that lazy?

Third, if you look at the games that are available (I guess I should have done this first), the ratings for Wii games aren't really that great. Of course, you can never really tell what a game is like until you play it. The thing is, looking at the list of games, there aren't many out there that really work the controller scheme fully or even need it. Probably the closest thing a game taking advantage of the Wii control scheme is Metroid and I'm not much of a Metroid fan. Hopefully, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz will prove me wrong on this point. I don't have it yet but with a Wii control scheme virtually designed for this type of game and with 50 mini-games, it can't be all that bad.

I'm crossing my fingers all this will change and either Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, or the iFit will prove me wrong. The iFit really has the potential to take things up a notch and I like what I see in SMG. Only time will tell.

One thing, in Nintendo's defense, is that it took Microsoft about two years to get XBox Live games where the needed to be on the 360. Just look at what the developers are going to do with Need for Speed ProStreet. I'm sure it'll take about that long for the Wii to show its true potential. I'm just disappointed that they are wasting their super powers (wireless connection) on things like Weather and News and of course, the online poll which has a question a week (why is this?) and that's it.

Am I missing something here? Please tell me Nintendo is really going to pull out all the stops and soon. Tell me I didn't make a mistake. Tell me I just bought about 2 months too soon. (I actually would have waited but who knows if I could have actually gotten a Wii once the holiday season starts in earnest.)