Okay...this is the updated entry. GO ME!

Got a wii.
Got a new apt.
Wii code is 1222 2364 7304 4610.


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So, here's what happened, kiddies.


Saturday I moved into the new apartment and got most of the big stuff moved over. I like the place well enough. It's fun to live right next to friends and have some places to go within walking distance. I am a little afraid I'm going to come home and find it broken into though, but I think I'm far enough away from the bad parts of Winter Park. There are a lot of creeks and the like as well, but I can get used to that.


Anywho. After the moving teh Chan and Jim called up and we did a little hanging-of-out. At around 1am or so I said I needed to go to Walmart to pick up a shower curtain and a copy of Fear (XBox 360) as a "I want a new game" present to myself. Chan was riding the sick train, so Jim and myself headed out to the place that neither of us are big fans of.

So we wandered around the game section where Jim had noticed a shiny white box--it was a Wii. Most of you already know my stance on the latest Nintendo platform, but there was only two systems left of a still hard-to-find console--and, well, I'm a gamer--so, I picked up a Wii. We later headed back to grab the second one for one of Chan's other friends, but that story is far less interesting since it doesn't center around ME enough.



Now I OWN a Wii and have spent some quality time with it and can stay that I stand by my feelings about the console. The vast majority of the games are ports and mini-game collections priced at full-game prices...where other titles are just versions of current-gen titles with some gimmic thrown in (I'm looking at YOU Zelda) that doesn't seem like it'll add enough to justify its purchase over, say, a 360 version that'll have online support and those lovely achievements we've grown addicted too. I'll grant that this is hopefully a temporary issue (in reference to game quality)--but until the quality of titles changes, my opinion still stands.

My overriding issue with the system, though, is just its poor interface design. Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to require the use of a 16 digit number to register yourself to others? Oh, and you have to have a separate number for every game you own....AND you can't send messages until you and your friend register each other first. You think remembering your ICQ number is annoying? Well imagine what it would be like if you had to have a different ICQ number for all of your friends and the both of you had to exchange the numbers via a different medium before you could even START to talk? Come on, Nintendo, it's called a user name and password--it's not that advanced!


And do I really have to sit there when I'm downloading something? It's nice that you have more interesting loading screens and all, but Mario collecting coins doesn't really tell me how long I have left! In fact, the first thing I downloaded I didn't even know what the fuck was going on!


My last grievance (okay, not really) is the backwards compatibility. Apartment when you're playing old school GameCube games, your Wii remote becomes useless. Want to use it to power off the system or go back to the Wii menu? TOO BAD! Get your ass up and turn it off...which shouldn't be an issue since the GameCube cords only go 3 feet...so you're probably at arms length anyway.

There's that OTHER wireless remote for the Wii, but it was explained to me that those only work for virtual console games, and not the GameCube titles. That means, to get the full Wii experience, you need the Wii remote ($40), a nunchuck add-on ($20), a virtual console remote add-on ($20), AND a original GameCube controller ($25). Oh, and some SD cards ($40+) and component cables ($30). I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure by this point you could have just bought a 360 for cheaper.



I DO like the Opera browser that you can CURRENTLY get for free (though I wouldn't PAY for it...not until it supported Flash 8 and 9). Zelda is fun (though the shaking the controller to attack is a little annoying and slowish to respond) and Paper Mario seems like it'll be fun once I get to play it some more.