Parents Go Whoa!

And now to the not so fun. Granted, this won't happen to everyone, but most people are aware that the exagerated movements of the controllers could get "out of hand" (heh... sorry ;))

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2183346

Scroll down a bit to get past their annoying nagware about registering and see the pictures and story about some guy who lost control of their Wiimote and the strap failed. In case the images are no longer being displayed (they were in the early morning (Nov-20) but not now in the late morning), this is a series of pictures showing a wide-screen, rear projection tv where the screen has been broken apparently by a wiimote in flight. They also show images of the wiimote in pieces and a strap with 2 frayed ends where the loop through the controller would have gone.

I have some doubts as to the validity of this, seeing as it hasn't happened to me yet ;), but one can see how this could happen if something really did break or the strap was not used at all. I'm sure if it ever does happen to me, then I'll be able to commiserate, but I just don't see how a brand new strap could fail like this. What kind of use (abuse?) did this strap take before it finally "broke"? Did the wiimote come out of his hands on every single swing? I also doubt that we have been told the entire story. In order for that strap, even as tiny as it is, to have failed like that, it would have had to endure an awful lot of repetitive strain, not just a single sweaty hand slip as implied.

I did a search for "Wii hand strap" and have found a few articles about strap failure. All the ones that I found were demo units and not production for launch units. I do not know if there have been modifications to the straps since some of the early demos.

I'm sure that Nintendo will be plagued by many claims like this, prompting them to redesign the strap. I think that they could make a fishing line core surrounded by a comfortable mesh rope that will be plenty strong for even those people that go out of their way to see how much it takes to break. Frankly, I could see the plastic notch that the strap loops through breaking before the cord does. Perhaps they should reinforce this as well.


Safe Gaming

Parents Go Wii

We've had the game in our house for just over 12 hours now, and it has been in use for maybe 6 of those hours (mostly by the boy). I have actually not really played anything on the game yet. I've only used the remotes for the setup stuff while getting it online with the internet, and getting it permanently connected to the home theater.

But, I must say that Nintendo really hit on something with these controllers. Parents are going to LOVE IT!!

I've sat here now for awhile watching my kids play the bundled game (Wii Sports) and the one extra game they bought (Monkey ball) and the one that the boy rented at BlockBuster (Call Of Duty 3). I believe he actually has bragging rights for being the first person to rent a Wii game at our store. Anyway, while watching them play these games, I believe that Nintendo has found a way to either get their game in every household that has people worried about their kids becoming couch potatoes, or has found a way to get all the other gaming systems to follow them.

The Wiimotes are awesome! You can try and sit down while playing these games, but you'll do much better when you stand and actually use your full body to wing these remote controllers around.

My daughter was practically giddy with delight as she was using these. She felt like she really had a connection to the action on the screen now. I think that she never really aquired that controller-hand-brain-eye link that many gamers get. She liked playing a couple of games, but never loved it. Now, she LOVES it! And I love watching that they are actually up, on their feet, using real body motions!

For instance, bowling (part of the WiiSports game bundle)... You actually stand and swing as if really throwing a bowling ball. You can walk and take an approach if you like, but the swinging action is plenty.

Doctors are going to LOVE this Wii thing too! Tennis - what a workout! Although you aren't running around a full size court, you are getting a decent cardio workout with this thing. My son is on the heavier side. True, he plays on games and computers a little more than I like, but he is actually a very active child. His eating habits are the biggest contributor to his size. As a second degree black belt in taekwondo (like his father), he gets plenty of excersize. But, after just a few minutes of playing tennis, he was winded!

While playing Call Of Duty, there are several activities that required so much arm motion that his arms got tired and he had to stop. Driving, for example, requires the hands held out in front and virtually steering. After 10 to 15 minutes of this, he had to stop because his arms ached.

Multiplayer mode is a different experience now too. It is not often that the two of them can play a game together, peacefully. Well, okay, it wasn't peaceful this time either, but the noise was laughter and joy instead of anguish and complaints. Because of the physical activity involved, they both reached a new level in gaming together and they had a blast! She kept saying over and over how much fun this was. She was much more open to playing different WiiSports games with him because now she feels like she has more of a chance. She can actually feel like she is really controlling the action now. Before, in multiplayer games with her brother, I think she only played as for having something to do, and as a favor to him. She didn't seem to get that much out of it herself. Now, she is really loving it.

I love seeing them play this thing. That is what inspired me the most to create this little blog about it. I want to share how wonderful I think this new way of playing games is. It drives me nuts to see kids sitting on the butts playing these things for hours where the only muscles being worked are in the hands. Now, they can get very physically involved with them.

A long time ago, I was playing some video game of golf or bowling or something. I tried to get my mom to play but she just couldn't see herself sitting on a couch using a joystick to pretend to swing the ball or the club. Now, I can totally imagine her using these wiimotes and enjoying it.

Well, now that the kids have been finally put to bed, I think it is time that I try my hand, er, uh... entire boy, at this thing.

Happy Gaming

Setting up the Wii

Based on the hundreds of blogs and forums and such out there on this game, it seems that Nintendo did a fine job of keeping many details secret, or only giving out just enough information to keep the rumors flying.

Info like what the controllers will work with, what titles will be available on launch day, what the Virtual Console games will be and what controllers will work with them, etc.

Well, after the boy arrived back home with his box, we set it up - just temporarily though. I wanted to take some time later to wire it into the home theater properly, but to keep him from hyperventillating, we set it up.

Setup is as easy as other games: give it power, plug the video cables in, etc. The Wii needs to have a sensor bar mounted on the TV. This helps the remote controllers do their job when aiming at the screen. But, thanks to the wireless controllers, you don't have to wire them up. The controllers, called Wiimotes because they look like a tv remote control, are the most unique thing about the Wii. I think Nintendo is going to revolutionize the gaming industry because of these controllers. More on that in my next article.

Now the bad news. If you are upgrading from the GameCube to the Wii, you can use the games in the Wii, but you MUST also use the GameCube controllers. The new Wii controllers will NOT work with the GameCube games. I hope that there will be a change in this in the future (maybe if more of us complain), but the ONLY controllers that will work with the GameCube games are the GameCube controllers. Not even the extra Classic Controllers that you can buy. Those are for the classic games that you can download from the Virtual Console area of the Wii Shopping.

Another thing about the GameCube games and the controllers is that the GameCube was designed to sit in the middle of the floor while the Wii is designed to sit next to your TV and to look nice next to your other equipment. When plugging in the GC controllers, you may find yourself a lot closer to the TV than before. And, if you have Dance Revolution, the cord for the pad might not even reach the Wii.

I'm surprised that a game coming out in today's age of electronics, and especially since it uses disks the same size as a CD/DVD, that the device can't play DVDs or CDs, and that it doesn't have an optical hookup, or anything other than component video/audio cables (yellow/white/red). Now, not that I would need to play CDs or DVDs on the game system, it would seem that this capability would be built in. Maybe it's one of the reasons that this system costs half of what the other recent ones do. But, even still, it would be nice to have an optical connection for my home theater receiver to go into for dolby digital mode. Sure, it goes into ProLogic mode, and the sound around the room is nice (we rented Call Of Duty 3 which is pretty active on all speakers), but I would think it would have come with a more up to date connection.

So, with the game setup temporarily, the boy was able to play some (and get way more use to the wiimotes than the rest of us) and the rest of us were able to get some peace. Later, when they had to be out for a few hours, I took the time to set it up permanently into the home theater equipment, and to get it online with the internet.

Nintendo was thinking way ahead by building wireless networking into this. If your house already has wireless networking and broadband internet, the Wii becomes very happy. I have my wireless system locked down so that you must know the name of the wireless router, and that the mac address of the network card must be manually entered in the router. To get this to work with the Wii, you have to go to Manual setup and type in the name that you assigned your router. I also had to turn off the security feature that makes it need a manually entered MAC address. This is because I could not find in any of the literature or the box or the game itself what the address of this system is. So, I did this temporarily so that I could see what the address is (as reported by my router software) and then turn the security back on and type the address in. Refer to your router for how to do any of this.

Once the internet was connected, the system performed an Update. I think it would be nice to know what the update gave you, but it doesn't tell you anywhere (not even in the messages section). But, other features became active once the system knew how to get on the internet. Two features that I didn't get to work yet was the News and the weather forecast chanels. Again, not that I need the Wii for these functions, but to not get it working bothers me. But, the Wii shopping chanel works.

While I write this, my daughter and wife are presently raving over how wonerful the new controllers feel and work. I've never heard my daughter go on and on so much about anything on a video game before. She has said no fewer than a dozen times, "I love this Wii!" and "This is so fun!". The reason for such accolades? Read my next artical.

Getting the Wii

My kids and I are not that big into all the gaming systems. My 14 year old son likes to think he is, and he would love to have all of the systems available, but his mother and I keep a tight reign on that. We've slowly introduced games into our household over the years. It was difficult when they were the only kids in their group that didn't have a gameboy or a home system.

I finally allowed one, with some strict rules, and things have been fine. Over the years I've had to give my approval for an endless list of games the boy wants to play. He's been understanding (mostly) when the answer has been no.

So, we progressed from the N64, to Gameboy Advanced, to Gamecube, and very recently the DS. We seem to only have Nintendo games. After much research, the Nintendo games seem more family friendly than the rest, and the titles are a little more acceptable to what I want my kids being a part of.

A few months ago, the boy got the jones for getting the Wii. He convinced his sister (12 years old) to share in the expense and their mother and I pitched in too. But, it meant selling the GameCube and some games and some controllers to be able to afford it all. With the plans set, they began their journey to getting the Wii.

The boy has some obsession issues, so we were cautious as we got closer to November 19th (2006) and the U.S. launch of the system. He seemed to be doing okay, until 2 days before when he started making plans for being in line on the 18th...

Whoa! Hold the phone! Who said anything about us waiting in line for this thing? I thought the plan was that we would buy it online and it would be here when it gets here - no hurry? Yeah, right. Obsession had hit critical mass suddenly. We had many conversations (and a few timeouts) about how we were going to get the system. He contacted the local stores that were expecting to be getting these and started to piece together how each one was doing their opening sales.

The stores got smart after the fiasco involved with the PS3 launch just a couple days before. There were actually reported cases of violence and tramplings in theh PS3 lines. The stores decided to initiate a ticket system in which the people in line would be given tickets that represented a system actually in the store. People without tickets knew that they could move on to another store or try some other method.

'Twas the night before launch, and all was not well... The stores couldn't give complete information about how many units they had or if they were doing tickets or where the lines would be formed. Calling each store several times was the way to go. Each different person that answered the phone seemed to have another piece of the puzzle.

So, we finally made some plans: One store in our area was a 24 hour store, the rest opened the next day. The 24 hours store, which would start selling them at midnight, had only 20 units and by 8pm, there were 20 or so people in line. Knowing that some of them were just hanging with a family member or friend and that not all 20 people were buying a system. But, by 9:30pm, there 50 people in line. I found it interesting that the stores were keeping tabs on how many people were in line. We decided that the midnight store was not our option any longer.

The 2nd plan was to go to BestBuy. But we convinced the boy that if we could get on online at Amazon.com, and have a garaunteed system being delivered to us, that we didn't have to go and try to wait in a line that might not get us a system. He wasn't terribly happy about it, but we told him that to have a garaunteed system was better than trying to wait in line and not get one AND not be able to buy it from Amazon too.

Well, we live in the Central time zone and Amazon is on Pacific time. We figured that if one of us got up at 2am to try and order the system, which they said they were definately selling on launch day, that we'd stand a good chance of getting one. Well, Amazon didn't have them for sale at midnight (their time). By 6am (Central), they still didn't have anything for sale. Their message boards were lit up with VERY angry people. So, the boy and the mother head out to the stores.

The plan was to go to BestBuy, which was going to open at 9am, because they were going to have from 38 to 78 of them. They drove past BestBuy and saw a good sized line. They found out that Target was opening at 8am, and that our closer WalMart (that was not a 24-hour one) would open at 7am. They drove past Target and didn't like the way the line looked, so they went to WalMart. The line there was much smaller, and out of the 30 units that they had, they were the 9th family to get put on some "list". Well, as it turned out, the guy keeping this list didn't even work for WalMart. Luckily, it was the guy that was first in line and he and the manager had discussed this and he was to make a list of the people as they got in line. This was nice as they could go and wait in their cars until opening. Later, the manager called out the names in order and issued them tickets.

They got the game at WalMart, but had to go to Target to get a couple more controllers. And, of course, they drove past the BestBuy line and showed off their box, gloating.