Wii Sports

Much of my leisure time used to be spent playing computer games. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dales, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Civilization -- I played these games over and over. Repeatedly. Again and again.

I'd play it through once, pick a different character, and play it through again until I'd gone through all the character classes. And then I'd find a character trainer and start the entire process once more. Then I'd forget the trainer and try to complete the game without dieing. You get the point -- PC games were supreme and game consoles were for people with money to spare.

This continued until one day it finally sunk in that I had a couple unopened games sitting on my shelf, new games that had been sitting neglected for months. This pretty much finalized the end of my PC game playing days. I spent my leisure hours with other activities.

I'd heard of the Nintendo Wii when it was first released, but at the time I wasn't interested in console games, and my only thought was, Wii is such a stupid name.

Anywhoo, to cut this overly long preamble, after trying my brother's Wii during Christmas holidays I decided to get one myself. The graphics for Wii aren't as nice as other consoles like Playstation or XBox, but I think it's more fun. The Wii remote has motion sensors so its movements are included in the game. For example, to swing a sword or tennis racket you swing the remote. In baseball you swing the remote as if you were holding a bat. In boxing you punch the air while holding the remotes. It's pretty fun.

After much searching I finally found one (I can't believe Wii's are still backordered; how long is it since its launch!?). One of the best things about the Wii is that it comes with Wii Sports (Hurah! I've finally reached the reason for my post title!) -- it has tennis, baseball, golf, bowling, and boxing. My favourites are tennis, baseball, and golf.

There is one thing about tennis that annoys me. I find it very frustrating that I can win a match and still lose "skill points" (when your Mii, the player's avatar, reaches 1000 points the Mii earns "pro" status). Anywhoo, given this puzzling point system, I've been wavering back and forth, above and below the 1000 mark, despite winning all of my matches. Sometimes I swing my racket when I'm no where near the ball, just because. Does this action make me lose skill points? Annoying.