Nintendo Wii

A friend of the family gave our daughter a Wii for her fourth birthday. It's a good gift, since we already had a GameCube, and the old GameCube games will play in the Wii. The first thing I did was go out and purchase another remote with nunchuk for two players.

Our Wii connects to our wireless router we use for our computers here at home. Many of the Wii games can connect online, and you can play head to head with folk all over the world. I like the WiFi games better than playing against the computer. The computer always kicks my butt, however when I am playing against other humans, I feel that the games are more fun.

Because the Wii is connected on line to the Nintendo Shopping Network, it's easy to download any old game you miss from past systems, NES, Nintendo 64, and so on. I also like the new Wii games that are download only. All done with a credit card number over the Wii. For as little as $5 you can have one of your old favorite games on your Wii. Nifty.

If my kid was older, I'd have other game systems, but for now she is too young for pretty much every game out there except a few, which I'll review separately. I love any game with Mario, Yoshi, or Kirby in it, so for young kids, Nintendo is the way to go.

So far the Wii has been very entertaining. Wii Fit, We Cheer, and Super Mario Galaxy are the big hits here. The Nintendo Wii does a lot more than I expected. The on line feature blows my mind. I downloaded the Internet Channel, and now my kid can surf some of her favorite on line sites, watch flash animation, right on TV via the Wii.

At first I was afraid that the Wii was a gimmick, but it turns out that it's innovation. When you attempt to ski for the first time using the Wii Fit, you too will be amazed. It's an amazing new way to play and game.