Buying a Wii. Need advice!

Madden '10 comes out on 8/14.

...drool...

Sorry to preach but six is too young to put in front of a television IMO.

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an hour of playing a game on the WII is alot better than watching a mindless movie while we make dinner or mow the lawn.
Plus the WII devops hand/eye coordination, and actually gets your kids rear out of the sofa and active.


Ooh, played Tiger10 last night, it was awesome! I didn't have time to do more than the tutorials, but I REALLY enjoyed it. Hopefully i can play a full 18 tonight and get some practce in... the online tournaments are a great idea~!

I've got a Wii with two controllers and a handful of games I would be willing to part with. Oh, and a Wii Fit that got used maybe three times.

Just don't dig the Wii.

what games?

The Wii is very easy to waste money on. Nintendo has little to no quality regulation for third party game developers. If the game isn;t developed by Nintendo themselves, it will most likely be abysmal (maybe not by 6 year old standards, though.) My personal favorite Wii games: Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii, No More Heroes, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Your kid might dig Mario Party 8 (and you could play it as a family - it's a board game style thing.)

that why it's all about CoD4 and Xbox 360

r3dn3ckstyl3z said:

that why it's all about CoD4 and PS3

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Went ahead and fixed that for ya.

In terms of FPS games like CoD4, I'm a fan of the PC versions. Maybe I'm just used to the controls.

I was too lazy to read this whole thread so I will just post my recomendations.

2-4 controllers with a nunchuck for each
2-4 gamecube controllers (wavebirds are awesome)
at least one classic controller (if you plan on using the virtual console)

games:
Super smash bros brawl
wii play (comes with a remote and a few of the games are fun)
Mario Kart
Super Mario Bros (nes version on the virtual console)

you may want to rent the rayman raving rabbids games (they are fun but can be completed easily in a day or two)

I really didn't like the zelda game, But I have never been a zelda fan.

I prefer the puzzle/party game stuff on the wii (I have my pc for FPS and the like) and almost never play it by myself.

greencoat said:

The Wii is very easy to waste money on. Nintendo has little to no quality regulation for third party game developers. If the game isn;t developed by Nintendo themselves, it will most likely be abysmal (maybe not by 6 year old standards, though.) My personal favorite Wii games: Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii, No More Heroes, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Your kid might dig Mario Party 8 (and you could play it as a family - it's a board game style thing.)

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Don't know that I'd agree with this at all. 14 of the top 20 all-time ranked Wii games are 3rd party. Tiger Woods? Resident Evil? Zack & Wiki? Boom Blox? Guitar Hero?

I have to say that if I didn't have a SWMBO and 3 kids I would be pointing at the Wii and crying 'Fey!'. However, it's the most family-friendly gaming system on the market. I would suggest you get the basic console and two remotes, and maybe mario cart and Wii Play to start. It's a good time. We just got the balance board and it's a hit around here. The bat and racket and little steering wheel are silly and don't really do much. The next game I get is the new punch-out.
You can also play mario cart online with your married friends. Super cool.

FireBrewer said:

In terms of FPS games like CoD4, I'm a fan of the PC versions. Maybe I'm just used to the controls.

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agreed. i haven't seen a fps or rts console game that a pc doesn't do better.

uglygoat said:

agreed. i haven't seen a fps or rts console game that a pc doesn't do better.

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+1 If the consoles had KBM controls, they would compete. The joypad controls simply cannot move as fast or precise.

Wintermute said:

I have to say that if I didn't have a SWMBO and 3 kids I would be pointing at the Wii and crying 'Fey!'. However, it's the most family-friendly gaming system on the market. I would suggest you get the basic console and two remotes, and maybe mario cart and Wii Play to start. It's a good time. We just got the balance board and it's a hit around here. The bat and racket and little steering wheel are silly and don't really do much. The next game I get is the new punch-out.
You can also play mario cart online with your married friends. Super cool.

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I would agree that the racket and bat are probably worhtless. But, from a comfrot level, I HATE playing Mario Kart without the wheel. And don't buy the cheap ones. I did and then bought a standard to replace it. The wii-mote kept popping out of the cheap one.
MarioKart online with married friends is a +

Homercidal said:

Unfortunately, a recent update to the Wii has so far been able to prevent the homebrew from working once again. I suppose a mod chip is possible, but the ability to simply load some data and run homebrew apps from an SD card seems to have been defeat for who knows how long.

I did not do homebrew and recently ran an update. When it came back and showed the change to the SD channel, I was a bit disappointed. I figured it would be some sort of way to block homebrew software. Turns out I was right. I don't know if there is a way to backrev the OS on the Wii. I think that if you were able to install a Homebrew channel before the update runs, you might be ok.

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Well, unless this just happened then its already been hacked to my knowledge. Supposedly 4.1 (Japan release) still works with homebrew. 4.0 for the NTSC/USA Wii's have been hacked for awhile.

jkarp said:

Don't know that I'd agree with this at all. 14 of the top 20 all-time ranked Wii games are 3rd party. Tiger Woods? Resident Evil? Zack & Wiki? Boom Blox? Guitar Hero?

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While that may be true, the ratio of good third party to crappy is ridiculous.



If I ever see another "Petz" game I'll hang myself with a Nunchuck.

mario party.

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I was just playing mario party, I was doing the soda shaking contest. I was thinking to myself: "This is a kid's game, huh?"

On that note, the one thing that bugs me about mario kart wii a little is how the weapons can work. You can be in 1st place, get hit by that blue shell, the right as you land get bolted and hit by a red shell. Sorta sucks to go from first to last that fast.

My 8yo loves the Wii. I would recommend Boom Blox - great game, fun family game. Also makes the kids think a little bit. I am a fan of the Medal of Honor games but I save those until the kids have gone to bed. Another vote for Mario Kart as well. SWMBO likes the Wii Fit and the Balance Board.

harrydrez said:

I was just playing mario party, I was doing the soda shaking contest. I was thinking to myself: "This is a kid's game, huh?"

On that note, the one thing that bugs me about mario kart wii a little is how the weapons can work. You can be in 1st place, get hit by that blue shell, the right as you land get bolted and hit by a red shell. Sorta sucks to go from first to last that fast.

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This is where strategy comes in. The Blue Shell can be avoided but must be planned for in advance.
You'll need a mushroom (red or gold). Once the blue shell gets above your head and makes it's turn to come straight down on you, use the mushroom and blast out from underneath it. It's heat seaking-ness stops once it make that 90° turn down toward you. Unfortunately, it seems that once you're in first place, you ONLY get bananas from blocks. SO you need to have a mushroom stored for when you hit first place.

Yeah, I hacked mine the other day after all. Still not perfect, but possible. Takes a bit of reading and screwing around with. But kind of nice once it's done. Now I am getting read errors on my backups. Need to try a different DVD brand.

IrregularPulse said:

This is where strategy comes in. The Blue Shell can be avoided but must be planned for in advance.
You'll need a mushroom (red or gold). Once the blue shell gets above your head and makes it's turn to come straight down on you, use the mushroom and blast out from underneath it. It's heat seaking-ness stops once it make that 90° turn down toward you. Unfortunately, it seems that once you're in first place, you ONLY get bananas from blocks. SO you need to have a mushroom stored for when you hit first place.

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+1 The AI in that game is relentless, too. Mario Kart DS was easy as hell, but the Wii's is out of hand. Almost as bad a Mario Kart 64 (racers magically vanishing from the back of the race, then spawning right behind you.)

IrregularPulse said:

This is where strategy comes in. The Blue Shell can be avoided but must be planned for in advance.
You'll need a mushroom (red or gold). Once the blue shell gets above your head and makes it's turn to come straight down on you, use the mushroom and blast out from underneath it. It's heat seaking-ness stops once it make that 90° turn down toward you. Unfortunately, it seems that once you're in first place, you ONLY get bananas from blocks. SO you need to have a mushroom stored for when you hit first place.

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I prefer to keep bananas when i am in the lead, you can use them to block incoming red and green shells. the shield of circling shells is the ebst when in the elad tho.

Arkador said:

I prefer to keep bananas when i am in the lead, you can use them to block incoming red and green shells. the shield of circling shells is the ebst when in the elad tho.

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Right but they're useless against the dreaded Blue Shell!

can we all repost MarioKart numbers in this thread? There was another thread where like 3 people did, but none of those 3 people have ever been on and it's so much more playing against people you "know".
Mine is 4339-5467-8314
Yes I'm a nerd and have it stored as a contact in my phone. You never know when you'll meet a fellow Mario karter!