December 31st, 2006

Well the [Wii](http://wii.nintendo.com/) was certainly a hit over xmas. Pretty much everyone who visited had a go, even those who who would never play a video game in their lives. WiiSports is the reason it is so popular. Tennis seems to be the most played game, followed closely by bowling. boxing and golf would come in next with baseball coming in at the ‘least popular’ position.

Boxing has really grown on me. It seems there is more to it then just randomly swinging the controllers as fast as you can (even though this strategy seems to work ok, up until around 400-500 skill level). I only recently got to pro status (> 1000 skill) in boxing and it seems to just get better and better. The higher you go, the more you have to defend and dodge and time your punches. It’s a lot of fun. I’m currently stuck on the ‘Matt’ computer opponent around 1600 skill level. No matter what I do, he seems to always do some insane combo which knocks me senseless. More research needed I think.

Through all the fun there has been a few incidents:

1 broken controller – mum playing tennis, running across the room and swinging into the wall. Motion sensor wouldn’t work. Could still point and click buttons, but no tilt sensing.

1 scratched controller – dad, tennis, swing and hit the light above his head.

1 house light fuse – same incident as above, hitting the light blew the fuse for some reason.

Overall it has been a lot of fun. [Nintendo](http://www.nintendo.com/) have done well with this system, bringing computer gaming to the masses.