Neither do I, that's why it's going to be a great time coming up. The DS and Wii are bringing new things to the table and the e-penis battle between Sony and Microsoft is going to lead to some pretty bad-ass "traditional" games. It's a win-win situation if you ask me!

I have always liked the Nintendo franchise and the ability to play the old games on this new system was a bonus.

I don't have a problem with it either. I have my 360 for those games. I'm ready for something new, even moreso after getting a DS. I trust Nintendo.

However, people talking about how small their rooms are for playing a wii got me wondering about my room. I had to double check to make sure I could serve a tennis ball and not hit the ceiling. It's all good.

I did read IGN's hands on take using Madden '07. They claim there's not much motion involved in making all the moves, etc. That makes me feel better. I'm sure on 11/19, I'll be searching for a system. The Wii shouldn't be as hard to find as the PS3, but is this still a system that requires a preorder to get one? Or will the retailers be well stocked?

I don't think this was covered yet:

Epyx to bring C64 games to the Virtual Console

They weren't my favorite publisher of Commodore games, but I'm glad to see them hitting the VC anyway. Hopefully the price will be reasonable.

From The Magic Box:
Agreed that Epyx wasn't the best C64 publisher, but these games are great! I never could finish Impossible Mission (could anyone?).

I hate to point to the title as an indicator that perhaps it wasn't... well possible to finish the mission.

Oh yeah. I didn't really mean that as an insult - I just meant that there are a few others I'd like to see join in as well. Even some of the other biggies, like EA, Interplay, etc.

I've definitely spent a few hundred hours playing the Summer/Winter Games series. And I have finished Impossible Mission. I took tons of practice (and hearing the scream of my character plunging off a ledge a few hundred times).

Stay a while... Stay FOREVER!!!

Cool. Summer games was great but I'd love to see Spluenker and the original Castle Wolfenstein.

I only had two games on our C64 - Forbidden Forest (the cassette version - gotta love the tape drive!) and Slinky, a funny Q*bert ripoff.

I'd love to play both of those games again.

I don't think Sony and MS are doing me any favors - they take a loss not because they want to make it affordable for me, but because they know they can't get away with selling it for a profit.

And "affordable" for them is still nearly twice as much as what the Wii will cost, so I really don't care if Nintendo doesn't take a loss on each console. It's STILL hundreds cheaper than the competition, which is all I'm really looking at here.

Time will tell, but with a million at launch I'm pretty confident anyone that heads to the store say 30 minutes before opening sunday morning will be able to get one.

Pre-ordering is always a safer bet, assuming you get a low spot in line. I have a $160 in GS credit, so I'm going to preorder there both to use it and to not have to worry about finding one if my assumption is wrong.

To a degree, yes. Watch the 9/15 episode of the 1up show. The Wiisports games involved a lot of big swings and the guy playing zelda as swinging the Wiimote around quite a bit (which I though looked a bit tiring), and the guy playing Rayman got tired during one minigame where you were shooting juice at rabbits by aiming the wiimote and pumping the nunchuck up and down.

These weren't to the extreme of the promo videos, but some of the game do involve a lot of arm movement.

I don't view that as a negative, and can't wait to try it out personally! But it isn't wrong for some to be concerned abou it if it is something that doesn't appeal to them.

BUT... is that because the game requires such animated motions or is it because your first initial response to the controller is wild motions? I believe it is the latter.

Regardless, I'll never forget how tiresome the first Mario Party was with it's circular analog games. It was still a blast and still the best MP to date.

I'd agree for zelda. But with Wii sports they had people showing them how to play and those people were showing them to use the big motions (i.e. to use the real life bowling motion).

With Rayman I think part of the fatigue was playing stand up as you then have to hold your arm out to aim. If you played sitting down you could rest your elbow on your lap and solve that problem. The pumping with the nunchuck park will probably be tiring either way though.

But I agree with the Mario Party parallel, like I said it sounds fun to me!

I used to use the palm of my hand to rotate the analog stick in those games. I actually ended up ripping off about 4 square inches of skin off my hand and it wrapped around the stick. Then I had to explain to everyone in my classes why my palm was bandaged up. You can imagine what they assumed. It was not my finest moment and I don't think I've played MP since.

Ouch!!

Guess I'm glad I've never got into the MP games.

I think there are a lot of people out there that this happened to. I am one of them but I still continued to play MP.

Well, in my case I was about to graduate college and my wife and I moved away. Didn't really have anyone to make it a Party. So it is largely coincidental that I stopped playing after that incident.

Yep. Same here. Tore your palm to smithereens. If one person used that method everyone would have to because you didn't stand a chance against the palm method.

Coincidentally all those games were the favorites among my group of friends, especially the 4 player ones. The fishing for treasure game was tops. The Tug of War was an absolute bitch. It would feel like that timer would never reach zero. We still loved it though.

This is a pretty cool read:

http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/samiljan/13

Hands-on with Nintendo Wii

Mon Sep 18, 2006 12:06PM EDT



Nintendo of America recently unveiled the essential details on its goofily-named next-generation Wii (pronounced "We").The console will be available November 19th in the U.S., with a price tag of $249. This includes two controllers (the wireless Wii remote and the wired Nunchuck), and the five-in-one Wii Sports title. The Company also unveiled Wii Channels (essentially, the system's interface, which also incorporates some cool entertainment features) and two other first-party titles available at launch (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Excite Truck). At the launch in New York last week, I was able to get a few hours of hands-on time with previously unseen game levels, new titles, and, of course, the hardware.

What I liked

Innovative controllers: What seemed goofy at first turns out to be pretty ingenious. In the Wii Sports Boxing game, for example, you use the Nunchuk and the Wireless Controller (one in each hand) to punch at the screen, making the whole experience more realistic. It's also nifty in a game like Zelda, where the Nunchuk in the left hand moves the character around, while the Controller in the right serves as a sword controller.

Pick up and play: Many of the Wii titles on display were of the no-previous-experience-necessary puzzle (Wario Ware:Smooth Moves, Big Brain Academy) variety. And the motions you make using the controllers on Wii Sports so mimic the actual sports (you literally swing the controller like a tennis racket) that even "uncoordinated" types who have grade-school-gym-class-enforced familiarity with, say, baseball, would be able to pick up and play. Even well-established franchises such as Madden NFL 07 offer user-friendly tutorials for the uninitiated. Lapsed gamers intimidated by complicated Xbox 360 controllers may flock to the Wii.

Cool interface: I liked the Wii Channels, particularly the appropriately named Mii Channel that lets you create a cartoonish avatar of yourself. Like a version of you if you were a Gorillaz band member, this character can then be inserted into any number of games, including Wii Sports and Wario Ware. With more than six pages of facial hair (two alone for eyebrows) and other physical attributes, this feature is a personalization freak's dream.


What I didn't like

HD or not HD: I couldn't find anyone at Nintendo to give me a straight answer on whether games would be in 480p (same quality as DVDs) or 720p (HD-quality). The component video output—there's no state-of-the-art HDMI—indicates it could go either way. 480p would be nice to view pictures and videos stored on an SD card (which is what is offered on the Wii Photo Channel). And though games might look nice on a TV up to, say 50 inches, Wii titles might suffer if projected onto a wall in 100 inches or on a fat 65-inch rear-projection set.

Thin launch lineup: Nintendo announced more than 40 first- and third-party titles due out by March 31st, but it was not specific about exactly how many titles would be out at launch. If it's games you want, you're better off with an Xbox 360.

Boy, do my arms hurt: Whether "casting" a fishing rod to catch virtual bass in Zelda or tossing a bowling ball in Wii Sports, I nearly dislocated my shoulder using the wireless controller. Shoulder pain may be the gamers' new carpal tunnel syndrome as far as Wii's motion-based gameplay is concerned.

Bottom Line (for now)

At $250, the Wii isn't cheap, but it's still a bargain compared to the $599 PlayStation 3 and the $399 Xbox 360 Premium system. And unlike Sony, which is only making 400,000 PS3s available at launch, Nintendo says it will ship four million Wii units by December 31st. So it's likely you'll actually be able to get one. But it's also likely that you'll be just as able to get an Xbox 360 with its more than 100 available titles by year's end. For now, only one thing's for sure: Until Sony gives us a compelling reason to buy the PS3 beyond it being an incredibly affordable Blu-ray disc player, either of these other choices is a winner.

Some tech guy from Yahoo has a mini review of the system up: http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/samiljan/13

Outscooped by a minute!

I win!