Nintendo Wii: educational and ok for family?

[brewerjamie15]

I can not find the old Nintendo Wii thread through the search feature so I'm gonna fire up this one.

 

With Christmas coming up, I'm thinking about asking my mom (yes, I still get gifts from my mommy) for a Nintendo wii for my family. I think it may be fun for us and create more family time. It's me, my wife, and our daughter Rachel (age 5).

The last game system I had was an N-64 and even then, I only played one or two games. I never got into pressing a million buttons to create action and quite frankly, I'm not going to do it now either.

I'm hoping to have some fun games for all of us to play together and maybe even use the system as an educational tool for Rachel.

 

What do you think? Good idea or is that not very realistic with the Nintendo Wii? Are there any other ideas as far as games go?

[Invader3K]

Yeah, the Wii is great. If you're not that into video games but want something fun you can sit down and play for maybe an hour or two at a time without learning a bunch of strategies, the Wii is fun. It's one of those things where most people can sit down and start playing right away...since if you can use a TV remote, you can pretty much use the Wiimote controller. Most of the multiplayer games are fun, and easy for a group of people to play without going over a bunch of rules, etc. On the downside, you'll spend a small fortune on the extra controllers, Wii nunchuck add-ons, etc.

 

I don't know about educational games (don't have any kids myself), but I'm sure they are out there. If you go to a site like wii.ign.com, they pretty much have a rundown of all the games available under each category.

[nate82]

Some good family fun would be Mario Kart and here is a list of all of the games available for the Wii.

[JJHardy7]

What do you think? Good idea or is that not very realistic with the Nintendo Wii? Are there any other ideas as far as games go?

 

The latest round of EA Sports games (maybe others? I don't know I've only had a Wii for a few months) have something called 'All-Play'. You literally can turn the system on and play Tiger Woods golf (the game I have) and be pretty good right away. My wife never touched the game and was able to play competitive against me thanks to all-play. It makes it a lot more fun IMO to play with other people.

[Fatter than Joey]

My kids love it -- and it definitely gives our family something to do when we have no plans, and it is crappy outside.

 

The games for Wii are much more "little kid friendly" than the other formats.

 

You guys will have a blast.

 

I vote yes.

[Point Beer Is Best]

I vote yes also. Like JJ mentioned, the "All-Play" is pretty neat. My wife and I can have a decently competitive game of Madden now. If you're looking for educational, there are a few games like Wii Music, where you can play various instruments and have tons of "games" that teach kids about basic music terminology, and the "Lego" series of video games are pretty good as well.

[nodakfan17]

I vote yes ... and for what its worth, I have not owned a video game console since Super Nintendo. My girlfriend and I play our Wii for an hour or two every weekend (we're in grad school so its a great stress reliever and a cheap date).

Jamie- be sure to check out the Wii balance board. There are a few skiing / snowboarding games where you actually have to manuever you're way down a mountain on the board. I think that it would be a lot of fun for your family to play together.

[craig712]

My technology challenged dad loves the Wii. Also, the nieces are able to play even at age 3. It's very easy to learn! Awesome fun!

[Bikeage77]

Jamie, wii is great. Wii sports is very easy for everyone to enjoy and do alright at. As far as educational games, there are some out there worth checking out. Possibly rent it first, but Big Brain Academy I've heard is great. Without playing it, I can't tell you the age range they're looking for. I know Brain Age for the DS was very easy for even 5 year olds to do with games on simple math, or word remembering. I'm guessing the two are very similar.

 

Also, Wii fit is great if you can make time to do it enough. I try to use that once or twice a week, lots of easy exercises to keep in shape. I belive it was 80 or 90 when I got it. Worth it.

[Blancofan1]

If you want to try out some Wii games or at least check out some info on it there is a Wii Experience area in Mayfair mall. They don't actually sell anything there I don't think, but they have about ten TV's and game systems set up for anyone to try out and play some of the games. I think it's mostly just trying to get extra publicity for the Wii before the holiday season, but it looks to be a pretty fun way to try things out.

[brewerjamie15]

I talked to my mom about the Wii idea. She said it sounded great, and my brother apparently has one and loves it. I believe she'll get it for me and use my Best Buy club card which is now also hooked up for the video game club. I guess you get around 10 bones for every 150 you spend on video games.

Too bad I won't get my hands on it until Christmas.

 

It also seems to me from going to Best Buy today and researching the Wii, I will probably need those nun-chuck things. Any other big time needed accessories? Thanks for all the help you guys.

[Fatter than Joey]

you will def. need the nun-chucks... I'd invest in a charger as well.

[Barbs4339]

I wouldn't worry about the charger. I just put in some new cheap batteries every couple of weeks and that does the trick. The Wii has been awesome since I got it for my 6 year old last Christmas. We play it together almost every day for a least a little while on a lot on the weekends. We can play games together like the all the Lego one's, the Simpson, and currently Spiderman. To me, the Wii is just a lot of fun and easy for kids and females that are not usually into video games. Also, I highly recommend getting a blockbuster mail subscription. Included in that is one free movie or game rental per month. We basically rent a new game for free every 2 weeks and play it until we get through it, usually about 2 weeks later. All you pay is a $1.25 restocking fee.

[cooprules]

Can you get games via mail with Blockbuster? Or just using the in-store coupons. Looking for a company that does games AND movies via mail. We currently have Netflix and like it.

[logan82]

Get either a charger or rechargeable batteries. The Wiimotes eat up batteries at a very high rate. Much faster than either the Xbox or Playstation controllers. Component cable if your TV can handle 480p.

[Brian the Automator]

I agree with Barbs4339 about renting games.... I've found that there are a lot of Wii games that are really fun at first, but aren't really worth owning. The games that are worth owning, get used at half.com for some very decent savings.

[blatzlight]

I third the rechargeable batteries thing. I prefer it over the charger for Wii as I often have 4 people over playing and if one Wiimote dies midway through a game you are stuck. Also, as was mentioned earlier, the Wiimotes are battery hogs and I couldn't in good conscience throw that much away. I just picked up a 20 pack of rechargeable and was good to go. I also traded out some batteries in my mouse and keyboard to rechargeable now as well to help shrink my global footprint.

I have had them all from Atari, NES, Genesis, N64, Playstation and PS2. Where I am in my life the Wii is the most fun since I am far from a hardcore gamer but love a few games. I love my Wii for the ease of play. Not to say all of the games are children's games, but they are the most fun games ever. Also, being able to download classic games to the Wii (old NES, SNES, N64, ect) to the system has been AWESOME!