disjoint thoughts

Are you wanting to develop rock hard abs? Is the lack of a six pack impeding on your ability to attract members of the opposite sex? Is most exercise you get on a daily bases coming from your Wii? If you’ve answered “YES!” to any of these questions, the Wii Sports Ab Workout might be your road to success.

Follow these easy steps to get started with the Wii Sports Ab Workout:

Step #1: Load up Wii Sports and start a round of boxing.
Step #2: Hold the Wiimote with the toes on your right foot (If you cannot hold the Wiimote between your toes, you may consider attaching them to your feet, or a pair of sandals, using medical tape).
Step #3: Hold the Nunchuck with the toes on your left foot.
Step #4: Lay on the floor.
Step #5: BOX!

Note: you cannot use your arms/elbows to prop yourself up! It will require the use of your abs if you want to watch the screen.

For an extra bonus, play with a friend! The shear hilarity of the experience will make surely make you laugh until tears roll down your cheeks and thus increase the burn to your abdomen even further!

Awesome Mario & 300 comic from vgcats. Lol.

Here are some good tips for finding a Wii or PS3 this holiday season.

In addition to these tips, I would suggest trying department stores in the ghetto. No offense to people who live in the ghetto, people who are “ghetto fab”, or fans of 2pac’s Ghetto Gospel. Stores in lower income neighborhoods are going to be much more likely to have that elusive gaming console that you seek. This is where I found both my Wii and my DS Lite.

I picked up a Wii yesterday and got in a few good hours of playing Wii Sports and Zelda. I have to say that I am very impressed. The controller works very well, although takes some getting used to. The graphics might not feel “next-gen”, but they get the job done.

Wii Sports is a great showcase of the controller’s abilities. As a single player game I think it’s a tad shallow and would get boring quickly. As a multiplayer game I think it would be worth hours and hours of fun. I was able to pick up a couple of extra controllers this morning, so I’ll be able to try some multi this evening.

My roommate who is neither a gamer nor a geek was able to pick up and play Wii Sports in moments. All the controls were so intuitive that the learning curve was practically non-existant. There is no explaining “hold the x button to increase the power and release it when you want to swing the bat”, it’s just “swing the controller like it’s a bat”. Everyone knows how to do that.

Prior to the Wii, game controls were the major limiting factor when trying to get the general public into games. Everyone can watch someone ELSE play a game and understand what going on, but when you place the controller in the hands of the non-gamer they have a hard time interacting with the game. The Wii solves half the problem by providing the controller that can be used in an “ohh, that makes sense” manner. The other half of the problem is left up to the game developers who need to program the games take full advantage of the controller. Wii Sports does this almost perfectly.

I haven’t played enough Zelda yet to form a solid opinion of the game.

So far, I give the Wii and 8.5/10.

Here’s a good article on why the Wii may not be everything people are hoping for. The basic problem boils down to the fact that using the controller efficiently isn’t the same as emulating the real-life movements. So casting a fishing pole or swinging a bat doesn’t mean you should take a big sweeping swing/cast like you would in real life, but just a little quick flick of the wrist. And in games where speed and dexterity are key, you don’t want to be wasting extra time with big long motions when a quick little one works just as well or even better.

Riyad bought up a good point about the Wiimote on the Nerd list today. The Wii’s success depends almost entirely on the Wiimote working well. If the Wiimote sucks, then the entire system is going to be a big flop. If the Wii had the raw power of the 360 or the PS3, then you could count on it being worth owning dispite any funky controller problems.

I was seriously considering pre-ordering the Wii, but the thought of buying a $250 GameCube doesn’t make me a happy camper.

I can’t wait for the Wii! This video sums up how amazing the console is going to be: linky.