Nintendo Wii



Nintendo and Christmas go together about as well as Burgers and Chips. Taking the analogy WAY too far, that's because there'll always be smug prats who will insist it's no good for you, and what you actually want is the salad (XBOX360) or the Lobster (PS3). The problem is, not everyone likes Salad, and not everyone can justify spending so much on Lobster.

I'm not a complete Nintendo fanboy, but the Wii is, quite simply, a piece of genius, wrapped in an enigma, packed into a white plastic wedge. Designed to either sit like a proper console or in a stand stood on end, the Wii is, for me, the best console there has ever been. First off, there's a huge back catalogue as it is practically 100% backwards compatible with Gamecube games. Open the top flaps and you'll find ports for Gamecube controllers and Gamecube memory cards. Then there's the Wii games, motion controls, the balance board, the shop channel, in fact the whole damn package was so seriously impressive. Nintendo rocketed ahead with sales, more than doubling those of the PS3 and XBOX360... until recentlty. Sales have slowed, and the 360 and PS3 are (slowwwwwwly) catching up.

The Sega VMU Memory card

I know, this is far from a "dead" system, but damn it, this is MY games section, and I'll review modern games if I want to... but be warned, I will be comparing them to equivalents from "the day", to try and establish whether the games market really has moved forward over the years...

Incidentally, I may also make mention of how the Wii has probably caused more injuries than any other computer system in history... At least for gamers. But then that's what happens when you sling a white brick around with reckless abandon.

What I struggle to get folk to understand is that the Wii is NOT just home to "Cutesy" games or "Jibbing about to chop an onion" games... there's a hardcore side to it, and some VERY high quality titles, titles that other consoles can only DREAM of.