The Wii's Have It

So I took the plunge and bought a Nintendo Wii and based on the positive reaction from both my wife (not a computer gamer) and my six year old daughter it seems to have been the right choice.

Wii Sports is great fun, though if you're as totally out of shape as I am beware those seldom used muscles! I had Wii shoulder for a little while after playing baseball. And who says that you don't use more energy with the Wii than other consoles? Whoever they are they haven't tried Wii boxing - which for a couch potato like me was pretty exhausting!

Having played Sports for a little while my daughter was keen to get some other games. My wife picked up a copy of Carnival: Funfair Games on spec. Both she and my daughter like it but I can't say that I've been impressed. It is a collection of 25 funfair games which seem to feature all the limited interest and frustration of real funfair games for me! It doesn't have Mii support and the character creation tools supplied are extremely limited. Whilst it is a cheaper option than some of the more mainstream games I wouldn't recommend it.

With this experience of spec purchases (never a good idea in my book) I took it upon myself to do a little research. I spotted a number of games which got consistently high ratings from the review sites but I was keen to get one which was another family orientated game (even with the Parental Controls I'm not sure I'd want a copy of Resident Evil 4 around yet!) and settled on Super Mario Galaxy.

Super Mario Galaxy is an excellent 3D platform style game in the Wii style. This time Mario gets to run around some pretty strange "worlds" populated by all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures. The levels build difficulty steadily and the controls are easily enough mastered for my daughter to pick them up very quickly. Obviously we've only got a little way through it so far but on the basis of what I've seen so far this one is recommended!