Topic: I just got my Wii

[Cobra951]

. . . and I just finished setting up the hardware.  Got here quick.  I ordered it late on Friday.   The network setup was easy.  System update just finished.  The Wii remote pointer works flawlessly as a pointer.  Cursor movements are precise and predictable.  Nice tech, whatever it is.   I'm on the (Wii's) weather channel now.  You can tilt the map with the D-pad and "grab" the land and pull yourself along it Black & White style.  Cool.  I'm looking at Ohio right now.  I I impressed.  I thought the whole thing about the sensor bar was going to be some wonky thing, but it's been painless.  My only complaint so far is that the system only comes with a composite video cable.  For the money, they should have included component.  It doesn't look bad at all, though, just low res, although it is 16:9.

I'm still waiting on Mario Galaxy.  That shipped yesterday, after a one-day delay.  They said it might be a week's delay, so I was relieved to see the shipping confirmation.  I guess I'll try out some of the shovelware in here, namely Wii Sports and Wii Play.  Why does that remind me of the original VCS pack-in cart, with a zillion boring little games?

[scottws]

Don't knock Wii Sports.  That tennis game is awesome with a friend.  Never tried more than one other person, but I imagine 4 would be a blast.

Wii Play kind of sucks, but I like that Combat-like tank game.

[Cobra951]

The news channel makes even better use of the pointer and the grab-and pull navigation.  You can run around the world, clicking on the news items at each point of interest.  I still can't get over how well the remote works.  The manual says stay 3 feet away, but I'm like 18 inches away now, and still works fine.  It came with the rubbery jacket, and it makes it feel softer and more secure than when I played with a Wii last Christmas.

I also created a Mii.  That was fun.  Does anyone with a Wii here go online?

[scottws]

Are there even online games with the Wii?

[iPPi]

Yea Tennis and Bowling are fun.  The only thing I like about Wii Play is the tank game as well.

Congratulations on picking up the Wii.  Make sure to get Metroid Prime 3 as well.  That game was pretty damn good.

I need to go and play some Zelda once I have time. 

[Cobra951]

Yeah, I'm thinking of going on a field trip tonight, seeing if I can locate a component cable and maybe Metroid' 3.

The shopping channel is a slower, clunkier, and barren form of XBL marketplace.  All you can get are old console games.  The only ones that even remotely interest me are the N64 games.  I'm curious to see one run on the Wii, but I'm not paying for it.

Wii Sports is more fun than I remember.  The training modes I hadn't even seen.  Those are entertaining all by themselves.  I suck at baseball in real life, and that applies here as well.  I can't ever time a fricking swing.  Boxing I didn't even try.  Generally not interested.  The other 3 games I liked.  Nice use of the technology, and intuitive motions usually register as intended.

Not much more to say, really.  The one thing I've yet to try that I care about is SD memory cards.  I'll do that later.  For, now, I'm taking a break.

[gpw11]

Yeah, before we all moved out of our last house we had a wii for about 3 months or so.  Wii sports in a house with 6 people living in it might be the funnest thing ever.  4 person tennis?  Epic. 

But the Wii sports fitness test is great as well, I'd do it just about every day even though it's totally a "how god are you at wii" rather than a fitness test.

[scottws]

Boxing I don't like.  I can't seem to get the game to register my punches right.  Meanwhile, Jennie's 6 year old son kicks my ass at it somehow.

[Cobra951]

So you have a Wii, Scott?  I lose track of who has what.

I did get Mario Galaxy delivered today.  I just didn't know it until a couple of hours ago because they never rang the door bell.  They left it on the front porch.  So everything came today.  Yay.  I went out and got a Wii component cable.  I switched res from 480i to 480p and it looks so much better.  Gone is all the font artifacting and general blurriness.  Still no match for the 360's display, but it will do nicely.  I'm so glad now that I got the TV with 2 component inputs and 1 HDMI instead of the other way around.  I've got 4 things connected to it now, not counting antenna input.

I haven't opened the game yet.  Too much happening at once in the toys department here.  Maybe I should just put on some Christmas music, drink some egg nog and get ahead of that game.

One thing I noticed when I got back from Best Buy is that the blue light inside the Wii's disc slot was on, and flashing occasionally.  Yeah, I left the Wii Sports disc in there, but I turned the thing off before I left.  The power light was amber.  It's green when it's on, and if there's a way to get it to go completely off other than pulling the AC cord, I don't know it.  A bit later, I picked up the Wii to change the video cord, and I felt how hot it was on the bottom--I mean almost too hot to touch.  I was using it horizontally, and that stopped right then and there.  I pulled the stand out of the box and put it to good use.  So, just a heads up.  I swear the GPU or CPU must be close to the bottom of the case (left side when vertical).  The little feet on the case are way too stubby to let in enough air, even on a flat hard surface.

[gpw11]

I think that blue light means something was updated or you have a message or something.  I'm not sure about that though.

[sirean_syan]

Yeah, the light can go on sometimes to do small updates... supposedly. I don't know what it's actually doing and I've had to manually get all the major updates on that I know about. I do think they should have made the colors for the power light a little more different. Sometimes I can't tell if it's green or the amber color until I get right up to the thing. Aimee uses it sometimes and, between us, she sometimes leaves things on.

I should remind myself how the whole friend list thing works. I haven't really touched it since I picked up the system, but I did trade Miis with Ender a little.

[Cobra951]

I guess that was it.  I had like 9 messages, dealing with my Mii associated with Wii Sports scores, with updates like to the menu, and other small stuff.  I still would like a real power off mode for this thing, though.

This thing is so quiet that I thought it had no fan.  I had to put my ear up to it to hear it.  Could be that it's getting drowned out by all the other spinning stuff in here, like 2 fans in my PC.  That bottom (left side now) stays warm, even with the system "off".  It's not hot anymore, but it still doesn't seem right for it to draw enough power to make heat in standby mode.

Edit:  The "Check Mii Out" channel is a freebie, and it's kind of fun.  You get to see Miis from all over.  You can choose by popularity, by region, or at random (I think).  Then you can import the ones you like.  I had no idea how far you could go with the Mii creation.  i imported some spot-on caricatures of V (for Vendetta), Peter Griffin, Butthead, Mario and Albert Einstein.  I think the Butthead one never made it over to my plaza because I actually called it "Butthead".  Forgot about Nintendo's kiddie sensibilities.

[gpw11]

The whole mii thing.  Surprisingly awesome. We spent hours making insulting caricatures of a lot of people.  Great for racial stereotyping your friends.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Dragonlor and I made some Miis of the members of Dethklok one night.

[iPPi]

The Wii never really shuts off if you have Wii Connect24 enabled.  That's why the light is amber.  Basically, it will continually be receiving updates online to the weather and the news channel.  That's why the disc slot will glow blue when it receives updates.

You can turn off your Wii completely if you disable your Wii Connect24 (it will have the red light when you power it off).  However, if you disable Connect24, you will not be able to use the weather and the news channel until you enable it.

I have it turned off since I don't use the weather or the news channel myself, so I see no need having my Wii continually grabbing updates.

[Cobra951]

Thank you!  I'll be happy to enable that when I care and disable it the rest of the time.  I guess the 24 stands for 24/7?  (D'oh!)  Last night when I went to bed, I was trying to fall asleep watching some TV.  The Wii is next to it; amber light was on.  Then it was like something from a 60s sci-fi show.  Outer Limits comes to mind.  The blue light all around the slot starts glowing eerily on and off, slowly.  I could almost hear a theremin sliding up and down in pitch to the rhythm.  I threw the covers off, marched over and unplugged the thing.  "You're off now!"

[Cobra951]

What do the rest of you Wii owners do about fucking batteries?  This thing has been going through a set every 3-4 days, mostly Mario Galaxy's fault, with its heavy use of both accelerometers and pointing tech.  Battery life is supposed to be 30 hours, but I think I'm getting less than 20 before it starts to beep at me about being on the last segment of battery life (out of 4).  I tried camera NiMH batteries.  Directly out of the charger, they lasted me at best 2 hours.  I've successfully avoided this issue until now.  I hate it every bit as much as I thought I would.  What I'd love to see is a 3-volt power supply shaped like a pair of oppositely facing AA batteries with a long cord and a transformer which I can plug into an AC outlet.

[Pugnate]

That sucks! why not invest in some rechargeables? Get plenty.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Nyko makes a rechargeable battery pack with a recharging stand I think.

[sirean_syan]

I use NiMH rechargeables myself. I already had a charger for my camera and they've served me well in that field, so I just went with some more. I'm guessing they give me about 8-10 hours per charge, give or take. I've never really time it, but I went through two sets in Metroid Prime (~20 hours). I bought a four pack so there was a set that was always ready to go when the others were used up. That might not have given me maximum battery life since the second set sits around for a while either, but I don't really care when I can just do a swap whenever needed.

I guess it's a far care from the 30 hours promised (I never bothered to look up the expected life), but that's still better than the 2 hours you're getting. Are they older batteries?

[KontrollerX]

I bought the Nyko charge station on Amazon.com for mine Cobra.

When fully charged I think it has taken 3 hours of continuous play for one of the charge bars to drop in the Wii menu for me so overrall with the charge station it probably makes it last about as long as the Gamecube's Wavebird controller does on regular batteries I'd say.

Also it allows you to charge two Wiimotes at a time.

Definitely a good buy.

[scottws]

I've had a great experience with the battery life of the Wii controller.  Much more so than the 360 wireless controller.

[Cobra951]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I've seen the Nyko charge station, but it's not licensed, and I was worried about those improvised contacts for the charger.  This works well, then?  I may get it.  What about the remote jacket, though?  (That's the other pain about changing batteries, getting the remote undressed.)

If NiMHs last that long, then mine must be in sad shape.  I guess they're too old.

Heh.  I don't know what a great experience with battery life is.  First time I've had to deal with wireless controllers.

[KontrollerX]

Ahh sorry Cobra I should of done a pros and cons list for ya.

Alright so here goes...

Pros:

-Recharge battery life with the charge stations inbuilt battery thing seems to last about 12 hours I'd estimate.
-You are provided with a rubberized grip backing to the Wiimote that makes it harder for the controller to slip out of your hands.
-Charge time seems on par with the Xbox 360 play and charge kit which is roughly 3 hours total.
-Charge and lackthereof is indicated by an LED which shines a cool blue just like the Wii's disc slot when you get a message until its fully charged at which point it turns a bright green.
-The station itself has a rubberized floor grip so it won't slide around if you accidentily bump into it.
-Also it comes with a long power cord.
-There's no AC adapter with it.

Cons:

-The way its set up the batteries are encased together in a giant plastic casing that may of been intentionally made that way by Nyko. This giantness makes it so that you can only use their special controller back with the rubberized grip as the Nintendo one will no longer fit.
-The connector at first at least with my unit was a bit shakey as in the LED would flicker like it wasn't being fully powered up but over time this issue for me has cleared up plus making sure your charge station is on a solid surface helps this tremendously. Nyko really should of made the connectors protrude more but don't worry Cobra it doesn't break the product it just shows you that its cleary a 3rd party product and you have to kind of wriggle the wiimote around at times until it gets a good positioning so you get a steady blue light indicating an even charge.
-Initially getting the Nyko Battery pack inside the controller can be a pain as in a tight squeeze but it seems to loosen up over time.
-You typically don't get the satisfying click when you put the Nyko back on the thing indicating the battery housing is closed like you would on an official product but its not a big deal so long as you press hard enough and it looks closed to you.

[Cobra951]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to give me the full story on this thing.  It's a shame Nintendo didn't come up with their own way of doing this.

[scottws]

I agree, but I must get 50x the battery life out of the Wii controllers than I do the 360 controller.  I went through an 8-pack of AA batteries the first week I owned my 360, and I've only replaced the batteries in one of my Wii controllers once since August.

So for Microsoft it was a must to come up with some sort of a rechargeable solution while I feel it is less necessary for Nintendo.

[Cobra951]

Do you have Mario Galaxy?  I think it's sucking the power down double-time.  I'm getting a few days per battery pair, at maybe 3-6 hours of play per day.  (Haven't timed it.  I guess I could add up the recorded time messages on the board.)  Even if it's twice that much, it's nothing even remotely like what you're saying.  August?  I wish.

[Quemaqua]

I hate and have always hated wireless controllers.  The Wii is the only system I would ever consider owning one for, and that's only because the thing is just plain wireless by default.