It’s as simple as acting out childhood fantasies with a stick. You pick up the white wand and physically perform your adventures in front of the television, swinging the wand like a sword, a tennis racket, baseball bat, golf club, bowling ball, paint brush, or even a conductor’s baton. Gone are the days of having to manage 8 buttons, two triggers, and two joysticks. If you can act it out with a stick, then you can play any game for Nintendo’s newest system – the strangely named “Wii” (pronounced “we”).

It’s all thanks to a sensor bar you place at the bottom of your television. This allows the video game console to wirelessly keep track of where and how you hold the white controller wand. It knows how far you are holding it from the television, how high off the floor, at what angle vertically and horizontally. It can locate the wand along every axis in three-dimensional space and translates your movements to those of the character you are playing on-screen.

So when you swing the controller like a tennis racket and perform a power stroke, the character on-screen does the exact same action.

As this is so difficult to communicate in writing, you have to see it, even try it to fully understand, I’m going to break one of my rules and include a promo clip for you to watch.

The Wii Remote features vibration-feedback and its own little speaker, so that you can hear the clang of your sword, the thwak of your racket, or the crack of your baseball bat come from your hand rather than the television speakers.

An add-on component called the nunchuk allows for two-handed experiences such as pulling back a bow and arrow or boxing with two gloves.

It works incredibly well, just as you will imagine it to. I’ve been worried that the system could become too tiring to play with after awhile, but my experience so far is no. In fact its fairly similar in physical demand to one of last year’s most popular games for the PlayStation 2 – Guitar Hero, which has you physically act out the role of a rockstar using a plastic guitar. I’ve put in countless hours on that and don’t find the physical drain a problem.

This experience, this new way of playing games is only through Nintendo’s system. They decided that it was time to stop concentrating on creating better visuals for worn-out game ideas and instead think of a more exciting, new way to play video games, one that could be played by anyone of any age, for any game concept. Eureka! They have.

And at the best price. Arriving in stores this Sunday, the Wii will sell for $280. That includes one Wii Remote controller, the nunchuk add-on, and one game collection – “Wii Sports” which includes Baseball, Bowling, Golf, Tennis, and Boxing.

Compare this to the two competitors:

Xbox 360 – $400 (Core bundle), $500 (Fully Loaded)

PlayStation 3 - $550 (20GB), $660 (60GB)

At the very least, Nintendo’s system is $120 cheaper and at the most $380 cheaper.

What you won’t get.

You can’t play DVDs or music CDs. The Wii does not do High-Definition. Its graphics, the visuals, lack the “wow” of Microsoft’s and Sony’s new game systems, which features characters and situations in staggering levels of detail and photo-realism.

What it can do.

With a connection to the internet it can retrieve and display the latest news headlines and weather reports. It has an SD slot for memory cards from digital cameras that can be used to transfer photos to the Wii. You can then use the Wii remote and an editing program to doodle, add disguises, and photo effects to your pictures.

Parental Controls

Something I’ve been demanding for years, the Wii is the first Nintendo system that allows parents to lock out games by their ESRB Rating. You can password-protect the Wii from playing discs that bear an “M for Mature” or “T for Teen” rating.

If you own a GameCube

The Wii comes with a four hidden controller ports plus two hidden memory slots for Nintendo’s previous game system, the “GameCube”. You can connect your controllers and memory cards from the GameCube into the Wii and load in your GameCube game discs.

Nintendo’s online service

With a built-in Wi-Fi internet connection you can purchase and download a choice of over 30 retro games, exact copies of older games from previous systems such as the NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64. Also included are games from Sega’s old systems – the Sega Genesis and TurboGrfx 16. These include titles such as Donkey Kong, Mario Bros. Sonic the Hedgehog, and SimCity. The internet connection will allow for some game to be played online, connect to online messageboards, download new features and upgrades for specific games, and other new features still to be announced.

Playing Old Games

The Wii Remote does have some buttons on it. The idea is that, if you turn it and hold it sideways, its like a longer version of the original rectangular controller from the NES system. There’s a D-pad along with an “A” and “B” button. This allows it to be used for older games.

The New Games

There are 30 Wii titles announced for this year and they include a mix of games specifically designed for the Wii as well as games that are also available on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Here’s some examples

Wii Exclusive:

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess – A long adventure where you play Nintendo’s signature elf-boy as he battles monsters, solves puzzles, and explores strange locations using his sword and gadget-like weapons and tools. This will be the top game for the system.

Excite Truck – A truck racing game where you hold the controller sideways and then tilt it like a steering wheel. The trucks can do large land jumps, but also overheat and stall.

Red Steel – A violent, sword-based game involving battling Japanese Yakuza gangs. Aimed at the older market, The controller in this game is held like a Katana blade.

Also on other systems:

Call of Duty 3 – The acclaimed WWII shooter series returns for the final installment, this time with Canadian troops as part of the tale.

Need For Speed: Carbon – A tuner racing game where you form a team of racers to out block, out race, and out short-cut other teams of racers.

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam – The latest skateboarding simulation and urban exploration title from real-life gravity-defying star Tony Hawk.

Bottom Line

I full-heartedly recommend the Nintendo Wii. It offers the reliable Nintendo brand of games and characters (Mario, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, Zelda, Nintendogs, etc.) with a reasonable selection of hot titles from the other systems (Madden, Tony Hawk, etc.). It features an exciting new way to play games, one that will successfully draw in other members of the family and includes online gameplay and downloads. It does all of this at a refreshingly reasonable price.

The Wii can’t deliver photo-realistic graphics or the adult-popular series like “Halo” or “Grand Theft Auto”, but the question I find myself asking is whether it’s worth spending an extra $120 - $380 for those two elements where the games that are available for the Wii are enough to keep anyone entertained. The answer I come up with is no.