Hi all, I purchased a Nintendo Wii last week, and I'm here to share my impressions with my fellow blind gamers. The Nintendo Wii, pronounced "we" is the latest entry into the video game console market by Nintendo. What makes the Wii unique is the way you interact with the system. Instead of punching buttons, you hold a wireless controller in your hand much like a small TV remote. This controller, called a Wiimote is absolutely amazing. Instead of pushing up and down arrows to select menus, you just point at the menu item you want and click the A button. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to operate the menus because of this, but fortunately this is not the case. When you move the pointer over a menu selection, the Wiimote vibrates slightly, and by memorizing where the different menu items are, you can go right to the menu you want. The Wii comes with a sports disk that contains basic versions of baseball, tennis, golf, bowling and boxing. As a blind player, I can compete quite well with my sighted friends and family with all the games, which is amazing. This is made possible by the unique control system the Wii remote affords. For example, in the bowling game, you hold the remote up in front of you as if you were holding a bowling ball, hold down the B button, then swing your arm back then forward just as if you were tossing a real bowling ball. At the bottom of your swing, release the B key and listen to the pins fall. The faster you swing, the faster your ball goes, and you can even put english on the ball by twisting the remote. Baseball allows you to swing the remote like a bat, and this one takes some good timing, as you need to swing just after hearing the swoosh of the pitch. Tennis can be played the same way, though I had the most trouble getting the timing down for this one. Golf is a real treat, as you hold the remote like a golf club and you really start to get a feel for how hard to hit the ball after some practice. This one requires a sighted friend, as the game does not speak your distance to the pin. The best of the lot in my opinion is boxing, which uses an additional attachment to the remote called the Wii Nunchuck. By holding the Nunchuck in one hand and the main remote in the other, you have the ability to throw punches with either hand, and the system recognizes your glove position at all times, so you can guard your face or body, lean back, left and right to avoid punches and so forth. It is an amazing gaming experience for the blind, and I have yet to be defeated by any of my friends or family, which shows you how well the blind can play these games. Additionally, boxing is a great workout, and you will be sweating after a couple of rounds. Overall, I would highly reccomend this system to any and all accessible gamers out there, especially if you have kids in your family, it is a real blast. If anyone has questions, I'd be happy to answer them if I can. The Wii is 250 dollars, comes with the sports games and a remote and Nunchuck. I bought a second remote and Nunchuck for 50 bucks so I could play head to head with friends. Please remember to delete the text of this message if you respond on list, as this message is already pretty long, and you can easily go over the max message size if you don't remove my text. Later all, Che
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