Okay, so it’s two days since I unwrapped my Nintendo Wii. That’s ample time to have formed some opinions on it. Let’s see. What are they, then:

1. It’s great
2. Get one

That’s about it, really. I’d just like to tell you what I had for Christmas dinner, before getting back to the important gaming stuff:

• Ostrich with a port and redcurrant jus
• kangaroo with mango and coconut
• skewered crocodile with lime and ginger
• wild boar ghoulash
• …and then a nap

Yeah, my mother was cooking again and I think she decided to go a bit exotic this year. The ostrich was the nicest — although they were all very nice. Crocodile is something like a cross between squid and chicken, if you’re wondering.

…anyway, gaming. So yesterday, I got to play with the Nintendo Wii, firstly creating Mii characters for myself, my wife and my mother and her husband (so that when they come round to our house on New Year’s Eve we can beat the living crap out of them).

Although that might not necessarily be what happens. One of the things I love about the Wii is that there’s not much of a learning curve to get started, and some of the games — particularly Wii Play — are about as simple as you’re going to get. On the one hand, this simply will not appeal to the serious gamer, particularly the serious gamer who’s going to be playing with himself most of the time (actually by himself would have sounded better there, wouldn’t it?). On the other hand, for two player generally frantic action, particularly something to bring in the non-gaming population, you’re not going to do much better than Wii Play.

Wii Sports is pretty simple too — but is just a little bit harder than play. Yesterday’s gaming amounted to setting the Wii up, downloading updates from the internet for most of the morning (I figure their servers were just a teensy bit busy yesterday), before having an hour or two of Wii Play (mostly the shooting one) and twenty minutes of Zelda.

Zelda looks really good, but at the minute it’s not interesting me too much. I don’t want to get immersed in gameplay and plot just yet, I want to leap about the room waving my controller about (I’m just full of innuendo today). And so today has been the turn of Wii Sports.

There’s five games, a training mode and a Wii Fitness range. So I had a couple of quick shots on the training modes, and then decided to test my Wii fitness. At which point my hand-eye co-ordination that had being going pretty well in practice deserted me and I was officially rated with the fitness level of a 79 year old. Whoops !

Still, it was a first attempt, and on the plus side, I’ve left myself plenty of room for improvement. As regards the five sports games, I’ve not got any further than the tennis one yet, primarily because it is great fun, and I’m rapidly improving my ranking. That’s ranking with an r.

Plus the added benefit is that I’m genuinely getting some exercise. No, seriously, I am. I’m leaping across the front room, windmilling my arms frantically trying to put away that smash before the opponent can get back to it to make the rally go on any longer. I’m getting tired just thinking about it. I’ve had two half hour sessions with the Tennis game today. Twice I’ve had tremendous fun. Twice I’ve improved my ranking. And twice I’ve got so worn out and sweaty that I’ve needed to get a shower.

Now that’s what I call a computer game!