18. I GOT WII ON RELEASE DAY.




my 99th post!!!

I'm a bit older than all of you - I'm 51. I purchased my Wii a few weeks ago because I saw that the controllers were so innovative - and also that the were not so confusing as the prior ones (to me of course).

I played the first video games when they were released back in the 1970's. Yep, before most of you were even born. I played the sit-down console version of Pong. I played a Pin-ball version of Video Flying Saucers - when you got a certain combination of targets hit, then a video screen would light up and you could shoot at the saucers on the screen. To us back then it was state of the art technology!

Then the Atari 2400 was released and everyone had access to some excellently designed games in their homes. And everyone had to have one. Then Mom and Pop designers came on the scene and flooded the market with poorly designed games. And what happened? The Video game market crashed.

But the game market kept trying. The Intellivision came on the scene. The Odyssey, and my favorite, the Colecovision. Colecovision had the rights to the Nintendo games - they had the rights to the original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. Back then they were powerful games that had a huge share of the market. However, the Colecovision's power pad controllers were often times difficult to use. But they did work and they gave us gamers the closest thing to the actual video games in the arcades. (and I still have my colecovision).

For those of us into RPG and Fantasy gaming, that took quite a while to develop. I didn't see them appear until home PC's became more popular in the early 1980's. The Commodore 64 and the one I owned, the Atari 800XL. They ran on DOS and had only 64K to operate. Yes, fairly primitive compared to today's PCs.

These Role-playing games were Text only. That's right - no graphics - you yourself created everything including what the main character's looked like, the layout of the land, what you carried, what you encountered. Of course the authors of the game had to thoroughly describe everything.

I don't know if any of you have heard of these titles, but I started off on Zork and its sequels. Wishmaster and it's sequels, Hollywood Hijinx, Planet Fall and a host of others. I remember playing hours and hours and hours trying to work my way through dungeons, fight demons, solve puzzles to get to the final glorious endgame.

You may think these games were simple because they were text. Well, think again; mostly because you had to picture in your mind's eye where everything was in a room, including any tools you may have found that may have not have been pick up yet.

That's how the Internet was when I first connected to it around 1986/1987 - no graphical interface. Just text. That's all. Back then I belonged to a group that did Dungeons and Dragons through the Internet. We were all over the country and our Dungeon Master was in Reno. He controlled the Dice and ran the game. It worked, but it was slow since it was all done through email. Today that could be done less expensively through real time chat. But back then we paid high costs for Internet hook up by the hour - not like today where we have unlimited time for a low cost.

I only did gaming on my Atari PC for a long time after that - I had a lot of Atari PC games from their library of arcade releases. Some were fairly close to the originals. Others were fairly bad. But I still played them when I could. That was until I bought my first 386 pentium PC. It was then I had to retire my Atari 800XL set up and put everything in cold storage.

I had to buy new games - the Role Playing games from Sierra - King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry - they were fair, but didn't seem to be up their with the old Zork one's - which I still preferred.

It was around that time that Nintendo came out with its first game unit - the original. I tried it but could not for the life of me get used to the controls. The up/down/right/left and all those buttons. My hand just couldn't handle it. That and my arthritis screamed at me, when I tried to use them. So, I tried, even have a unit, but I really couldn't play the unit. I put my kit away and only took it out when younger company came away.

I watched all the other systems come out - Playstation, Xbox, Gamecube - all had those darn controllers that I couldn't handle. I kept saying to myself that someday, someday one of the manufacturers will come up with a more intuitive controller so it won't need all those darn buttons. But when, I said. When?

The answer came when I saw Wii. When I saw the controller I said to myself - Whee! Internal Gyroscopes. Wireless technology, only a few buttons, and you can use that Nunchuck device as a controller too - a tidy little joystick with two buttons. It answered my prayers.

So when I was in my local Target Store a few weeks a go and saw some in stock, I bought a system. I didn't hook it up right away - I waited. I wanted to read up on it more. Then about 3 weeks ago, I hooked it up. I learned how to use the remote, albeit slowly. I bought Wii Play. I bought Wii Mario Party 8 and brought it over to my younger brother's house (he's 38 and went goo-ga over it). I also bought Rapalo Fishing (strange), andd I bought Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess - mostly because 've heard so much about it. (I did try that one today - beautiful graphics, but I'm going to need help on how to use the remotes).

I cannot tell you how impressed I am with the Nintendo Wii. As a retired Systems Technical Expert, I know how much programming and testing, went into this device to get it running properly. I'm amazed, truly amazed.

kentomodo

Outstanding post! As I mentioned before, I'm 41, so it's good to see a small contingent of "older" gamers on here

Yes kids, we occasionally set our prune juice down, get up from our recliners, hobble over with our walkers and fire up a videogame

Great post, I enjoyed reading all the historical perspective - I've been in the industry since I was 15, so I was with you on everything. I had Sinclair, Atari 800XL, C64's, Amiga, tons of various consoles (Atari 2600, Intellevision [how great was Sea Battle?]), the list goes on and on. I remember the hours spent on text only games like Zork, playing MUD's, you name it.

At my 2nd company we were pretty early pioneers on the web (started doing commercial development in the early 90's), and were there as the bubble expanded and eventually grenaded! (Sold that company in 2000 in a pretty conventional acquisition vs. the inflated stock-o-rama's of the time). However I remember all my BB/pre-web time spent on my 1200b US Robotics modem.

Anyway, we could buy any of the next gen consoles, but after having had plenty of exposure to the X360 and PS3, the wifey and I came to the conclusion that the intriguing UI of the Wii, combined with the simple and fun game mechanics was for us. Ours +should+ be here on Friday!

Take care, hope to see you around here!

~DT

I'm 26. Been gaming since the NES came out in 1986 at the tender age of 5. Our first game for it was Zelda.

I've have lived through the release of the NES, The Power Glove!!!, Gameboy, Virtualboy, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Dreamcast, Neo Geo, Gamegear, Atari Lynx, SNES, Game & Watch, N64, Gamecube, PSX, PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, GBA, GB Color, DS, DS Lite..and so on.

I'm 27. The Wii is the first system I've bought since I had a N64 and PS1, and the only one that I've ever gotten relatively soon after launch

Thanks for the compliments DT -

And regarding the 1200 baud modem, I started with a 300b modem - and I still have it downstairs. The last I checked, all my old equipment still works - If only these younger folks realized what we had to go through to advance to today's state of gaming. If only they knew what the programmer's had to go through!

Believe me when I say that the Wii System is the most innovation system out there right now. No other comes close. Yes, the Xbox 360 and PS3 cost a bundle more, but do they have the controller capabilities of the Wii?

I seriously think not. Like I said, that's what attracted me to this system - easy and unique controls. Plus it's wireless, so I don't have to keep grabbing my walker to go over to the console to change settings.

It's great. Plain and simple - it's great.

Kentomodo.
.

I got my Wii for Christmas "06.
So not even a year.
Mine's already broken though.
Which is pretty depressing.

24 years old

21 years old

dude I've got you all beat and I'm 26, I've got 2 functioning acoustic couplers

one I have set up so I can use it like a 56k on a pay phone and the other is an original I picked up for the soul purpose of making a lame a$$ student film like war games, that ended up just being a really bad spoof. I got them in my storage space I'll try and dig them up for a pic.

ARISTO ==>

Acoustic Couplers?

My God, I haven't seen one of them in a long, long time. They had them for the Atari also. And in high school, I remember seeing them. I'm not sure what they were used for way back in 1972/1973, but my school's beginning Computer club - the real "geeks" used them to contact one of the University's computers.

BLUERADIO ==>

Your Nintendo Wii already broke down?

If you don't mind my asking - What happened?

I had heard these were well made; not like the Xbox 360 and the Red Light of Death.

Ken

35 I love my Wii, My wife got it for birthday She is the same age she plays to.

Later

OMG, hahaha, please do, I havent' heard anyone say 'acoustic coupler' in a LONG time, let alone actually have a couple +working+ ones.

The only old dialup relic I have is an external USR HST that I got when I used to SysOP a video game BBS. I think it still works (the power supply was dead, but it at least lit up with one of those Radio Shack multi PS).

I'm 21 and am obsessed with my wii, as is all my family. Every time i come home from college my 70 year old grandma begs me to bring it home so she can play wii bowling. She cant walk for 2 days after because shell play it till 2 in the morning and be too sore to move lol.

Yo Im 17 here and i just got my Wii like a few weeks ago and i luv my Wii no doubt

21yr

I'm 21 and now feeling increasingly like an old man now with all you young ones

I'm also 21, and I don't feel old yet.