NOR, Ryan and I decided to obtain Nintendo’s new console, the Wii, on the launch day (Sunday, November 19th), by camping out in front of a store the night before. We got in line before 6:00 pm; sixteen hours later, we were checking out of the store with our shiny new Wiis. I posted a few pictures.
After reports came in that Best Buy (our tentative choice) was only guaranteeing possession of a handful of units, versus Target west’s 111 count, we settled on Target. We were hoping to start camping some time between midnight and 4:00 am, but word came in that lines were forming at several stores by 4:00 pm Saturday, so we mobilized and made it to Target before 6:00 pm, securing positions 7 through 13 in line. We were joined by Toz, Mark, Sean, and NOR’s friend Andy from Verizon. Sean had to leave shortly into the night, but was soon replaced by Andy/Ziffy, bringing our Andy total to two.
It was quite cold, and it was a really long night, but several things helped us through. First of all, as you might expect, nearly everyone in line had a DS. Thirteen people in Pictochat is hilarious. And ten-player Tetris was sweet, even though I absolutely suck (props to Mark for spanking everyone every time).
Secondly, before Target closed at 10:00 pm the night before, they brought us hot cocoa, coffee, and popcorn! And we also got free coffee after purchasing our Nintendo stuff once the store opened at 8:00 the next morning. Target totally rules!
Third, several wonderful people came to visit and/or joined our ranks as the night went on. Lucas stopped by both before and after work, and even brought us coffee the second time! He also stayed around after that and helped us pack up our stuff once the tickets were handed out. Anna arrived some time between 5 and 6 am, and stayed with us for the rest of the night. Chris and Megan showed up once Chris got done with his shift at CapTel, and though the line was too long at that point for them to get a Wii, Andy agreed to buy one for them since he had only been planning to pick up a PS2.
Once our mission was successful, we all headed back to my place to try the thing out on my projection screen. The system comes with Wii Sports, but I picked up five additional games: Monkey Ball, Trauma Center, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Rayman Raving Rabbids, and of course Twilight Princess. I also bought $20 worth of Wii points for use in the online store, and bought Mario 64, to see how well the store and virtual console work (it seems pretty ok). We mostly played Wii Sports and a little bit of Rayman, before people got too tired to think straight anymore and went home around noon.
I slept from 12:30 till 4:30, then had to get up again for anime night. But since so many members of anime night were part of the excursion and had stated their intentions to sleep through anime night, I suggested to the remaining anime night attendees (John, Alex, Greg, Megan and Kelsey) that we play Wii instead, so that people wouldn’t miss out on the Ergo Proxy finale. We played Rayman, Monkey Ball and Marvel till around 9:00 pm. After everyone left, Anna played Trauma Center and Rayman till around midnight, then I played Zelda for a few minutes.
That leads us to now. I slept about two hours last night during the camp-out, and four hours earlier today, so I’m pretty exhausted, but wanted to make a rambling LJ post before turning in. Overall, my impressions of the Wii are good, though I think there is definitely room for improvement on later titles. Marvel seems reasonable, and Zelda (unsurprisingly) looks extremely promising thus far, but the other games are very “fluffy.” Of course, fluffy and accessible is, I think, one of Nintendo’s major goals for the Wii. I suppose it comes down to whether it’s quality fluff. In the case of Rayman and Trauma Center, I think yes. For Monkey Ball it’s too early to tell (there are a whopping 50 party games to try out). As for Wii Sports, personally I was not very impressed, although I’m willing to keep playing it for a while.
This is my first post in a while; I’ve been busy with lots of things, including working on a more philosophically-oriented post about anarcho-primitivism, environmentalism, anthropology, economics and other such topics, thanks to some recent discussions with bitches_tyrone. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish that soon.