Tuesday 30 December 2008

Twixmas Part III - Wiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

I mentioned toys (plural) in my last post.

Perfectionist Partner was the lucky recipient of a Wii (pronounced 'wee') games console, Fit board and various games.

What they never tell you when you get these things, is just how difficult and time consuming they are to set up and that a PhD in electronics is a minimum requirement.

We unpacked the various boxes and identified the various components and multifarious cables along with the voluminous instruction manuals, one of which was optimistically titled 'Quick Start'

HA!

Even Small Dog got in on the act and offered to help, but she was just as bamboozled as we were.



PP almost put her back out, dragging our television out of the corner so we could more easily assess just which plugs went where. I would mention here that the back of our tv resembles nothing so much as knitted spaghetti, with wires and leads all over the show so making any sense of it was hard going.

One hour later, after I'd unearthed the tv instructions we discovered a set of plug sockets we never knew existed, on the side of the tv would you believe?

Some time after that, while we were convinced it was all connected properly, and all the little lights which should be winking at us, were, we were still unable to find a channel on the tv which showed the Wii welcome screen.

More perusal of the multitude of button and switches which festoon the tv suddenly produced the correct channel/screen but of course, having been pressing every conceivable combination of buttons for 10 minutes, we had no idea which particular buttons press and in which order.

Anyhoo. No matter. We were connected and firing on all cylinders.

One of the things you have to do first, is create your own little virtual character, called a Mii (pronounced 'me'). You get to choose a face, hair style, hair colour, all manner of clothing and accessories, give your Mii a name etc.

It's all very Twii

Impatient to get started, bearing in mind it had been several hours since we opened the box, we chose a generic Mii and started to play.

A further several hours later and we'd had a go at boxing, fishing, shooting, table tennis, and a whole host of games designed to help you get to grips with the remote control thingy, which controls the movement of your Mii.

Predictably we were complete rubbish at almost everything, except I discovered a hitherto latent skill at riding on a knitted cow going at full pelt, knocking down scarecrows and jumping over fences. You will just have to take my word for it that the game is hilarious. This is mainly because the cow steers...........well..........like a cow.

However, despite that, for some reason I seem to be quite good at it.

Careering round the course at top speed, riding bareback on a knitted cow, scattering scarecrows in my wake, avoiding (mostly) various obstacles, and flying gracelessly over gates and fences seems to be what I was born to do.

Indeed I was so taken with the whole thing that I couldn't resist yelling 'Yeehaaah!!!' at the top of my voice at every available opportunity throughout the game.

I think I may have found my forte.............

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