We visited a Gamestop in California last night, only to find a darkened Wii kiosk, which was very sad. Although it was almost made up for after we found a Gears of War console case, that thing is just flippin' sweet. Anyhow, digression aside, we asked the guy behind the counter when the Wii would be switched on, and he said "We need an ID." Stupid us replied with, "Oh, so someone from Nintendo has to come out and set it up? When will that happen?" And he said, "Uh ... no, dude. I need your ID." Clearly, we be geniuses.
So we handed over our IDs and a major credit card (what's a minor credit card these days? Discover? Diner's Club?) and were handed two Wii-motes. He fired the system up and left us to it. They hold on to your plastic to make sure you don't run down the street laughing with their hardware in hand. The only game they had on display was Excite Truck, but we had a blast playing it and literally everyone in the store, which was oddly packed for a Sunday night, came over to watch us play.
Quote of the minute from the whole experience by two teenage bystanders:
Guy #1 -- "Dude, those graphics don't look that good ..."
Guy #2 -- "Are you kiddin'? They look pretty good to me, and check out the badass controllers!"
We assume he meant the Wii-motes and not us. Check out pix and video after the jump.
Excite Truck as exciting as it can be.
The dark Wii-osk made us sad at first, although the Xbox 360 was getting a lot of attention. It had a working Xbox Vision Camera attached at upper left, and some folks were goofing around with it.
Closeup of the Wii-osk. The Zelda ad on the right had a small tag on it that says "To: Link, From: Zelda -- HELLLLLPPPPPPPP!!!!" Nice touch.
This sad little sign was awkwardly taped underneath.
They had a whole wall dedicated to the Wii, and game boxes scattered throughout the store. The poster was pretty rad as well.
The Wii menu screens are really simple and cartoonish. A monkey could probably navigate them easily. Luckily, we figured it out too.
Sure it's not brimming with cutting edge graphics that will blow your pants off, but the controller and fun were definitely next-gen. Wii enjoyed.
