My oldest three kids are 7, 7 and 5 today. The wife and I bought them a Wii. Now I can't get my wife away from said toy. I had no idea how addictive the little thing can be. Anyone else suffering from this?

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I am; however, looking forward to virtual console.

I haven't experienced Wii-widow(er) Syndrome first hand, but I know others who have.

My wife's current addiction is Starcraft. I foolishly bought the download, thinking it might be fun to play the story mode again. She spent last Saturday playing it with our 5 year old. She even went so far as to go over to her dad's to get an extra copy so she could play with our son.

-paws

hmm, girl geeks, or maybe geek girls, where do you people find them?

oh, you know . . around . .

I found mine at the gaming table. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Internet (seriously).

Alex: Here's the fun thing. People don't talk about it much, but there are fun adult games on the Wii! Crazy, right? No More Heroes, Wario Land: Shake It, Metroid Prime 3, House of the Dead, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Super Paper Mario and soon, Madworld (which is like Sin City on crack), Fatal Frame, and Dead Space.

The great thing about the Wii is how everyone in the house wants to play it. My girlfriend is not a video game person, but the Wii has gotten her to play a bunch of different stuff with me. Our current favorites are Tetris World (Virtual console d/l), Dokopon Kingdom (take Mario Party and give it rpg mechanics; you can do pvp and do mean stuff to other players like shave their heads or give them new nicknames), Animal Crossing, and Mario Party 8. And you need Smash Bros. Brawl. Trust me on this.

Also, Mario Galaxy is fun and has a great two player option for you to play with your kids. I couldn't get my girlfriend to do it with me, but here's a good summation of what it's like.

Mostly, enjoy!

Why, the Internet of course! Actually, I'm kind of being serious. I met my fiancee on Match.com... One of my Shadowrun players met his quite attractive wife playing D&D.

We don't have a Wii but my lady loves her PSP and the Playstation 2 I gave her. But her dad and step-mom have a Wii and they love the thing. It's like a board game. A lot of Wii-centric games are simple, addictive and fun to play as a group.

Comedian Aisha Tyler loves her XBox. She made a joke that having kids would cut into her XBox time. Mila Kunis is a major World of Warcraft geek. Non-gothapottami girl geeks aren't as rare as we might think.

We had very overlapping social circles for years before we ever actually met.

I first met her at a Vampire LARP - she was giving away a tacklebox full of Warhammer 40K figures. That piqued my curiosity, but she didn't seem interested in anything but LARPing. Later in the fall, we hung out for the first time and we played Warhammer 40k (I gave her her Deathwing army back a few week prior, since she was lamenting getting rid of them).

We were pretty content to be friends, but her boyfriend got increasingly pissy about the fact that someone else was talking to her, let alone going off to a very public place like a gaming store anf playing a miniatures game in full view of a dozen or more people! He was very dramatic... And he made the mistake of trying to control her life. She said fuck off and kicked his ass out of the apartment.

We were content to be friends, but we got setup by our friends - literally - in an effort to get us together as a couple. Their plan worked. The rest is history.

-paws

and dont forget that it can also play gamecube games, so go dig up this (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Don't worry, you'll run out of things worth playing quickly.

(Not that I'm bitter or anything)

~J

I met mine overseas. She was dating my girlfriend's brother. We decided to cut out the middle man.

As for our Wii problems, a 2-year-old and fifteen minutes unsupervised with a penny just about did it. I managed to fix the Wii, but not the Wii Fit disc. I guess I'll have to see about copying that from somewhere... Regardless, it was sufficient to break THAT particular addiction for a while. Now if only I could get her to tone down the RPGs a bit...

Oh my god, Eternal Darkness is the greatest game ever. Even if we did spend most of it calling the main bad guy "Fleshy".

There's been some great announcements lately, from EA and Capcom announcing a focus shift onto the Wii to SquarEnix putting Dragon Quest X and awesome looking Crystal Chronicles games on there, the dearth of video games should be ending soon. Really, it's a lot like when the DS first launched; people were putting out quick ports until companies started devoting time and energy and money on it, and all of a sudden we're getting these totally awesome games for it.

Besides, I've got a Ps3 for when I want HD-licious games, and all I've really used it for was Lego Star Wars. I am gonna get the Penny Arcade game for it soon though (I'd have it now, but my girlfriend got me a bunch of games for Valentine's Day! Yay honey!).

My wife is not a gamer, but once we got a Wii, we played it quite a bit the first couple of weeks. Even had parents over to play some things like bowling and boom blox.

We don't play it nearly as much as we used to. We both have hobbies that keep us busy at night after the kids are in bed (she scrapbooks and knits, I play WoW), but anytime I've mentioned going downstairs and playing something on the Wii, she's always up for it.

I'm sure if neither of us had other hobbies that kept us busy, we'd be playing on the Wii a whole lot more.

ravensmuse: get Valkyrian Battlefield: Gallian Chronicles. A few things here and there could be done better, but it is amazing.

~J

If you like tactical RPGs along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea, get Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Because 1) it's one of the most difficult tactical RPGs I've played, and 2) I have to pimp out the games I've worked on. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I suck hardcore at tactical games. I own almost everything Nippon Ichi has put out in the last few years and have barely progressed in any of them. Final Fantasy Tactics? Not even close. My genre is old school roleplaying games (none of this weird garbage they've been pushing on us lately) and adventure games. Currently I'm playing Wario Land: Shake It!, The Force Unleashed (I don't care that it doesn't have HD-licious graphics - I can hold the nunchuck upside down and Force Choke people!) and No More Heroes.

Yep; my kids are 8, 7 and 5. The wife loves Animal Crossing and the kids alternate between LEGO Indiana Jones / Animal Crossing / MarioKart / Wii Sports. My alos admit that I'm kind of partial to the LEGO games as well... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif)

AJC

I need to check those Lego games out some time. I thought they sounded like a ridiculous concept when I first heard about them but I have friends who are hooked on Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Star Wars.

Can definitely be a time black hole; especially if you "have" to find everything... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

AJC

You cut out the sister?

Yah I once found my self addicted to the wii too bad my ex took it with her when I moved out. I couldnt really stand the silly mini-games games but no more hero's and red steel was fun. Also put some home brew on it too witch worked out pretty well. Unfortunate we couldnt find other things to do she never liked my shadowrun addiction so that made it hard hmm if I can find a table top nerd girl ill be set lol

And her brother. I know, poor choice, but she was a fundie, so she wouldn't have gone for the group thing even if I'd asked. Plus, not much of a geek.

I think the fun lies in the nostalgia. I know that personally, part of the reason I invested so much time and energy into Star Wars was the fact that every level I was unlocking up to five characters that I could use for the freeplay runthroughs. Plus, they added little bits of characterization in there; when Han is at rest, he's still got his trademark smirk and his hand's are on his hips, Chewie can rip out lego arms in melee, Yoda limps about with his cane unless his lightsaber's out, droidekas have to stop and let their forcefield charge before they can fire their guns (with the appropriate sound effects used)..and that's not even going into who actually gets unlocked, like some of the Clone Generals from Clone Wars, jawas, the elephant guy from New Hope, Admiral Ackbar (squee!), and most of the Jedi Council (Aayla Secura, Plo Koon [woot!], Ki Adi Mundi, Shaak Ti)...

Get the combined LEGO Star Wars games and you're all set. There's a ton of unlockables and you can spend weeks working your way through everything - though I'll warn that most of the flying parts suck. I should have more fun flying LAATs damn it!

I really hope that they do another LEGO Star Wars game, especially if they put some Clone Wars & Force Unleashed in there (which I spent most of this weekend playing on my Wii) I would be the happiest geek in the world.

wife got the Wii. haven't seen her or kids in a week... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I like the xbox360 personally, but I like the golf (needs more club selection, though) on the Wii and have started the Wii Fit thing...not a bad workout for a 40 ish somewhat out of shape guy.

I still feel it goes against the whole purpose of video gaming.(what do you mean, I have to get off the couch?) but it is kind of addictive...

I got a real kick out of the tennis and bowling mini-game that came with the basic Wii package. They were ridiculously simple but good party games for players of all ages. My fiancee's family had a blast with them last Thanksgiving.