I RECALL that last year, come sleet or slightly less sleet, the play park outside my son's window was buzzing with kids playing with the basketballs, scooters and sledges they'd got for Xmas. This year, however, the only things moving are the swings in the wind.
Has there been a neutron blast no one told me about, I asked my son, or did the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang pay a visit?
"Nah, everyone got a Wii."
For those of you who've staggered out of a cave, a Wii is a computer game consol
e by Nintendo that plugs into your telly and allows you to play interactive games. That is, through the use of specifically designed wireless handsets and motion-detection sensors, whenever you move your body, an avatar on screen apes your movements, thus enabling you to play, among other things, tennis, golf, football and even guitar – virtually. The Wii is pronounced "Wee", and after a week or so all the jokes that can be had out of kids saying "I'm going home to play with my Wii" run a bit dry.
Far be it from me to sound like one of those typical computer-games-are-destroying-our-children middle-class parents, so I'm going to do my best to appreciate this little white box that my son's generation prefer to reality.
Firstly, the Wii is the first game system that's aimed at 'all the family'. No more screaming: "Jason, your tea's ready! Jason, your sister is bleeding to death! Jason, we're getting a divorce! Will you please turn that thing off!" No, now thanks to adult-friendly games like Wii Fit, it's the kids who'll have to fight for time with their parents. With the Wii "balance board", grown-ups can do virtual yoga, hula-hoops or even press-ups. One of the most popular games is what I call "lifting your leg to the front" – in which you can repeatedly witness your avatar lifting its leg, just as you do, and once you've mastered this you can progress to stepping on and off your balance board and "putting your leg to the back". This comes with the added extra of virtual clothing and hair colour that you can choose to "express yourself". And all for less than the price of joining a gym for a year.
If the kids start weeping because you're hogging their Wii, you can always play one of the many family-friendly racing games such as Mario Kart. Just like in the advert, you can cram up on the sofa with your wireless steering wheels and interact with each other by crashing and overtaking as you all stare straight ahead at the TV. Bored of Wii-ing? Then you can always let off steam by carving up someone else's avatar with a virtual samurai sword or having a round of virtual boxing. In fact the only things that seem to be missing from the entire Wii life package are eating and fornicating. Stop the presses: fornication on Wii is now possible with the recent invention of an "erotic rhythm" game, rather like the drumming one in Wii Music but with audio samples of whipping and real female moans.
I'm looking forward to the invention of Wii Mountain (with white plastic crampons and oxygen masks) so that I can take my kids to the most inaccessible places on earth and really forge our family unit through toil and struggle against the elements. Until it's invented, however, we'll have to make do with the cold, wet and mud of the deserted play park.
