About a year ago it was a week before Xmas 2007, and I convinced my girlfriend that we should buy ourselves a Wii for a present. The only problem was that they were harder to find than a Hammer Brother Suit. I was constantly checking the online classifieds, and phoning every electronics store within a 100km radius of my house. Then finally a local store received an unexpected shipment of ten systems, and I got down there when there were two left (the guy behind me in line got the last one).

This all seemed like a big deal for just another console, even though it was the holiday season. After all the stress from acquiring the Wii, I could’ve been easily disappointed if it didn’t live up to the hype. Luckily, the first title I bought was Super Mario Galaxy. This is always a safe bet with a new Nintendo console, as the designers behind the Mario Franchise are sure to be familiar with all the capabilities of the new hardware, and have the track record of many of the best games ever created.

Super Mario Galaxy didn’t just live up to my expectations, it totally blew my mind. Clean graphics, a familiar interface, great controls, and above all the physics of changing gravity make this a game that I could play over and over again. It even has a few levels which are very difficult, such as having to go back and beat a previous boss without sustaining any damage.

This title set the bar quite high for other Wii titles, and in the past year I’ve experienced some shockingly bad graphics and game ideas that make me wonder just who they are marketing to. That being said, the fact is that the Wii is the first system in a long time that has a different-looking controller, and is not all thumbs and complex button combinations. This has made it relatively popular with a whole segment of the population outside of the stereotypical young male gamers.

One other thing that has set the Wii apart from past consoles is the Virtual Console and WiiWare features available online. The Wii automatically connected to the internet via my wireless router, and in a few short button clicks, my credit card information was in their system and I was downloading some of my favorite classics. These include but are not limited to Gradius, Tecmo Bowl, Mega Man 2, Contra, Super Mario Bros. 3….. the list goes on and on. Revisiting these games 20 years later is both a challenging and rewarding experience. Nintendo also sells games under the category ‘WiiWare’, which are shorter, simpler titles, ranging from about 5 to 20 bucks. World of Goo is a very smart and popular title (check out the Metacritic rating), and Tetris party is a new twist on an old classic, with great variations on the original and addicting online play.

So now I find myself sitting in the glow of the Xmas tree reflecting on 2008, the year of Wii. One minute I’m taking a fitness test in Wii Sports, consisting of realistic tennis, boxing, and baseball drills, and the next minute completing near-impossible levels in Mega Man 2, from a time where video games consisted of pure jumping and shooting. Amazingly, my girlfriend is calling “next game”, a regular event. If you ask me, Nintendo has already surpassed expectations for the Wii, and there’s still loads of potential.