My very first impression after opening the box was a four-letter word. It was late at night and I'd just discovered the Wii's interface cable came only with an RCA jack, and my amp only accepts S-Video. For those of you who aren't A/V junkies, the RCA jack provides much lower quality video than an S-Video interface does.

I didn't want to go searching for an S-video cable, so initially, I was Wii out of luck. I finally found a converter dongle from RCA to S-video in my bin of parts, but it wiilly annoyed me that the Wii came with an RCA interface only.

Now, wii know the Wii is designed for traditional TVs and not HDTV, but could it have killed Nintendo to include a converter dongle? It turns out Nintendo doesn't even make an S-Video cable. You have to search Amazon for an aftermarket brand.

Browsing the Web
Once hooked up, I set up the WiiFi interface and adjusted my router to allow the Wii to connect. Then I downloaded the Opera Web browser. Opera works ok, but uses about 20% of the screen for the basic navigation buttons that don't hide or go away.

While browsing, though, I was impressed that I could watch some nice-looking YouTube video on it (George Carlin) and that was pretty enjoyable. The Opera browser has no indicator that a page is loading. The browser needs work, but since it's still in beta, wii'll give it some time.

Wii Sports
Next, I played Wii sports. This is a bit wild. First, it is incredibly immersive. You get into a standing batter's stance to hit a baseball, and swing the controller like a tennis racket in Wii Tennis.

Wii Bowling
At first, Wii Bowling seemed dumb, because it appeared to just be a matter of how hard you swung your arm. But that's not the case. I cleared some space in my media room and did the actual three-step bowling approach, swung my arm, and wiileased the B button to let the ball fly. After a few rounds of this, it really, wiilly felt like I was bowling.

When Denise and I played together, wii truly did have the feeling of being at our local bowling alley (minus the stank and silly shoes, of course). Absolutely an incredibly immersive experience.

Wii Baseball
Pitching is stupid, and seems to be based on just strength of throw. Batting is incredibly fun. There's not a lot of control (I couldn't get it to bunt), but still, you can generally aim your hit. And you can assume a batter's stance, time your swing, and actually feel like you're hitting the ball with a bat.