Dan's Papers - April 3, 2009

I'm a pretty big video game guy. I have the most advanced (expensive) version of X-Box 360 and have beaten, on my own mind you, Grand Theft Auto IV without doing any cheat codes. But it wasn't until last weekend that I had the pleasure and pain of playing the Nintendo Wii.

If you have been living under a box, the Nintendo Wii is a video game system where you have to actually move more than your fingers to get it to operate. If you want to play a tennis game, for example, you have to swing the controller as if it were a tennis racket.

One of the real benefits of using the Wii is that it lets you know that you are out of shape. My buddy Paul Bozgo, a CPA in New York, swears by the Wii. "Dude, you get such a great workout on it. You won't believe how addictive it is."

"Why not just go out and actually play tennis?" I said, and then immediately felt old.

"Play it and you'll understand."

At my friend Rich's house in Jamesport, I wound up and got on the Wii. Rich's Eight-year-old son, Matt, and I were about to battle each other at bowling. Matt is unbelievably good at bowling using the Wii and I was destroyed in a pathetic display of athleticism against an eight year old. We then "boxed." I was sure I would win. I faced up against this little eight year old and was steadfast and focused. Our computer characters on the television sized each other up and then the screen yelled "Fight!"

I started dancing around the room, expecting my character to dance around the room and avoid punches, but this does not work very effectively. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Matt flailing his arms in every direction as fast as humanly possible. That's cheating I thought, as I went down for the count in about two minutes.

When my character got up, I decided to just let it all go and began punching the air as hard and as fast as I could. The two of us must have looked like crazy people. Little Matt had his eyes closed and was completely focused on punching and I stood in amazement as my character officially became knocked out. I had lost a boxing match to an eight year old.

"Let's play tennis," I said.

My heart was racing. I was already sweating and I felt kind of dizzy, but I didn't care. I needed to beat this kid at something. We fired up tennis and I began to run around the room swinging the air. I backhanded, I aggressively covered the net and was nearly running into walls diving for the ball.

It was then, at this point, that I began to get really tired. I was swinging as hard as I could, but started to notice that no matter how hard I swung my controller, the ball seemed to go the same speed on the screen. That's when it hit me that I was putting way to much energy into this game. Matt was very casually just swinging the controller and winning the game. What was the point of trying so hard?

I then began to just swing my controller gently, and discovered that the Wii is a lot more about timing and a lot less about strength. "You could have told me that I didn't need to run around and swing so hard Matthew," I said in a fatherly voice.

"Sorry," he said. Which I'm sure really translated into, "I just thought it was hysterical how stupid you looked."

For at least four hours, I played the Wii. The following morning I really had thrown my arm out badly and needed to take Advil to drive. Nearly every muscle in my body ached.