Keep it simple and kick it old school

About a year ago, our family’s Wii entertainment system fried. Over the holidays I decided I’d buy another one. Why not? We’re living the pandemic life. It would be good to have something else to do while it is frustratingly cold outside.

I walked into a local retail store and asked the clerk if they sell the Wii console. And then came the look. It was like I was asking for the Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots or a set of Tinker Toys.

“Uh, no …,” was pretty much the response.

Has it been that long since Wii was a thing?

Am I that old?

I actually had to Google it. Not my age, but how long the Wii has been around.

As it turns out, at least a decade. After I thought about it, I guess it has been at least 10 years since we’ve had the original Wii.

I did strikeout locally in my grand, and somewhat blind, search for a Wii. So I shifted gear, and followed the masses to Amazon. We are in a pandemic, so I guess I should shop online anyway. We did find one and placed the order, although we spent more than I probably should admit.

As you can pretty much tell by now, I have never been the biggest video game guy. Like most 40-somethings, I do have the graveyard of gaming systems in a corner of the garage. Between that and a box that has been probably sitting in a room in my parents’ home for decades, you’ll find my evolution of video games. There’s the old Commodore 64, the original Nintendo Entertainment System I got for my birthday when I was probably still in elementary school and the original PlayStation. I am sure there’s also the Game Boy and others I have forgotten about along the way.

I recently found the box that has the Playstation 2 and a bunch of games. I thought about hooking it up, and playing a little NHL 2001. But the stuff is still in the box.

After I got my first Nintendo, I remember getting the chance to go to the video store to rent a game was a really big deal. I have always liked sports games. Madden football, NHL hockey, the baseball games. But I was good to go after a game or two. I never had the attention span for much more.

Although I did have my guitar hero era.

Most times I played the non-sports games with friends the story was pretty much the same. I’d wait about an hour for my turn, and then I would get killed in about 42 seconds.

Die. Wait an hour. Repeat.

The worst was a game like Zelda. It always starts the same, with a friend saying, “wait, let me show you this level.”

And it always ends the same, with me trying to smother myself with a pillow.

Like I said, aside from the sports games, I have never been much of a video game guy, and we’re not a big video game family. But my youngest daughter, who just turned 12, loves the Wii sports games.

Golf, bowling, archery, tennis, baseball, basketball, the Wii resort game.

Especially the golf.

And I love it too.

I know the “Call of Duty” type games are more of the thing, and I hear about Tim Rockey’s “Rocket League” conquests on a regular basis. Yes, the Wii was the thing 10 years ago.

But we’re going to keep it simple in the Bartz household. Kick it old school, and play a round of Wii golf before watching a few “Seinfeld” reruns.

Contact Frontiersman managing editor Jeremiah Bartz at editor@frontiersman.com.