Mario Kart has been one of the most successful Nintendo driving games that has been launched across all their games consoles since the SNES (Super Nintendo). How does Mario Kart for the Wii measure up
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Does Mario Kart for the Wii Live Up to Expectations
I have spent the last three years trying to eat healthier, to lose weight, and to get myself fitter, so imagine my horror when I got on the scales last week for the first time in several months and found that I had put on 10lbs.
YES TEN POUNDS!
I put a lot of this down to it being Winter, and with the dark evenings, the cold and ice of England, or if not that the rain. Combining these together make it very unpleasant to take a walk after work, or even at the weekends, and what’s worse, the cold weather makes you want to eat more wholesome food, like stews and steaming hot dishes with lots of gravy.
The weight gain is also partly due to my new lifestyle, since I started a new job three months ago, and now instead of walking at lunchtime, as I used to do when I lived in Florida, I usually spend my time on the computer and write articles – like this one…
I am guilty too of having been addicted to Evony (which I wrote about in another article), and for the last six months of last year I spent far more time sitting at the computer playing an on-line game than getting out and exercising.
Well, it’s now 2010, today is the 1st February, and I want to lose those 10 pounds and more and to return to being a bit fitter again.
My fiancee bought us a Wii for Christmas, primarily so that we could use the Wii Fit package, but we haven’t really used it until the end of last week. She registered on Wii Fit and tried it out, and on Saturday I thought “Right, it’s my turn to try and do something about my situation!.
So on the Wii Fit Board I get, and go through the registration process and tests. My balance has always been fairly good, although I couldn’t walk along a narrow beam to save my life, but imagine my surprise when the results showed that my Wii Fit Age was 38! Not bad since I am actually 55!
I thought it best to start with Yoga, since stretching and pose are good for you, but I quickly found out that this is not really my thing. I need to get into this later as I know it will do me good, but when your body is stiff and overweight, it’s not exactly easy.
So I moved onto Muscle Toning, and this seemed just as bad as Yoga. By now I was getting a little frustrated, and so I moved onto Aerobic Workout, and here I found I could have some fun. I started off by heading Soccer Balls, which took some doing, since I was leaning towards them with my upper body and not changing my body balance. Doing the Hula Hoops is not something I can do well in real life, but I quickly mastered this on the Wii, even though my fiancee was laughing hysterically at my movements. I think she got almost as good a workout as I did from just laughing!
Off now to do some Step Exercises, which not having done this in real life I found a bit hard, until I was shown how, and then I was off. I think of all the Aerobics exercises I enjoy the Hula Hoop and Step Aerobics best, since they are not too strenuous, but you can feel the effects.
Finally, I moved on to the Jogging, which again is something that I have never been good at. Having been overweight all my life and not having the greatest knees in the world, this is quite strenuous on my body, but off I set, jogging on the spot in the middle of the living room floor, and the way that my legs were kicking out had my other half in hysterics again. Even on the lowest level, by the time I got to the end of the course my legs had turned to jelly, but I could feel the benefits as I was puffing and panting away.
“OK it’s YOUR turn I said”, knowing that my fiancee isn’t any better at exercising than I am, and so she logged into the Wii Fit program and set about doing the Hula Hoops. Well, I practically got the camcorder out it was so funny to watch. I wish we had both videoed ourselves, as we looked ridiculous.
She then tried the jogging, and I could tell by the time she got halfway through the course that she was puffed and about to give in, but she didn’t, and kept going right on to the end, but like me it left her out of breath for ages.
I will keep you up to date as we progress, and I know that this will help us to get fitter over time. It’s still not the same as being outside in the fresh air though, and fortunately the days have started getting longer, and it’s possible to start going for evening walks again, which we both really enjoy.
Do you have a Wii and use it for keeping fit? I would love to hear how you are using it and what success you have had, so if you do, please leave a comment and let me know.
Although setting up the wireless internet connection on a Wii ought to be simple, very often there are quirks on the router or the Wii itself that cause the setup to fail.
Typical failures listed on the Wii support blogs include:
What I have not seen listed is another fix that I learned from a good friend and network guru a few years ago, and in my case this fix solved the network connection issues that I was having on my Wii.
Debbie just bought us a Wii a few days before Christmas, and her son set it up for us the night before we left for Florida, so I never got to even try it then, and since we returned from Florida we have been too busy until yesterday to even power it on. Well typical for me, having let Debbie play it a bit, I set down to reading the manuals to make sure I knew enough about the setup and to see what features it had and what we could do on it. Above all I was intrigued by the fact that it had an internet connection, and could not relax until I knew whether we could connect our Wii to our network or not.
The settings were easy to deal with, but despite my having entered the WEP Key correctly a number of times, it still would not connect to our network.
I remembered that some devices do not automatically convert the entered key characters to uppercase, so I set the Caps Lock key on the Wii keyboard on, and then typed the WEP key again. I did not imagine that this was the cause of the connection problem, but was very relieved to find out that it then connected immediately.
I was rather disappointed at the Channels, especially the weather, few international locations compared with using internet sites, and very limited news feeds, but the potential to play against family and friends around the world really has me excited, especially playing against my daughters in Florida.
So, if you are having problems connecting your Wii to your wireless network, just try entering your WEP key in Upper Case, and hopefully this will work for you.
If this does not resolve your problems, I strongly recommend Liquid Ice’s Nintendo Wii Hacks, as this has great information to help you get your Wii working 100%.
On 27th September, Nintendo made an announcement dropping the price for the Wii console from the original $249.99 to only $199.99 as from 1st October.
This means that for those of you who are struggling to afford one, now the Nintendo Wii is hopefully within the price range that you can afford.
I know it’s still not within mine, unless I get a job soon, but this is good news for anyone who would like a Nintendo Wii who has a birthday coming up (and what greater birthday present could you ask for!), and it’s also ideal for the perfect Christmas present as well.
One thing I am certain of is that there is going to be a mad rush to buy the Nintendo Wii for Christmas, and while I am sure that Nintendo has geared up their production for this, I wouldn’t want to find out that they are all sold out.
If you are seriously thinking of buying a Nintendo Wii, the link above gives you more information and reviews.