Get It Online!

Now, there’s one thing I do not understand about most people with a Wii: hardly any of them have bothered to put it online. I just feel that if you’re going to spend that much on an electrical box that’s internet ready then why not use it? Apart from using Wi-fi hotspots with my DS (when they worked!) the Wii is the first console that I could actually get online. Okay pedants yes you could with a bit of jiggery pokery get your GameCubes online but that was a bit of a faff.

Going online is a step-by-step process listed on Club Nintendo for you, so it should be quite a doddle. Through no choice of my own I didn’t have my Wii online for the first two years I had it and as soon as I did manage to get online the Wii seemed like a much better thing to me. Most of the younger gamers won’t be interested in the News and Weather channels, which is fair enough. Let’s take a look at the other, more interesting channels on offer.

The Internet Channel: Okay, sticking with Opera rather than IE or something a bit more user friendly might put people off. However, it’s functional and stable and you get your sites laid out the way they should be in high resolution. Don’t know why, they just are.

Mii Channel: This will probably appeal to the younger gamers of the household. Each week or so the channel sets up a competition for people around the world to create Mii’s to look like certain people. Recently we’ve had Zombie’s, Odin and Sherlock Holmes. Make your Mii, send it off into the ether and let the World vote on your creation. You’ll get a results screen telling you how well you did, success represented by your Mii running up a mountain, which might be Fuji. The higher the better!

Wii Shop Channel: As the name suggests here you can buy all the new and old releases. Show your progeny how good you were at games and relish it as they tell you “Your games looked rubbish”, to which you can reply “It was all about the gameplay in our days”. You can get a surprising amount of Nintendo’s back catalogue on here as well with prices starting from 200 points for games (roughly £2.00). There’s also a shop section for those of you with a DSi. It’s worth noting that there are new releases every Friday.

I’m still hopeful Wizard’s Lair might actually come out. Google it kids, I was about 5 at the time.

Everybody Votes Channel: As the name suggests you can vote on any number of absurd questions the general public have asked. Couple of examples – would you rather own a boat or a plane? Do you prefer cats or dogs? And so on. You can actually supply the questions yourself, who knows they might pick yours. When voting has finished you can view a breakdown of whether mostly males or females agree or disagree. You can also view a map of Britain (or whatever country you reside in) shaded pink and green to tell you which region voted for what. In the case of Worldwide surveys, you can view the statistics by country.

Nintendo Channel: See all the new trailers for games here, whether it’s E3 trailers or the weekly downloads available from the Wii shop channel.

An added bonus if you own a DS is that you can download demos to try on your DS from this channel. It should be noted that some of the demos are only available for a limited amount of time, and the channel will tell you how long a demo is available for. If not, it’ll be on the channel forever….

Through this channel you can also rate you games and whether they will appeal to the hardcore or casual end of the market.

BBC iPlayer channel: Exactly as it sounds it’s the iPlayer on your console. If you have Virgin like me (or if you have Sky) then you have a red button anyway and if you don’t this acts like that. Missed a show? Watch it on your Wii. The quality isn’t brilliant compared to your TV, but it is passable. What I use it for is searching the radio shows as there are some real gems on the radio channels. Whether you’re looking for comedy, murder mystery or true stories they usually cater for everyone’s tastes.

Some games like Mario Kart and Wii Fit will supply you with their own channels, which show up when you start your machine up again after having played the game. In the case of Mario Kart this acts as your online hub for the monthly competitions and if you want to, race against your friends online. You can race random people from around the globe as well if you wish. Wii Fit’s channel actually allows you to do the fitness test without even getting the game out of the box.

See that book thing in the bottom right of the screen? Yes, you have an address book. You can register other people’s console codes in there (Chuck an email to SG if you want mine, by the way). As long as they have yours then you can send them messages, your Miis or even voice messages should you also have the microphone attachment. This enables you to send the far-too-long friend codes over the internet to your mates for next time you’re online.

If you got the microphone attachment with Animal Crossing you will be able to download the Wii Speak Channel where you can voice chat with any of your Wii console friends who are online at the same time.

Recently, the Today and Tomorrow Channel was added. This is just a horoscope channel where you can view advice and see how lucky you will be tomorrow. You can also be advised what colour to wear, what to do or what to cook. Of course this is just a bit of fun but again it’s free, so why not.

Lastly there is Wiiconnect24. With this option on, your Wii will download new trailers, updates for games and bonus content. Your disc drive will flash blue when this is happening. Using this system you can upload levels you’ve created in games such as Boomblox Bash Party, update high scores in the Raving Rabbid games and many other things. Plus, the all-important system updates will be downloaded to your console instead of you having to get some software yourself.

So, what will you be charged for all these channels I hear you cry? Well the simple truth is this: nada, zip, zilch, null. I think this is the reason it really annoys me that people don’t seem to bother. It’s totally free bar your usual net charge from your supplier. If you haven’t got your Wii online, what are you waiting for?