This is why we don’t have one
Friend and Doc own a Wii. And Doc received “Beatles Rock Band” for his birthday.
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Head belting out “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
Ane really doesn’t know any Beatles songs, but did manage to sing along with “Octopus’s Garden” thanks to the Muppets having once performed it on the Ed Sullivan Show. She “helped” play the drums on a couple of other songs.
We don’t have a Wii – or any other game console – for a very good reason. It’s simply too easy and too addicting.
Growing up, the Captain and Ressis and I received a Nintendo NES from our aunt and uncle one year for Christmas. We were never allowed to keep it up for more than a week at a time, because my parents didn’t want us to be constantly playing it – and this was in the days before the advent of the home computer and broadband internet access. My dad also had an old Atari game console that I think he owned before I was born, which we also loved, but it took forever to hook up.
If we owned a Wii, or a PS3, or an Xbox 360 or anything like it, it would just be a nightmare. Keeping the kids away from the TV is bad enough. I can’t imagine complicating it right now with a game console.
That’s not to say that some of the games available aren’t really great. The LEGO Star Wars and Indiana Jones games are fun, the Brain and Head really enjoy Mario Kart, and I just saw a Wii game at Costco based off the Toy Story Mania ride at Disneyland and Disney World. And don’t even get me started on the fact that the Wii just came out with a Wii lightsaber for use with Star Wars games.
We just can’t have one.
But I might be really tempted if they made a Rock Band with the Carpenters.
Subscribe to my feed
October 19th, 2009 07:55
Oddball doesn’t like the Carpenters! Can you believe it?
October 19th, 2009 09:42
It was Mario Kart Wii that pushed me into saying “yes”. 🙂
October 19th, 2009 09:55
The nice thing is at this age the boys just aren’t GOOD enough at any of the games to play them too much. But they’re learning fast, and I’m glad we have definite limits already set. The Rock Band experience of everyone playing together is one of the best things about that game, so at least it’s not antisocial. 🙂
October 19th, 2009 16:27
I will say this; In Iraq when I knew my wife was asleep, movies where dull and I was off duty. Computer games were a very welcome distraction and before you say it (that I should have been reading) I read close to 14 books in 5 months. So in cases such as the mentioned I can see the benefit of a video gaming system (or a nice laptop). But yes they are bad for kiddos.