Wii In Route

We ended up purchasing our Wii from PCConnection Sunday night. I'd provide a link to the product page, but it's already out of stock, of course. :)

In a $330 bundle, we got the Wii ($250), an extra remote ($40), and an extra nunchuk ($20)--that's a $310 value! :) But when you factor in free shipping and no sales tax, we actually come out ahead by about five bucks compared to buying it locally. We also ordered a component cable, but it's unclear whether that will be arriving with the package or in a later shipment.

Anyway, DHL says the package will arrive on Friday, in time for a weekend filled with lots of intense tennis & bowling action, not to mention some manic Mii design.

I've been doing a lot of research on games the last few nights, aided by X-Play, Gamespot, IGN, TheWiire, and, of course, the recommendations you folks posted here. Here are the games I'm thinking about, in rough order of priority, for purchase or rental over the first several months:

• Rayman Raving Rabbids - too funny looking to pass up.
• Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz - looks like a similar game to Crash Bandicoot, which we enjoyed a lot on PS1.
• Excite Truck - I've always had a soft spot for arcade racers, though I'd love to see a Grand Tourismo-style game for the Wii someday as well. Like so many things, the wii-mote seems perfect for a driving simulator.
  
• Super Paper Mario - Wife likes platformers, I like rpg's, so this sounds like a fun game to tide us over until Super Mario Galaxy.
• Mercury Meltdown Revolution - looks like a fun puzzle game, and at only $20 new, it should be very cheap used!
• Warioware: Smooth Moves - Probably a rental candidate, it looks fun to play through at least once.
  

I'd eventually like to check out Zelda, but I plan to keep getting most of my rpg fix with NWN2. With the console I hope to rediscover the "twitch" gamer within, lost lo these many years, and focus on multiplayer stuff I can do with the family.

Actually, "rediscover" might be too strong of a word--but I've never owned a current console before, my only other one being a PS1 that I purchased long after PS2's were on the market. Growing up, I played with my neighbor's NES quite a bit, but at home all I had was my 8088. So this should be fun.

The Wii

So tonight, we were at a party at my wife's coworker's house. And he had a Nintendo Wii. All we did is play Wii Sports the entire time (as much as the kid would allow us to, anyway). And we had a blast. This is the first time my wife's been genuinely excited about a video game system, at least since we went through a mild playstation 1 phase a few years ago. So needless to say, we decided that we need to get one. :)

Obviously, supply is a major problem right now. But assuming that can be conquered, I wanted to figure out what exactly we'll need to invest into the thing in order to get up to speed. Here's my list:

• The Wii -- $250
• Extra controller -- $40 (we could get Wii Play plus a controller for $50...though I've heard that game might not be worth the ten bucks)
• Extra nunchuk thingie -- $20 (maybe...not sure it'd be used much, except maybe for boxing)
• Component Cable -- $20 (we recently bought a 37" HDTV, and while the Wii isn't HD, I want it to look as good as possible...and it does seem to make a big difference)
  

I'd also like to get the charge station, though we have a good number of quality rechargeable extra AA's floating around for our digital cameras, so it's probably not necessary.

So we're looking at roughly a $330 startup. And that's before we get any games. I'm sure we'll go the rental/used route as much as possible, but even used Wii games are pricey right now.

Any recommendations? Zelda seems like the only game that I'd be personally obligated to get, given my interests. But I'm more interested in games that my wife (a non-gamer) might like, and that we can play together...