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19-Nov-2006 Wii has landed in the US! CVG brings you the low-down on the hardware and the launch games

The waiting is finally over - for the US anyway. We brits still have three more painful weeks of waiting to endure, but today is the day that gamers all over the US will finally get their hands on the Wii.

If you've been avidly hunting for every scrap of news on the Wii for the past agonising year of excitement and anticipation, there's probably nothing you don't already know about the Wii - except for what it's like to hold it on your hands.

We've put together these impressions to paint you a clear picture of what the hardware is like, how well it functions and, for your purchase-listing convenience, a quick run-through all 20 launch games on sale in the US right now. If you're thinking about getting the Wii, or are already on the pre-order list, this is all you need to know.

In the box
First thing's first, this is exactly what's packed into those lush white Wii boxes:

* Wii Console
* One Wii Remote (and two batteries)
* One Nunchuk expansion controller
* Sensor Bar
* Composite Cable (red, white and yellow connectors)
* Power cable
* Wii Sports (sadly not in its own DVD case)
* Huge wad of user manuals


The Hardware
The Wii is small. That's the first thing that hits you when you remove the packaging and see its tiny frame. You may have heard Nintendo's approximation of the Wii being roughly the size of three DVD cases, but you don't realise how small that is until you sit it next your TV.

It's shiny white casing oozes style, and because it's such a bright white it's not as prone to glaring fingerprinting. We also noted how solid the console feels - it's small but feels weighty enough to give it that 'crammed with technology' feel, if you know what we mean.

Hooking the console up is a fairly ordinary process, the only extra task being to connect and position the Wii's all-important Sensor Bar. The cable connecting it to the Wii is several feet long, so no worries there.

The Sensor, as said before, can go above or below your TV screen, but really should be as central as possible. If your TV is on a large, flat surface you can dump the Sensor on the surface just in front of the screen. But we find placing it on top of the TV, and maybe securing it with a small, unnoticeable strip of double-sided sticky tape helps secure it nicely.

Once set up, you tap the little power button and on comes that slick blue light around the CD bay. That's when you'll another one of the Wii's significant attributes - it's absolutely silent. If the room is completely without sound, you might just hear the soft purr of the tiny fan in the back of the machine - with your ear pressed against the machine.

In fact, the most noise the console makes is the smooth buzz of the front-loading disc drive sucking in a game disc - although not at all an unpleasant sound. The 360 disc drive has a painful 'clunk' as it comes to a complete close, but there's no such discomfort with the Wii.

Inserting and ejecting discs is as smooth as you could ever hope. You barely need to insert the disc before the machine detects it and springs into action, gently taking it from your hands and slotting it into place, ready for play.

Hit the eject button and a few seconds later the disc slowly slides out, stopping with the central hole just outside the drive, so you can take hold of your precious games by the outside edge and middle without fingerprinting the data surface. It accepts the the smaller GameCube discs with equal ease - you insert the disc roughly near the centre of the drive and it'll do the rest.

Slam the batteries into the Remote and you're almost ready to go. First you have to get the wireless Remote to talk with your Wii, which you do by hitting both sychro buttons - one under the small flap on the front of the Wii and the other under the battery cover of the back of the Remote itself. It only takes a second or two, you're ready to go (you can read a detailed analysis of the look and feel of the Wii Remote here). Then it's onto the games.

The games
There are 20 games available right now in the US, and here's a quick run-down of what they're all about.

Wii Sports: The packaged Wii Sports is the perfect game to both show off the Wii's abilities, and help you become accustom to them. It features simple motion-controlled recreations of five popular sports: boxing, bowling, tennis, golf and baseball. Basic in both gameplay and graphical detail, but great, simple, family-friendly fun.

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