OverRated: Nintendo Wii short on games and typical gaming features

The Wii is a pretty amazing piece of technology. Not only has it brought casual gamers of all ages together, but it did it in a way which disillusioned many hardcore gamers frustrated by the lack of many features we have come to expect from the current crop of video game consoles. For lack of a better analogy, the Wii is a lot like sex -- the more people you have to play with, the better, and, well, playing by yourself just feels...wrong.

Toss in the fact that online play is about as much fun as smacking your shins with a splintered 2x4, due to the lack of voice chat and the inability to create a friends list which spans all games, and you'll begin to see where I am coming from. Nintendo reasons that it doesn't support these features in order to make the system more family friendly, but its competitors have managed to provide these features while giving parents the ability to limit the use of voice chat. These factors have turned me off of the Wii even as it sits there taunting me with its pulsating blue light.

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The final push over the edge into overrated for me comes from the lack of quality control, which has led to a slew of gimmicky games worth less than the plastic case they come in. Even Nintendo Fanboys admit that the lack of Nintendo's Seal of Quality has lead to an abundance of crap for the Wii. Unfortunately, other than Guitar Hero, games for the Wii without Mario or Luigi have, as a whole, been a disappointment. For every Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers, there are hundreds of games which could barely pass for a lame web game.

Sure, playing the Wii is fun and it has even inspired three kids to get off their couch and lose weight. However, the novelty of swinging around a Wii 'mote to play a game wears off about the time your last party guest heads home. As a gamer who owns a Wii, I can't help but notice that the Wii seems to get the majority of its use when I haul it to a friend's or to my grandparents for Christmas. As a whole, the Wii is lacking in games, online support and single player fun, leading me to the conclusion that it is overrated.