After living with our Nintendo Wii for a good six weeks now, I thought I'd post a half-term report on how we, as a family, are living with this extraordinary little console. There are other excellent reviews on the in's, out's and wherefore's of the Wii but I thought I'd give you an idea of what it's like after the initial excitement has died down. I also mention Wii Sports which, considering it comes free with the console, I thought to be a pertinent addition to the review. Please see the end of this review for links to other excellent reviews that go into detail of what is included in the Wii package.

We bought our Wii at the beginning of November 2007, just before the big boom in demand. We paid £230 for it off Ebay and it came from Germany as it seemed to be the only place it was available. The RRP is £179.00 and yes, we have paid over the odds but as the old saying goes, 'Long after price is forgotten, quality is remembered' (or something).. Since then, demand has sky-rocketed and for the second year running, the Wii has been the 'must-have' toy (console?) to own. But why?

It's an interesting phenomenon. Having played computer and video games for nigh-on thirty years (as I realised with horror the other day), not since we received our very first pong game made by Binatone, plugged into a black and white portable has the whole family able to become involved in a computer game. I think this is where the popularity lies. Sure, the PS3 and Xbox360 have better visuals, better multimedia and all the rest but the humble little Wii is the only one that can engage the whole family and actively seeks to do so. While Microsoft and Sony have been involved in one-upmanship in terms of technological advances, Nintendo have obviously stepped back and decided to re-invent the console as something anyone can access. That's not to say the Wii graphics are bad because they aren't - they're probably on a par with a PS2 (I would say) but you're not buying a Wii for that. The Xbox and PS3 have great online games (as do PC's) but it's still mainly a solitary experience for the person sat at home. The Wii turns this around completely thanks to its revolutionary control system.

A case in point: Over the Christmas period, we had the obligatory family gathering where everyone and their sister turned up on our doorstep expecting to be fed and entertained. Within half an hour, my 72-year old mother was scoring strikes on Wii Bowling and jumping up and down in excitement (well, as much as her dodgy hip allows). They weren't bothered about frame-rates or dolby surround sound or processor speeds, all they knew is they could pick up the Wii-mote, and within seconds could whizz that ball down the alley for a strike or score a home-run playing baseball or, with a fore-arm smash, send a tennis ball down the by-line with such accuracy that Federer himself would have had difficulty stopping. It's THAT easy to play. If I were to give my dear old mum an Xbox or PS3 controller she would hold it in her arthritic hands as if she were holding the latest record from Girls Aloud - with total disgust. 'I can't work that', she would say. But with the Wii, she even started talking about bringing out her old tennis outfit complete with mini-skirt. We had to draw a line there though.

Nintendo have such a rich pedigree in making games that, while arguably were never cutting-edge in terms of graphics, are immensely playable. And it's a sentiment I whole-heartedly agree upon. Wii Sports, the freebie that comes in the box with the Wii, is a superb example of this. Sure, they could have gone to town on the graphics but keeping it simple and clear means you concentrate on the game as opposed to trying to squint to see any kind of detail or being overwhelmed by the sheer number of things happening on screen at once. You just play the game and enjoy it. I believe the fresh-faced, cartoony graphics make it accessible to more people and they are less intimidating for non-computer games geeks - my mother being one who understood straight away what was going on.

When you first start Wii Sports, in 1-player mode, the computer opponents are pitched at just the right level for a complete beginner. As you get the hang of the controls and you start winning games, your rating goes up and the computer opponents start to raise their game ever-so slightly above yours. It sounds a simple concept and one which is common to all consoles, but it is executed here with such sublimation that the entire family can play on a level playing field (pardon the pun). I was bragging to one of my daughters friends how good I was at tennis and challenged him to a game. Little did I know that he could pick a computer partner that had a skill level equal to my own and after a long, tense game (ok, it was over in minutes), he absolutely thrashed me despite never having played it before.

And that's really just the start of it. We were lucky enough to be the first people on our street to obtain a Wii and our daughters friends were immediately knocking on the door asking if Meg could 'come out to play'. Despite there being a thunderstorm and they were all wearing slippers and pyjamas, I kinda knew what they'd come for. The next few hours they spent on the Wii creating Mii's (totally customizable little characters that can appear in the games) on the Mii Channel and they loved it. We've all got our own characters and they are surprisingly life-like again in that stylized, cartoony kind of way. It sounds weird but you become very protective over your own character and if someone else plays as your avatar then it's like finding the milkman in bed with the wife or someone else wearing your shoes. Again, small touches such as the Mii's and being able to play with them in games help to gain affinity with the player and draw your interest. You can even transfer your own Mii to the Wii-mote then take it to someone elses house and it will pick up your Mii character so you can still play as yourself. How cool is that?

We found the menus and options screens to be easy to navigate with large, clear buttons and concise information on what button to press. The main buttons to use are the 'A' button on top of the Wii-mote and 'B' - the 'trigger' button, and that's about it. Certainly on Wii Sports, the menu system is incredibly easy to use and even in games you only ever really need one button. Because you wave the remote around to control your character or move the pointer around on screen, it's a really natural way of playing a game. You bowl the ball like in a real bowling alley. You swing the bat, racket or club just like you would if you were on a real tennis court or golf-course. It is so intuitive. Now consider the multitude of buttons on say, a PS3 controller - 4 shoulder buttons, 4 right-thumb buttons, a stick for the left thumb that also doubles as a button and all those extra buttons in the middle. Did I miss any? 12 year-old kids in a darkened bedroom will probably love them. 72 year-old mothers don't.

One of the first things I did was to hook up the Wii to my wireless network. This is probably the most technical thing I have had to do with the Wii (even setting it up initially and attaching it to the TV is reasonably easy) and after a few aborted attempts, I realised my router was set to use an 'Access List' which is not supported by the Wii. I changed my wi-fi network to use a pass-key system, entered the code in the necessary place via the Wii's network configuration utility and away it went. Net-tastic.

At first, you can only access the Wii Shop, News and Weather Channels over the internet - full internet access is available to purchase as an optional extra. I can see the logic behind this as not everyone will want to use their Wii to surf the internet and to keep costs down, Nintendo make a small charge for it. Again, this is easily done. You first have to buy some points in 1000 or 2000 point denominations (and more as well) using your credit card. 1000 points is about 7 quid and the Internet Channel is available for 500 points meaning it costs about £3.50 - but this is a one-off and there are no more charges (apart from your own net access of course). I also bought the original Super Mario Brothers game from the Wii shop for 500 points that downloaded itself to the console within seconds. An all-time classic game for £3.50? - that's the kind of price-point I like. Turning the Wii-mote on its side, Super Mario plays as well as it did all those years ago and brought back a massive wave of nostalgia for me.

Again, this is another master-stroke by Nintendo. They have made available over 300 classic Nintendo games from the past covering all their different consoles (Nes, Snes, Gamecube etc) that can be purchased and played on the Wii. The games range from 500 points to about 1200 (I think that is the most expensive) and represent excellent value for money. They also download to your Wii more-or-less instantly. They have also thought to include slots for several gamecube controllers on the Wii so if you've got some gamecube games gathering dust in the loft, dig them out because you can play them all on the Wii - along with the original controllers. There's also the couple of obligatory USB slots.

We found Internet surfing to be quite tricky at first using the Wii-mote. It does use a rather natty browser though which has a lovely zoom effect where all the words on a web-page re-arrange themselves in a clickety-clackety fashion as the zoom button is pressed. Pressing the 'A' button while the pointer is over a picture brings the image up in an over-layed window - another lovely touch. Entering website addresses is quite hard though - you have to use the on-screen keyboard and can be quite time-consuming. If you want to visit www.biglonginternetaddressthatyoucantremember.com, then expect to spend a few minutes 'typing' in the address. I can feel a USB keyboard being purchased in the next few weeks …

The last console I had was the PS2 and while it had some great games, they were never really what you could call 'social'. I had to schedule time on the telly just to play a game and this increasingly became more and more difficult particularly as my daughter grew up and demanded more telly-time of her own. Now we can play together on games we both enjoy but not only that, we can play *equally* well - that's some achievement by Nintendo to allow people to do this. Especially considering I'm a thirty-year veteran of playing computer games and my daughter is just 8 years old who has just started to discover computer games for herself. I'm sure she'll overtake me in the near future (she can already beat me convincingly at the WWE wrestling game) and it's fun to be able to share with her an interest of my own that was, prior to the Wii, a predominantly solo activity.

A second Wii-mote is an absolute necessity and it's a shame that Nintendo don't provide more than one controller. A small tip: Buy the Wii Play game as you get an extra controller with it (or is it a free game with the control? - You decide). The game is ok but the controller is good value. Wii Boxing and some of the more advanced games such as SSX: Blur require a nunchuk controller so I would also consider a second nunchuk to be a worthwhile investment. Again, it's a shame that Nintendo didn't include this in the original package (you do get one nunchuk as standard though). They are about 15 quid for a second nunchuk. We've got our beady little eyes on some of the great accessories that are starting to crop up such as boxing mitts where the controllers fit into the glove, swords and shields for some of the fighting games and even tennis rackets or baseball bats! Watch where you're swinging or else you might find the lampshades flying around you. I speak with experience.

We recently tried the Photo Channel for the first time and while it's nice to be able to see our digital photos displayed on the TV, via an SD-card, I thought it was a little gimmicky. There are a few effects for the kids to play with but they soon got bored and went back to creating Mii's or playing a game. It's not Paint Shop Pro. It would have been nice if we could have used a digital photo to superimpose our faces onto the Mii characters but alas, this feature isn't there. Although, I have heard that Nintendo are planning on releasing a PS2 EyeToy-style camera to do that very thing. Don't quote me on that but if it's true, we'll definitely be looking into getting one of those.

At Christmas, we decided to expand our games collection a little and we've all got our favourites. When my daughter isn't winning the WWE Championship, she's building entire towns in Sims. The missus is now an International Three-Day Event Champion on Pippa Funnels Ranch Rescue and when I'm not snowboarding down a mountain, I'm a guitar rock-god in Guitar Hero 3 or scuba-diving in the South Pacific in Endless Ocean (a perfect game to unwind to after a hard day at work). And of course, we all still play on the Wii Sports game which has to be the greatest free-game in the history of free-gaminess. Great fun.