ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

We went to Ridgedale Shopping Center today for lunch and to buy boxers for our son.  The boxers were sold out and I ended up buying more Hello Kitty clothes for my daughter.  After that, we were thinking of hitting the mall’s playground if our kids behaved.  Instead, we ran into a Wii Games: Summer 2010 event.  It was pretty interesting.

There were free plays and competitions.  A lot of people lined up for the free plays so I registered my son and I in group competition as well to get more chances to play.  There were a lot of game terminals where you could play from Wii Fit Plus, Wii Sports Resort, Just Dance, Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart Wii, to Super Mario Galaxy 2.  You can get a coin sticker after each play. The prizes were as follows:

5 coin stickers for a mushroom tin with candy or a character key chain.
8 coin stickers for two Wii skins or a competition baseball cap.
11 coin stickers for a collector’s edition of Mario Yahtzee or a Mario Bros character plush toy.

As for the group competition, finalists of the Wii Games Summer 2010 event will compete in Los Angeles.

My daughter liked “Just Dance” a lot and I got to play with her.  If you read my poem “a little girl inside me” (please see http://elisaenglish.pixnet.net/blog/post/5672036 ) , you will know that I love to dance.  I haven’t been dancing since my kids were born.  I was having a lot of fun making those dance moves with my daughter.  It was a pretty good workout and my body is completely sore.  I watched my son playing “Wii Fit Hula Hoop”.  He is very good at hula hooping and he had a decent 100 spins.  I used to feel really proud with my ability to hula hoop for a long time but I was rather embarrassed to see that I could only hula hoop for 2 spin playing “Wii Fit Hula Hoop”; even my daughter who could not hula hoop got five spins.  

“Wii Sports Resort Archery” is another fun game.  Judging from my lack of athletic gene, you can easily imagine that I did not hit a bull’s eye.  I used to bowl in a league while working at a defense company, so I was somewhat excited and felt back in the game when I played “Wii Sports Bowling”.

I don’t play video games so you can probably imagine how I suck at playing them.  Within minutes, it was game over for me as I played “Super Mario Bros. Wii” and “Super Mario Galaxy 2”.      

We had a lot of fun, especially my son.  He is addicted to playing computer games.  At the end, my daughter got the Super Mario Bros. Banpresto Plush – Toad and my son got the Super Mario Bros. Banpresto Plush – Yoshi.  My son wanted a Mario but the Mario character plush toys were all out by the time he claimed his prize.  By the way, I think that the mushroom character looks rather cute.

We had a lot of fun.  Nintendo is very good at marketing its products with promotional events like this, similar to what Apples does with iPhones and iPad.  People are more likely to buy a product when they have the opportunity to try out for free.  I am now contemplating buying a Wii or a Wii Fit System.  Maybe I can hide it in our basement so our kids won’t find it and I could probably do the workout after they fall asleep.  Sounds like a rather attractive idea if not for the pricy price tag.    

By the way, I just learned that this event is held in several locations.  Maybe you can find one in your area.  See link for event schedule and location.    http://www.wiigames2010.com/wii-event-locations.aspx       

Written By Elisa English

On 8/9/10 in Minneapolis

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