Help me Christmas Shop (touch monitors/Wii)

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I want a touch screen computer monitor for our special needs daughter, looked at LCD/CRT and add on screens. Has anyone had any experience with the LCD or the add ons? I’m worried the add ons do not work, they are so much cheaper if they did it would dominate the market is my thinking. And the LCD will her constant pressing cause problems? The CRT models I have played with but the bulk ugh.

My son is 12 and wants an xbox360 but I think a Wii would benefit him more, activity wise anyway. But games, which one has a better selection?

Thanks for helping me shop this season. Early as it is :slight_smile:

#2

I know nothing about the monitors, so no help there.

Both the Xbox and the Wii have a broad selection of games, but they have relatively few games in common. The Xbox’s strongest point is its excellent graphics, and its main customers are teens and young adults; the catalog of games available for the console slants accordingly. The Wii’s graphics are pretty cartoonish in comparison. Its strongest point is the unusual motion-sensor controls, and its main customers are Nintendo fans and groups of people who haven’t been interested in console games before; the catalog of games available for it slants in a completely different direction. If your son just knows that he wants a game console and isn’t too particular which, then either one would do, and the Wii is cheaper (if you can find it where you are). But since he’s 12, chances are he has a pretty good idea of what he wants. If nothing else he probably wants the console his friends have. I’d advise finding out more about what he wants before substituting another console; they are similar but not really equivalent.

For the record: we have both, the Xbox 360 for the 14-year-old and the Wii for the 8-year-old. I’m amazed at the graphics of the Xbox, but the Wii is just plain more fun for me. Bear in mind I’m female and pushing 40, and I still miss my old Atari 2600.

#3

Well he is barred from most games he wants to play. When Bioshock made him knock on our bedroom door and ask to sleep on the floor because he was scared, I took away those kind of PC games. So the Wii sounds pretty much like the anti adult theme which I kinda like. :wink: Thanks for the recommendation!

#4

Keep in mind, the Wii isn’t all kids’ games. I own one, and we have Resident Evil 4 which has lots of slaughtering of very realistic zombies in it. My husband and I haven’t owned a Nintendo system before (previous history includes Atari 2600, Sega Genesis, and Playstation 1 and 2), but we still enjoy it even without the history of Mario/Zelda/Rayman/Mega Man fandom. We also don’t have kids.

The majority of the games are skewed towards kids, but adults should enjoy most as well. The Lego series of games (Star Wars, Batman, to a lesser extent Indiana Jones) have all gotten very good reviews from what I’ve seen, and I plan to buy Star Wars soon.

I own Rayman’s Raving Rabbids which is a cute game full of lots of cartoony violence. This might be more fun played with a friend/sibling/parent as you get to laugh at what the other person is facing, cheer them on, etc. Lots of super-short “mini-games” to try out. Stuff like wiggling the controllers as fast as you can to deliver an exploding present, which does the cartoon ‘sooty face’ result to the Rabbid who receives it, or flinging a cow like you’re in the Olympic hammer toss competition. I got my copy at Target recently, for $20. There’s a sequel out which is around $40, so try the cheap one first.

Get WiiPlay packaged with a second controller. That way you can have two controllers, and you get another series of mini games for a decent price.

Some games require a “nunchuck” - I forget if we bought ours separate or if it came with the system. Check the backs of games you buy to see if it shows a little crescent-shaped controller in addition to the stick-shaped regular controller.

Check the games forum - I know there was a Wii games thread there in just the last day or so. You might find good recommendations there.

#5

I did take a look at the new HP Touch Smart a few weeks ago in a store display. I really like the idea, especialy as a family planner sort of thing. But unfortunatly I found it didn’t quite meet my expectations. It’s pretty slow to scroll through the options and you still have to use the keyboard for a lot of things. I’m not familiar with what touchscreen software packagages are available, but I suspsect that this particular system runs slow because it uses Vista as it’s OS. So while I don’t actually have a recommendation, I can at least tell you that I didn’t think this system would fit your needs.