Love the Wii, Love Wii Music?

Last year, my husband wanted to buy my son a Wii for Hanukkah. I didn't think that a 5 year old needed a Wii. After much debate, I won. Thinking about it a little while later, I came to a conclusion - my husband wanted the Wii for himself and decided to disguise it as a gift for our son. Pretty smart, heh? Clearly it didn't go as he had planned.

Fast forward to April, husband's birthday. Guess what he got as his gift? Wow, you're smart! Yup, a Wii. It's now been about 6 months and game collectors we certainly are not - we have Wii Sports (it came with it), two other games that I have no idea what they are/what they do/how to play them, the Wii Fit (another story for another day) and, Guitar Hero which we L-O-V-E. When Nintendo sent us an advance copy of Wii Music last month, our pathetic excuse for a game collection increased, AND we scored some bonus points with friends thought it was cool that (a) Nintendo sent us stuff and (b) we were given the game before it was out in stores.

We've played it a few times and definitely think it's pretty cool. My two year old daughter was able to play it, as were my six year old son and my husband, none of whom have any musical training whatsoever. Me (and my 14 years of piano and 10 years of violin lessons) as well as a friend whose in a pretty cool band, were all able to play Wii Music and have fun. Pretty much no skills are necessary, but if you got 'em, use 'em. There's a great tutorial that teaches you how to hold the contoller and nunchuck to play the different instruments (there are 60 of them) and you go through the motions of actually playing the instrument. You can create and play with your miis, play with friends or alone, record your music and make videos. If you have the balance board from Wii Fit, you can set it up and use it as a drum set, also pretty cool. The kids will recognize the songs like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" as opposed to mainly radio songs. All in all, a super creative game, and if you get into thinking about the making of video games, you realize that whoever thought up this whole idea is pretty freakin' cool!

However, heed this warning - if you consider yourself a "gamer" and are competitive with your video games, this is not a game for you. Why? Pretty much because there's no actual game. There's no beginning, there's no end, there's no score, there's no beat the evil guy and get to the next level. There's play the music, play the different instruments and see what you can do with it. Don't get me wrong, Wii Music has gotten some pretty awful reviews, which is certainly not where I'm going. It's fun. It's great to play with your kids and let them experiment. You're not though going to sit for hours upon hours as you can do with games like Guitar Hero or Lego Batman (don't have it, I've just heard).

You can purchase Wii Music at Amazon.com for $49.99.