I knew the day would come, it had to.

For a long, long time I have accused console games and the overlords who control them of ruining everything that was once sacred in video games. In a rush to make more money the big console companies would blitz right past all of the important things in games: fun, originality, playability, FUN; and instead focus on the quick fix items such as graphics and speed of play.

While graphics and speed of play are a necessary component to any great game, losing the fundamentals of what a game is, by definition, loses the purpose to have a game in the first place.

Then Nintendo decided to change everything. More after the flip…

I love originality. I especially love originality in video games. In my opinion, if you can’t explore new, unexplored and original content and concepts in a video game then where can you explore it?

Nintendo has decided that enough is enough with the console graphics races. Instead of releasing a new console to upgrade graphics they decided to release a new console to upgrade the way people think about playing video games.

This past weekend I finally got the opportunity to play a Wii. As it turns out, my sister’s fiance stood in line for 10 hours and got one of a few arriving at a local retailer. Even though he later passed out in the recliner as we enjoyed the fruits of his labor his contribution to an enjoyable weekend had been made. Because… I’ve got to be honest here… The Wii is so good it runs the risk of restoring my faith in consoles.

So there I was, standing in front of a television in the middle of a room swinging an innocent looking piece of plastic as if it were a bowling ball… a baseball bat… a boxing glove… and I didn’t care how crazy I looked. The games were fun… insanely fun… and the unique controller adds more to the game experience than I can express (believe me, I typed at least 50 different sentences to try and none did it justice).

So we’ve established that the games… and playing the games… is a better experience on the Wii than other consoles. But how easy was it to learn to use from a “new to games” perspective?

All I can say towards that is after a brief… and by brief I mean 10 seconds… explanation on where to stand and how the controller works both my mother and my wife (not gamers) were bowling strikes. The great thing is, even those of us who had been playing all day were only a small bit better than them at the games. So while they were able to pick up the game in a few minutes and understand how it works, we had spent hours playing and hadn’t outpaced them to the point to where they wouldn’t have fun playing. The “quick to learn, hard to master” ability of the new Wii is through the roof… and that is a significant element in making games fun to play with friends.

The fact is that Nintendo did a really, really good job making their new console accessible to more than just “serious” gamers. That’s something that you would think someone would have figured out since Nintendo revolutionized consoles last time (in the 1980′s). But everyone else has simply followed suit until Nintendo has again changed the playing field.

If you’re in the market for a console you should definitely consider the Wii. These things are great.