(Page 1 of 4)

DAY 1: WII FIT ARRIVES AT C. GAMER OFFICES

The first thing I notice about the Wii Fit packaging is that the box features four of the happiest looking people I have ever seen in my life. Even that old guy is smiling. It reminds me of all those pictures that Nintendo distributed of ecstatically happy people playing the Wii when it first shipped. Are these people all having involuntary orgasms? I remember thinking. Or maybe they all have candy down their pants. Who knows.

I also notice the inch and a half in diameter warning label on the outside of the box. Maximum Weight: 330 Pounds. Of course it's there because Nintendo's lawyers made them put it there, but it's still tough to realistically imagine anyone, say, within a hundred pounds of that mark showing even a remote interest in Wii Fit. In other words, if you happen to weigh 300-plus pounds, surely you have other things on which to spend your money than this. Like, for example, a snow shovel that you can use to toss Cocoa Pebbles down your maw.

I haul the Wii Fit home with me on the subway. It's heavier than I thought it would be. Thankfully, Nintendo had the foresight to include a handle on the box to make it easy to transport.

Ironically, the first thing Wii Fit does -- once I manage to sync up the balance board to the Wii -- is pronounce me obese. Literally, a mechanized voice says the word "obese" in a disappointed tone, and then it makes my Mii puff up like a blowfish.

Thanks, Nintendo. That's super. Way to make me feel great about myself.

Naturally, this being a Nintendo game, it doesn't take long for everything to get all cutesy. An anthropomorphized Wii Fit balance board waves and dances about, holding my hand and guiding me through the early moments of the game. Soon it's time to choose a trainer for myself. Suddenly, these two well-groomed mannequins who look like grown children from "The Village of the Damned" appear on-screen. I have to choose: woman or man? Woman or man?

I choose the woman, hoping at the very least she might do something vaguely sexual. Trust me, she does nothing sexual. Nothing. You can look at her from three or four different angles as she demonstrates poses. None of those angles are remotely titillating. In fact, this woman-thing has to be the least sexualized woman in all of videogames, second only to that poor life-jacket wearing marm who haunts your sailboat in Endless Ocean.

Once I wind my way through a few sets of exercises, which range in quality from "Annoying" to "Exhausting" (heed my sage advice: strength train at your own risk, my friends), I decide to start a new profile. Not for my girlfriend, or for my cats ... but for the recently purchased 12-pack of beer that I've just brought home from the market.

I label the profile "Twelver," then toss the beer on the Wii Fit balance board.

Twelver is eight inches tall -- the game asks me to input a height for him -- but the lowest height measurement the game allows is just over a foot, so I leave it at that.