Tommy_lop writes a review on a piece of paper

Yes that’s right I am writing a review on a piece of paper. It’s flat, it’s white, and it’s got writing on it. End of review. Oh all right I guess I need over 200 words and I need to talk about the Wii points system for the uninitiated any ways. Because believe it or not quite a few people don’t know what the Wii shop channel is for. No it’s not for picking up new shoes, clothes, or the latest in music. It’s about classic old school games that can be bought and download off of Nintendo’s download service. Now I have done rants and raves about the Wii shop channel before so I am not going to go into details about what games are good and what games are bad.

So what is the Wii point card.
Well despite it having more plastic protection then the Wii controller and hard to open once you get it what you get is a piece of paper. On the back there is a sticker you can scratch off with a long code. You go to the shop channel and then you enter that code and you get 2000 points added to your account. Now each cent is a point so it’s pretty easy to calculate game costs. 500 NES, 600 Turbo graphics, 800 Turbo CD, Genesis, and SNES, 900 Neo Geo, and 1,000 for N64. Of course exceptions to the rule may come in licensed games and import games may cost extra. Still that gives you 4 NES, 3 Turbo graphics, and 2 of everything else for 20 bucks and some games on the library are indeed worth it. And some of course aren’t.

Once you got your points your free to shop on the Wii shop channel. Surf through the shop using a variety of ways by system, by genre, or by publisher. Each game has a screen shop and some info. Once you find an item your interested in click download and then yes, watch Mario collect some coins and then when he’s done your download will now appear on the Wii menu. It’s pretty easy by only complaint is the shop channel can be slow sometimes and going through the menus sometimes presented can be a real chore.

Is there a real drawback to this. Well first off you get 2000 points and if you spend 1800 your left with 200 unused points that sit on your account in till you get another points cards and use them up. The points never do expire though so your free to wait still having 4 bucks in your account can be a bit of a pain because your 1 buck short of downloading anything. Of course this problem comes up with Xbox live arcade so Nintendo’s not the only one with the problem; it’s done to cut transaction fees.

Is there another way to buy wii points. Sure is you can use your credit card to buy 10, 20, 30, or 50 dollars worth of points. But unfortunately this means you can never just spend 5 bucks on one NES game you have to spend 10 which gives you another NES game but if you only need one your still left with 5 bucks. Again this is to cut down on credit card transaction fees.

Final Recommendation.
If you have someone who likes to play old games on the Wii VC a point card is like a gift card (all though you can now gift VC games through the Wii network but I don’t know how that works since I have never tried it before) they can use to download several of the greatest classics. Rumors are now abound about the Sega Mega Drive system being added to the network along with some original games being released on the system come March so if that’s not a reason to want to get some wii points then nothing else is.