Wii Would Like to Help

Around this time about three years ago, I’d finally gotten my enough money for a Wii. When I got home from Wal-Mart and opened my front door, I was greeted with a small reddish-orange present with a crimson red bow sitting on my coffee table with the tag simply reading:

“Merry Christmas.”

I figured it was my brother who left it, as he’s good at sneaking into my house and often does things like this. (Which worries me for more than one reason.)

I promptly opened it up to find a copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which was pretty new at the time so I was excited to try it for myself. I’d played a bit at my brother’s house, but I hadn’t gotten too far into the game, just a couple levels. I unboxed my Wii and started plugging it in.

The first thing I noticed was that the Wiimote was red while the Wii itself was white. I shrugged it off and simply thought it was an awesome error at the packaging plant, although I hadn’t heard of any red Wiimotes before.

After I plugged in my Wii, I started the setup process such as the console name and stuff. Everything went smoothly until I got to the part where I made a Mii. When I started, it didn’t use the default Mii that I knew you started out with from experience at my brother’s. It looked like a depressed young man with a 5-o’-clock shadow. I’ve re-created said Mii as best as I could remember using an online app.

Whenever I tried to change a setting on the Mii, the body part would pop onto the face like normal, and then slide off after about five seconds to revert the Mii back to the default starting Mii. I tried fighting it for about five minutes before I gave up and decided to go again later.

After I got done with the Mii, I decided to try out New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I put the disk in, but the Wii immediately spat it back out again. It did it again, and kept on spitting it out until I put it in the third time, where it made a screeching noise for a couple seconds before finally accepting it.

I heard a few beeps, then the menu icon for it popped up like normal. When I went to click on it to start my game, I noticed that my pointer said “P2” on it instead of “P1.” For some reason, this sent a small shiver down my spine. Ignoring it, I went to click on the icon and start my game already.

I clicked on the disk channel icon and the animation played like normal, except it was noticeably skipping frames and normally cheerful tune that usually plays was missing and instead was made up of beeps from the Wii itself, followed by another short screeching noise. I know that Wiis normally shouldn’t screech, or beep for that matter, but the game was working pretty fine so I doubted I would be able to get a refund unless it actually broke to the point that it was unplayable. Keeping that in mind, I clicked on the “play” button.

The “Wear your wrist strap” screen came up, except there wasn’t a hand in the picture. Just a red Wiimote. After about three seconds I hit the A button to start the game, and the title screen came up. For some reason, everything in the title screen was exactly how it should be, except for the word “Wii” in the title, which was red. I hit the 2 button to start the game, and the save file screen came up. I selected a new file as usual.

The story intro played as usual, except the cake was really glitchy. It would blink in and out of existence, flash to a different texture, and then turn red before the Koopalings jumped out. When they threw it onto Peach, my Wii let out a loud, 5-second beep, followed by small sparks from the Wiimote, and the game froze as the cake landed. After a few seconds, the screen turned black and the words “The game disk could not be red. Please read the Wii instruction manual for more info.” I got upset because my game broke, but also slightly relieved because now I could return it.

I took out the disk to survey the damage. At first it didn’t eject very far, just where I could barely see it. Then it shot out and went three feet from the Wii, leaving behind a small trail of red liquid, presumably blood. When I picked up the disk, the first thing that I noticed was that it was hot. Really hot. I dropped it on the floor, where it then bounced three times before landing face-up and burning a circle into my carpet. Then I noticed that the label of the game had the word “HELP” scratched in it. I wanted to pick it up, but it was still pretty hot.

I called my brother up to ask him if he knew anything about this, but he said that he hasn’t given me the game yet, and was actually on his way to deliver it in a reddish-orange package with a crimson red bow on top. At that point my phone lost connection, and my Wii started to beep and vibrate violently. Sparks shot out of the disk drive, and the lights on the Wiimote started flickering really fast and bright. After about three seconds, it just stopped as fast as it began.

The speaker on the Wiimote started to make a quiet noise. I picked it up and listened closely, and it sounded like a man whispering. I listened for a solid thirty seconds, but I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Suddenly I heard him scream loudly for a few seconds then it went quiet. After a while he finally spoke up and said, “Oh god somebody help, please help before he comes aga-“

then everything just shut off like nothing happened. The Wiimote turned off, the game disk cooled down, my phone got reception again. Then my Wii turned itself on, and went straight to the Wii Menu. I had a message on the message board from the Mii from earlier. It simply said “Leave us alone.” I unplugged my Wii, took everything, the Wii, the cords, the manuals, the game, everything, and put them in a box and went out to my car.

I drove out to the beach, ran over the box with my car a few times, then tossed it over the dock. I didn’t care about the refund anymore, I just wanted it to be gone.

I can still hear the scream every time I close my eyes, and haven’t picked up a Wiimote since. I tried emailing Nintendo customer service, but unsurprisingly, they didn’t believe me.

Written by Ancel3