I have been playing with my wii...

[Griselda]

Congrats on your purchase.:)

I haven't had a lot of available time for gaming lately, so in a lot of ways I'd probably qualify as a casual gamer these days. I'm also hoping that maybe I can provide a female perspective.

I'd have to put Mario Kart at the top of the list. Part of my reason for liking this game, I guess, is that my husband and I pretty much spent our first summer together playing Mario Kart 64, so it's been fun to have rematches.

But, I do think it has some good casual player features. First of all, the wii wheel is much more intuitive of an controller for a driving game (definitely get a second wheel, they're not too expensive). The 50CC single player mode isn't that difficult, so I think most people could be successful at that level. For a more hardcore gamer, trying to race the ghosts or get a star rating in all the cups to unlock everything keeps it interesting.

There actually is a way to play Kart competitively with different-ability players. My husband was able to play a lot more when we first got the game, so he was much better than I was. When we raced, he would pick a tougher vehicle or driver, and I would race my favorites. That gave him practice on a variety of vehicles and kept the races fairly competitive. As I got better, the gloves came off, so that now the races are more competitive (he still swears more when I beat him than vice versa). The items are also designed to (mostly) balance the races, so you get stronger item drops if you're further behind.

There is a coop mode for mario kart, but we haven't played it much. It's much more fun to throw shells at each other.

Getting online is free and a snap if you already have a wireless network. Online interaction at this point is very limited, probably because the consoles are supposed to be "family friendly". My daughter is (still) not a gamer, but even she likes to make miis and enter the mii contests that they have online. The online Mario Kart play probably would not be good for a casual gamer, as it's pretty competitive, but it is more challenging than playing against the AI if you're a good player. I hear that they are going to be introducing WiiSpeak that might add a voice component to online interaction. This is old news for the PC, but still off in the future for the wii.

You could see if your wife has any fun nintendo-playing memories from her childhood, and get her those with the virtual console. The old game downloads are pretty inexpensive.

Please don't try to get your wife to play Smash Brothers. I'm having a hard time getting my husband to accept that fact that I really don't want to play a fighting game. Maybe he's just tired of me beating him on Mario Kart.:P

I also didn't really enjoy Lego Star Wars. I found it kind of annoying and random. YMMV, I guess.

I'm pretty sure that Galaxy has an option for a second player to come in and play a supporting role. You only get one Mario, but the second person can come in and play a supporting role. So that might be a good match for you guys.

Don't get her MySims. My daughter has it and it's pretty terrible. It's clearly designed for kids rather than casual-gamer adults, first of all, but also it has some serious interface issues that make it more annoying than fun to play.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful!