I was going to get the Nyko charger but some of the reviews made me stay away. Apparently if you leave the controller in the recharge station for too long, it is possible that it will overheat and melt the metal connectors inside the wiimote. For $40 I bought the eneloop rechargables which included a charger w/ 4 batteries and another set of 8 batteries. The recharge station costs the same to get enough for 4 wiimotes and you don't have backups.

The alkaline batteries that come with the remotes last over 20 hours.  The NiMH ones I have (Energizer) last about 8-12 hours, depending on usage.  8 hours is more than enough on one charge, especially since the quick charger I have fills them up in 10 minutes.  NiMH batteries will also gradually lose their charge over time, so if you haven't used your Wii in a while, you may find your batteries weak even if they were fully charged when you last played. 

The only problem I had with getting rechargeable batteries was that I used the remote gloves and those were always a pain to put on and off (and actually broke one once). I find it so much simpler just to use the docking station, though I rarely need more than two remotes (third just uses regular batteries) so I have no problem with only have two docks.

Are you sure about that? I think it's even mentioned on the operations manual... something like "dependant on the game's control scheme (accelerometer, pointer, rumble, speaker, etc.)"

Batteries tend to last about 20+ hours of gameplay for me. Obviously depends on your brand...

If you are playing so far from the TV, one option is to have the sensor bar on a table or on the floor in front of the TV. Say 5+ feet in front of where you want to be. Where we have the wii, the room isn't big enough to go over 10 feet so never had that problem.

(That is assuming the problem you are experiencing with the sensor bar, is the controller detecting it, and not bluetooth range...)

Battery life depends on if you are using the wiimote's IR functions, or just it's tilt functions. If you are using the nunchuck and wiimote with IR aiming, this is when most battery power is used. If you just use the wiimotes tilt sensors, like in sonic, battery life is significantly longer.

1. I sit 7' or so away and no shaky ness.
2. Nyko dock charger works great.
3. Make sure you set the Wii's settings to have the sensor on top of tv. That is where mine is as well.
4. Great game selection btw.
5. I turned off the rumble feature as I don't care for it either way, that helps batteries last a lot longer as well.
6. I can look directly down the shaft of my wii, :), and see my pointer on screen. I think many people have issues due to not setting the sensor bar at the correct location in thier wii preferences.
7. umm. have a great time...

Hey kn, how fun are Godfather, Play and Party? Are they worth the buy?

Congratulations on your Wii, and your (bigger than usual) initial game collection.

Regarding the jumpy controls or controller accuracy...

It is actually the remote that has the sensor not the bar.  The "sensor bar" only provides 2 distinct infrared (IR) sources - just a bunch of IR LEDs on the left and right of the bar.  The remote knows where it's pointing based on how it "sees" these 2 sources.

But, the remote will detect any IR source - including the sun, candles, incandescent lamps, maybe halogens (not sure) - so some things may throw it off.  This happened to me with an incandescent room lamp being reflected off a mirror - you'll notice this by seeing more than 2 points in the Wii calibration menu for sensor bar sensitivity. To fix the problem, get rid of the other sources (change lamps, close window blinds etc...) or turn down the sensitivity in the Wii menu so that other sources aren't detected.  I turned down the sensitivity, and controls have been great since (just need to sit slightly closer though).

But as someone mentioned before, you can use this to your advantage.  If you want, you can just use 2 big candles about 7" apart instead of the sensor bar - the remote won't know the difference and it (might) detect them better (I did this at my cousin's place when we forgot the bar).  But I don't like the candle thing... it can be a fire hazard .

 I haven't touched Godfather or MP8 yet so I'll have to let you know on those.  I had MP7 on the Cube and it was O.K. at best.  I got it for others to play as well -- def. not something I would have gotten for myself alone.  As far as Wii Play is concerned it is nowhere near the same quality of title as Sports.  It is worth exactly what you are paying for it -- $10 bucks if you factor in the remote.   2/3 of the games on Play are fun for about 10-15 minutes and that's the end of that.  Tank Battle, Billiards, and maybe the Laser Hockey game will merit a couple of plays after you buy it, but you'll end up using this for a demo to help friends get the hang of the controller.