Off and on over the weekend and the last few evenings, I’ve been getting to grips with my new toy. It is good, but I am fast coming up against the limits of my skills.

I am very good at the bowling game in Wii Sports, with my top score being something ridiculous like 207. I knew that if you bowled three strikes in a row, it gets called a turkey. Apparently if you keep on bowling strikes they’re just called “fourth” and “fifth.” I’m not too bad at golf, and quite enjoy the various mini-golf games. The controls shout at me a lot and have a red wiggly line that is obviously somehow bad but I can’t find anywhere a help menu or a written thing to tell me what I’m doing wrong.

So much for the easy games that came with it.

On to the Rabbids and Zelda. I seem to be stuck on both of them. Rabbids is an unbelievably stupid, but entertaining game where you have to kill nasty rabbits in various daft ways. I’ve got 12% through the game, it tells me, but I just can’t make the various controls launch Superbunny, or slap toilet doors shut, fast enough.

And Zelda. Well, Zelda is pretty good. Detailed landscapes, lots to see and do. You’re not restricted to the game’s challenges, you can wander around the world doing various other things as well. I got through the two prologues without too much trouble, although I did die a lot. The game very helpfully details exactly how much of your life you have spent pretending to be a pointy-eared teenage horse-freak. So far, nine hours and seven minutes.

And now, I’m rescuing monkeys from a dungeon. Or I would be if I could actually make the thing on screen do what I want. I know what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be throwing various spider-bomb things into lethal plants. But I’ve spent about the last hour throwing spider-bomb things near lethal plants with no sign in the last hour or so that I’m getting any closer.

And this is supposed to be the first, easiest dungeon. Grr. This is what I worried: my hands just aren’t sufficiently deft to control the more complicated games. With Tombraider, so long as you stand in the right place, you can usually manage most things, and if you really get stuck, Stella will let you download a savegame. I don’t think that’s going to be an option on the Wii.

I’d better get back to throwing spider-bombs at monkeys.