Here’s Walt’s take on what Wii games you want, and which ones you don’t. Keep in mind, this is biased by someone who does not enjoy first person games (ok, I suck at them), and who loves social party games as the Wii is a great source of fun for large groups.
Wii Sports: GET IT (OK, YOU GOT IT)
It comes with your Wii, and it is the defacto standard in my mind about how games interfaces should work. Everything naturally does what you expect. Even if you hate sports in the real world, you’ll love them on the Wii. Bowling, Golf, and Tennis are personal group favorites. Here’s a great tip, too – while most people focus just on the primary games, go to the training icon, there are a 15 more games hidden in there.
Rayman Raving Rabbids: GET IT
Over 70 multiplayer games and challenges involving masochistic bunnies and toilet plungers. This has to be one of the most entertaining and clever games, and it makes great use of the Wii-mote control and nun chucks. The only down side is that you have to play the story mode to unlock individual party games.
WiiPlay: GET IT
A handful of clever two person game that use the remote in interesting ways. The games are very easy to pick up.
Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz: GET IT
Primary game with 50 multi-player games involving monkeys in gerbil balls. Interesting use of the Wii-mote, as it uses more of a key-turning action combined with tilting. The only down side is that you have to read the instructions carefully before each game, and if anyone hits a button, the game starts prematurely. Why read the directions? Because some of the stuff is just so weird, you won’t figure it out by trial and error.
WarioWare Smooth Moves: GET IT
This game has some of the worst graphics you’ll ever see. However, a game doesn’t have to have eye-candy graphics to be fun, and this title comes with 200 micro-games. Often you’re given several seconds to figure out what you’re supposed to do, and make it happen. For instance, a fly and a flyswatter may appear on the screen, you have to mentally connect the two concepts and realize you need to make a swatting action with the remote. The Wii-mote is used in ways you’ve never imagined, and each one is taught in a humorous manner.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’07: MAYBE GET IT
If you’re a golfing nut, you want this game. It is far more complex than WiiSports, both in the realistic rendering as well as the physics modeling. It’s possible to make very realistic avatars of yourself. And for just as good as the game is for golf swings, it equally is deficient on having an easy interface – it is just too easy to select something you don’t mean to. For a party game, it can take quite a while to complete all the holes; people get bored easily. So, if you want to play golf, it’s great. If you just want quick fun, pick another title.
Super Swing Golf: AVOID IT
What looks like Manga combined with Putt-Putt is actually a what happens if you were to make a game using Microsoft Vista’s GUI. It looks pretty, but is damn annoying to use. For instance, in both WiiSports and Tiger Woods PGA Tour, you swing your club back, and then forward to strike the ball. Not here. No, you select on the screen a tiny button that says you’d like to take a swing. Then you raise and lower the remote to tell how much you’d like to hit the ball. Then you lock in your answer. Then you swing the remote. Nothing about the game feels like a natural golf swing. Plus the tutorials are long and horrible, they throw text at you as slow as the slowest child reader might read, but don’t let you practice – no you watch the computer to the maneuver rather than trying it yourself. This could be such a great game, but the interface is so painful, so very painful, so utterly painful you will give up before you ever make it to the second hole.
Mario Paper: GET IT, AND HAVE PATIENCE
I do know know what it is about games which have so much text dialog that the makers actually think it’s fun if you have to press next, next, next, next, next, … for ten minutes without actually playing anything or being able to skip. That’s the frustrating part of Paper Mario. Then things change. You’re forced to hold the remote sideways and use it like a traditional game console, that makes you wonder why this game was ever made for the Wii. But then, 3D mode kicks in, and it isn’t so bad. And then you start using the Wii as a pointing device to reveal objects, and things are actually okay. And then, you start getting weapons that require use of the accelerometers, and suddenly things are pretty good. The game is quite clever, but may require a use of cheat guide if you get stuck – some stuff isn’t so obvious to find.
Mario Party 8: GET IT
What starts off as a board game where you simply “press a button” to roll a die and move, things get fun quickly. You have more influence over the course of events than it first seems, and after every round there’s a party game that’s presented and unlocked. The games are quite clever and require the Wii remotes to be used in odd ways. The diversity makes it hard to get bored.
Elebits: MAYBE GET IT
Aside from some child book story art, the tutorials. Make you. Click the. Remote. After every. Concept. …the whole thing introduction is long, painful, disorienting, and had to skip. The story line is horribly forced and immature. However, if you can get through that, your Wii-mote is a kind of anti-gravity gun and with it you cause wanton destruction! By moving and shaking objects, you coerce little packets of energy to come out into the open. You gun collects them, becoming more powerful, allowing you to eventually pickup and throw extremely large object into one another, open and close doors, topple furniture, break things, and so forth, all to find more of the little energy creatures. The sheer destructive nature of the game appeals to your inner child that wants to mess up the house when the parents are away. However, if you don’t look where you point, you’ll get one of the worst motion-sickness headaches that makes any first-person shooter game experience pale in comparison.
The Legend of Zelda – Twilight Princess: GET IT
This is not a social party game but a first person role playing adventure game that’s going to require some serious time investment. The game, however, is very well designed so that there are interesting activities within the game itself that are just as rewarding, even if you don’t follow the main plot threads. The game makes pretty good use of the Wii-mote’s capabilities.
Sonic and the Secret Rings: AVOID IT, MAYBE
The game claims a hundred missions and 40 party games. But right out of the box it can feel frustrating. The Wii-mote is held sideways and used as a regular-old console game pad. Come on, the Wii is all about having a useful interface. One should be able to point on the screen, not use directional arrows on a keypad! There are some instances where the game redeems itself using the remote as the Wii intended, but not enough to make me happy about this game.
To say that I’m a book junkie is an understatement. I love books.