[Gaming]Tabletop:- CGME - Diceland - Ogre®/G.E.V. - Free Counters - Free Maps - Experimental: BPI Roleplaying: - Enondas - Fudge - Names generator Game Consoles: - Nintendo DS - Nintendo Wii - Sony PSP | Nintendo Wii game reviews(To jump straight to the games list, click here.) This page provides very short reviews of games for the Nintendo Wii game console. While some people put down the Wii as "crap", it is a fine piece of equipment, in my opinion. Cheaper than the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3, the Wii should be considered to be on the lower end of the game console spectrum, but is nonetheless a capable machine. (This "lower endedness" is primarily visible via the lower-quality graphics capabilities of the Wii, compared to the PS3 and XBox360.) i never considered buying one until i played the boxing game at a friend's house and immediately fell in love with the Wii. The motion-sensitive controls work remarkably well and i look forward to seeing what innovative game developers will do with it. The worst thing about the Wii's motion-sensitive controls is that reaching up to scratch (or pick) your nose during play can have an effect on the game! General notes about the Wii: Here are some notable Wii pros and cons (reminder: my own opinions), in no particular order: Pros:
Here is the list of Wii games i own. Click on one to see my rating (on a scale of 1 to 5) and any comments:
To try to put these reviews and ratings in perspective, one must understand my play style: i am NOT a "power gamer". i play for relaxation and entertainment. i enjoy looking around the content in a game and moving along at my own pace. i like to play through each level once or twice, and get extremely frustrated if a game is so difficult that it requires you to fully master each level (via 3+ playings) before continuing to the next. i really appreciate when a game has multiple difficulty levels, so that i can start on the simplest and work my way up (or not) as i become more proficient. As a software developer, i am fairly tolerant of bugs in software, but not at all tolerant of major bugs in console games because once the ROM ships the game cannot be fixed. Thus, console games which exhibit more than the most minor of bugs immediately get added to my shit-list. The games...Battalion Wars 2 (BWii), Rating: 3.75BWii is a cartoon-style combat game in which the player leads groups of soldiers into various missions. When i bought it i wasn't quite sure what to expect, as the screenshots on the box are too small to make a judgement on. Once it was running, i was pleasantly surprised. Compared to other Wii titles, this one has remarkably good graphics (though still low-quality when compared to the high-end platforms). (The music, however, while of decent quality, quicky gets repetative.) The controls are suitably simple, with no outrageously tricky combinations required. Controlling friendly units is also simple - toggle to the unit (using the left/right arrows), point at the target and tap 'A' to perform a context-sensitive action (capture, attack, etc.). Throughout the game you can control a number of unit types, from infantry and tanks to various sorts of planes. During play it is possible to take control of any given unit, so you can play the one(s) you enjoy the most. The story is a tad bid weak, and the dialog nearly as so (but not as weak as that of Heatseaker), but the cuteness of the presentation makes up for this. One aspect which quickly gets annoying is how often play is interrupted by cutscenes. The levels are mostly quite short (par time is under 10 minutes), which makes the interruptions stick out even more than they would for longer missions. That said, there's also no checkpoint feature, meaning that if you fail a mission you must start from the beginning, making longer missions a nuisance. BWii is one of the few Wii titles with online support - you can play both co-op and head-to-head games over the Nintendo gaming network. This adds a great deal to the replayability factory, but the game is not enthralling enough to make me want to spend weeks at a time playing it online. All in all i am quite happy with the game. It's fun, and the presentation lends itself well to a light-hearted play style. It is recommended for any fan of shooter games. Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII, Rating: 3 (but see review text!) This WW2 flight sim provides a variety of challenges, from the typical shooting down of enemy planes to taking recon photos of embedded German positions in the Sahara during a heavy sandstorm to navigating a meters-wide tunnel of ice in the Norwegian fjords. While a few of the missions are difficult enough to require 5+ tries to get through them, i have had so much fun blowing up things along the way that that has not lowered my enjoyment of this game (most games which require so many tries get thrown into my do-not-play pile). The use of the motion-sensitive Nunchuk control to fly the planes is exceedingly intuitive, making one a master of flight after the short tutorial mission. (And if you do not like that control, the game offers a suprising number of different layouts, one of which does not require the Nunchuk at all.) Most of the missions are quite short, but that is balanced out by a relatively large number of missions (20 if i am not mistaken, whereas most mission-oriented games have 12-15 missions). i have one significant complaint about this game:
Call of Duty 3, Rating: 4 Beautiful! This shooter is really nicely done. My only major complaint is that my controller always freaks out during the last couple minutes of the very last level, requiring me to try it 4 or 5 times before getting through. Also, some of the motion controls don't work quite as well as the game designers certainly intended (mainly the "pulling the pin" motion needed when setting explosive charges, which often takes 8 or 10 tries before it actually works. Also, the melee combat motions are a real pain in the ass.). Aside from that i had nothing but fun playing this. The graphics are lovely and the sound is nice, but the developers REALLY SHOULD have added a way to skip the cut-scenes, because some are quite long and you are forced to watch them between chapters or when playing individual chapters (which are unlocked as you defeat them in campaign mode). This long wait severely reduces the replay value because you cannot simply jump into an arbitrary game chapter/mission on a moment's notice. In all cases you'll have to wait through 1-3 minutes of cut scenes before you can start shooting. You can't even pause the game during most cut scenes, which means if someone knocks on your door or telephones while you're waiting, your character will probably be killed when the level starts and you are off answering the door or telephone (yes, this has happened to me). Far Cry Vengeance, Rating: 3.5 This game got some poor reviews on the internet, but most of those came from long-time Far Cry franchise fans who were comparing it to Far Cry games from other platforms and bitched about the graphics not being up to par. My only complaints with this product are relatively minor, such as its save support - it saves at nearly arbitrary points, and some of those are while bad guys are shooting at you or even right as you are dying from falling off of a mountain. The levels in this game are huge, causing the Wii to read the CD a great deal (the only thing annoying about that is the constant drive-read sound coming from the device). One level in particular is buggy, in that it allows you to perform some actions in the wrong order, and if you do this then the whole level is botched and cannot be completed without completely restarting it (but it does not tell you this - you simply cannot access the necessary exit point and you will have to google around to find out why). That said, all in all this is a really enjoyable shooter game. It makes good use (but not over-use) of the motion controls, and is the first game i have seen where to jump you actually have to make a jumping motion with your controller (makes sense, right?). Heatseeker, Rating: 3.5 This flight sim is more action-packed than Blazing Angels, but with a much less compelling story. It offers some pretty exciting shoot-em-up flying using a wide variety of planes. Unfortunately its only play mode is Campaign mode, but the missions can be played in arbitrary order once they are unlocked by playing through them. Winning the missions can unlock different bonuses, depending on which difficulty level is used (out of 3 possible levels). The flight controls are much different than those of Blazing Angels, but are no less effective (and arguably more effective). Unfortunately, however, there is practically no in-game tutorial information, so you have to figure out how to do important things, like changing missile types, by trial and error or Reading The Fine Manual. As an interesting marketing gimmick, if you register your copy of the game you get 3 "free" cheat codes to unlock certain content. Additionally, you can buy cheat codes online, for about 5 Euro, to unlock all the levels, planes, weapons, etc. The cheat codes are calculated based on your Wii's unique ID, and thus are unique for every player, meaning that codes you buy are useless for a friend of yours who also has the game. Rampage: Total Destruction, Rating: 3 A classic from the 1980's arcade era is back in beautiful form. The monsters look almost claymation-like, which i find entertaining. Unfortunately, starting at the third level ("London") it gets pretty difficult. As a redeeming feature, though, each level (city) is quite large, and destroying Las Vegas and San Francisco have not yet become boring. It is great for stress reduction. It has over 30 monsters (most of which must be unlocked through play), but they aren't fundamentally different from each other, differing mainly in their collections of powers (which must be unlocked through play). As an added bonus, the 1980's arcade game is also included. (After playing the classic version for a couple minutes you will probably think "wow... we used to spend 25 cents per game to play this crap?") Resident Evil 4, Wii Edition, Rating: 4+ Despite the fact that i've never played a game in the Resident Evil series, and didn't consider the films to be terribly interesting, i've been waiting on the release of this game. It has gotten several excellent reviews at various gaming sites, and it is easy to see why. The graphics are excellent, at least by Wii standards. This game easily has the best overall graphics of any Wii game i've played to-date. Despite the large levels, unlike Far Cry, it does not suffer from the "terrain at the far edge of your vision distractingly just seems to pop into existence" syndrome. The graphics are fluid and highly detailed, with only a few small glitches here and there. This goes a long way to helping the "suspension of disbelief" as one plays through the game. As far as atmosphere goes, it's sufficiently creepy. The game does not hand out ammunition readily, so it keeps you carefully selecting your shots. In fact, the relative lack of ammo gets quite annoying after a while. Rather than being able to save at arbitrary points, you can only save at selected points on the map (where you find typewriters). The game provides 20 save slots, however, which is well beyond what any other Wii game offers. The things which get on my nerves the most are the motion and aiming controls. They do not allow you to straffe (move sideways) and moving the camera around requires the movement stick, instead of pointing with the Wiimote. The Wiimote only lets you point/aim within your current field of vision, and you must use the stick to pan your field of vision around, which feels quite unnatural once one has gotten used to using the Wii to pan around (in other games, that is). Aiming with a zoomed-in telescope, on the other hand, uses the stick, which is highly inaccurate compared to aiming with the Wiimote, and makes sniper-style shots really difficult to aim properly. The limited capability of the Wiimote as a pointing device makes me wonder whether this game's use of the Wiimote is any sort of improvement at all over the old-style (Gamecube/PS2) controls. A side-effect of the controls is that it's impossible to move and shoot at the same time, which means you cannot back away from zombies and shoot at them while doing so. You have to back up, stop and shoot, back up some more, stop to shoot some more, ad nauseum. If the movement/shooting controls weren't so awkward i would rate this game at 4.5, but as they are i find myself fighting with them too often, which detracts significantly from the game. Tip: here is a local copy of a pretty good walkthrough for the game (295k plain text). Scarface: The World is Yours, Rating: 2 i bought this because i wanted something senselessly violent, but not as downright gory as Manhunt 2 (a game where you use saws to cut people apart... not my cup of tea). The first level is a real bitch! It's difficult! And, unfortunately, it gives me motion sickness. i often get motion sickness when watching people play 3D games, and any time i try to read while in a moving car, but only rarely does playing a 3D game trigger it. This might even be tolerable if the graphics were halfway impressive, but they're notably mediocre. After spending 2 or 3 hours playing, i'm completely underwhelmed. The vast majority of the time - 75% or more - you spend driving a car all the way across town to talk to your next contact. Not only does that get really old really fast, the controls for driving are weak indeed. There is no way to hold a constant speed, which makes driving far more problematic than it should be. And few of the other drivers on the road pay any more attention to red lights than you do, so banging up the car significantly during any given trip is almost a given. The only time this game has actually been enjoyable have been the two scenes where the main character (Tony Montana) takes on huge numbers of thugs single-handedly, but even those parts are highly annoying because they're quite difficult and the checkpoints (points in the game where it re-loads if you die) are so few and far between. Aaarrrggg... and then there are so many time limits imposed on you. Even the first level has one. Time limits in games just piss me off. i won't be playing this game again. Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Rating: 3.5 It's not quite fair to rate this game yes, as i have so far only played through the first three missions, but... it seems to be fairly entertaining. It got horrible reviews throughout the net, but i'm not quite certain why. Like other games in the Splinter Cell franchise, it is about stealth rather than about shooting all of the Bad Guys. The graphics are nice, the controls are fairly well laid out, and the camera controls are good. This game isn't for "twitch gamers", as it requires lots of patience. Normally i wouldn't have bought this game, because Spliter Cell: Chaos Theory for the Gameboy DS proved way too tough for me to get through, but it was on sale. Tip: if you search the web for a walkthrough for this game, you are unlikely to find one for the Wii version. The PS3/XBox360 versions of this game are very different, and their walkthroughs do not apply here! However, the PS2 edition of the game is apparently identical (or nearly so), so the PS2 walkthroughs are also useful for this edition of the game. Here is a local copy of one such walkthrough (195k plain text). Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007, Rating: 4 i hate golf, i really do, but this game is wonderfully done. It is jam packed with various courses (18 of them, some of which must be unlocked by defeating certain "challenges"). You can play any of the 35 built-in golf characters (most of which must be unlocked during play) or create up to 5 custom golf characters. The character editor includes a powerful appearance editor, so you can customize your golfers' appearances to an amazing degree. The "pro shop" has over 1000 items which can be bought to equip your golf characters (using money which you earn via participating in events), and some items increase your characters' skills (such as adding driving power or helping you control the spin of your ball). Sadly, the developers apparently did very little, if any, usability tests on some of the out-of-game UI elements. That is, a significant number of the UI elements are clumsy to use, and having to click through 4 dialogs every time you save is exceedingly annoying. The in-game controls and play are superb, however. Even golf non-fans will certainly enjoy this one. The night we got it, Simone and i played it for four hours straight. (The only computer games she will play are Tetris and this one.) After some 12 hours of play in the first 24 hours of owning it, my right shoulder hurt for 2 days (you've got to swing the control to simulate your golf club, of course). If the UI were not so clumsy in places i would rate this game a 5 out of 5. (Luckily, the clumsy parts are all out-of-game, meaning before/between/after golfing sessions.) The number of modes and difficulty levels make the replay value the highest i have yet seen in a Wii game. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008, Rating: 4 This second installment in the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 200x series makes some subtle improvements on the 2007 version, but then blunders up some other (more important) aspects of the game. First let's get the bitching out of the way... My first complaint is putting... the biggest foo-foo of this version. The putting system was completely overhauled and, in my opinion, bungled. The putt-preview system has been revamped to allow you to try out your putt before actually hitting the ball, but it is no longer "free". You only get a (short) limited amount of time per match to view the previews, so you have to carefully choose which putts you want to preview. Not only that, but the largely broken swing controls in putt mode (see below) mean that most of this practice/preview is taken up with just getting the club to register your swing. To make it worse, they didn't improve upon the confusing/annoying "red, blue, green" grid in putting mode, which i find infinitely more difficult to visually judge than i do the simple grid system used by Wii Sports Golf. Then the swing controls are nearly completely hosed in putt mode - i have to swing each putt 4 or 5 times before it will register my swing (but see below). Swinging also mis-fires a significant amount of time while putting, causing you to hit the ball too softly. (While many reviewers of PGA Tour 2007 complained about misfires in general, if you're careful about how you (don't) move your wrist, you can cut the misfire rate down to less than 1 shot in 200. That seems to not be the case with putt mode in PGA Tour 2008, at least when in Sitting mode (see below).) i also see, with annoying frequency, that the ball will fly over the whole (without going in) even when traveling at low speeds. When this happens, the commentators often shout, "that's impossible!" or "whatever happened to gravity?" Indeed! The putt previews are also often incorrect. That is, the preview will show you one thing and then executing the shot will do something else (even hit with the same parameters as the preview). My second significant complaint is that the game now has a new mode for the controls - it can differentiate between sitting and standing. That's all fine and good, but read on... The game defaults to standing mode, and if you try to swing while sitting down (i.e. with the Wiimote pointed sideways) it won't let you swing. That's fine because the default can be changed to Sitting mode (i don't stand while gaming). But what sucks is that the game then completely ignores the global default setting and forces you into Standing mode at the start of each match (which then must be toggled by going into the Options menu during the match). Aaarrrggg. [Addendum #1: After much poking around, it seems that the type of control can be set in the user's individual profile, under the Animations settings (why there?). Presumably, that setting sticks.] [Addendum #2: After much trial and error, it seems that putting works more or less as expected, except for the hole-overfly, when in Standing mode. In Sitting mode i just can't get it to work properly, though.] Enough complaining... there were also a number of minor improvements too numerous to list here, but here are some of them... The often-clumsy UI of PGA Tour 2007 has been cleaned up somewhat, but it still has areas which are clumsy to use. Overall it is an improvement, though. The graphics are slightly better than those of PGA Tour 2007, but not amazingly so. The grass looks a tad bit more detailed, but i could be imagining that. The players, in particular their skins, also appear to be touched-up somewhat compared to PGA Tour 2007. A big addition to this is a course editor(!!!). i haven't used it yet, so i can't say anything about it. Another nice addition is that it is now possible to re-play matches against the AI players in the Tiger Challenge mode and some matches have multiple AI players (and you can play arbitrary matches against up to 3 AI players). There are many more customization options and difficulty toggles, which means this version of the game has the potential to have a higher replay value than its predecessor. Well, it would if putting wasn't so fundamentally flawed/frustrating/difficult. If putting were's so frustrating, i would rate this game at 4.25 or higher. And a final note for the EA developers (and this applies to PGA Tour 2007 just as much as this version): i frigging HATE being forced to play One Ball in the Tiger Challenges! (If you also hate One Ball, here's a tip: with your first shot force a Betrayal or Double Betrayal and let the AI player do the approach work. This works more often than not.) Wii Sports, Rating: 3 This is a collection of 5 games: boxing, tennis, golf, bowling and baseball. The tennis is difficult - returning a serve without hitting the ball out of the court is nearly impossible. Baseball just isn't my thing at all. The boxing game was my first Wii experience, and i had a blast kicking my buddy's ass. The golf game is suprisingly fun (even for a golf hater like me), but the repetition of the same 9 holes gets pretty boring after a few hours. That said, the golf game turned me on to purchasing more advanced golf games for the Wii (e.g. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007). If they re-published just the golf game with, say, 10 different courses (of 18 holes each) i would strongly consider buying it. Zelda: Twilight Princess, Rating: 4 While i have never been a Zelda fanatic (in fact, i considered the early games to be crap), this one is a lot of fun. The graphics are nice and the gameplay quite good. It has got a couple of terribly minor annoyances, but is overall recommended for any RPG lovers. My main annoyance is the saving feature. When you're in a dungeon and you save, loading your file does not bring you back to the point where you saved it, but instead starts you back at the beginning of the dungeon. Since some dungeons can take a couple hours to complete, i find this behaviour to be remarkably inadequate. Also, after completing a dungeon you often cannot re-enter it (or can only access parts of it), meaning that if you fail to find some of the secrets in the dungeon then they are gone forever (you cannot go back and get missing Heart Pieces in some cases, for example). Players who are not Zelda fanatics will almost certainly want to have a good walkthrough guide at their side while playing (that particular guide is excellent). |