Top 10 games that have changed my opinion about the Wii

About one and a half year ago, the Wii arrived in stores. It promised a whole new way of controlling your games, slightly better graphics than on the GameCube and even online options, making it a worthy “next-gen” console. Being a Nintendo fanboy, I believed this, and bought the console a few days after its release. Nearly a year after that event, I bought an Xbox 360. The reason why I did that is simple: the Wii is not what I expected it to be; it disappointed me. So, why isn’t the Wii what I expected it to be? The best way of answering that question is using games… you know, the things you play on consoles. I’ve made a top 10 of games which show you the exact shortcomings of the Wii. I’ve put the greatest eye-opener on number 1. I’m counting down from number 10:

10. Manhunt 2
One of the main points of criticism on the GameCube was that it was a kiddy console. I guess that Nintendo tried to get rid of that image by giving permission for the release of Manhunt 2 on the Wii. This made me think: does this really make the Wii less kiddy than the GameCube? The answer really is: no, it even has some extra kiddy elements like the Mii or the fluffy penguins and the baby music (the music that features the space center, the rest of the music is one of the best pieces of audio in a game ever to be released) in Super Mario Galaxy. Manhunt 2 is only an exception. Of course, there are games that are less kiddy like the new Zelda and Metroid Prime 3, but there aren’t many of those. Next to that, there aren’t good third party shooters or strategy games on the Wii. So the Wii is kiddy, yet again, and Manhunt 2 isn’t going to change that.

9. Super Smash Brothers Brawl
This is just an example of one of the things that irritated me extremely about the Wii, the lack of real or good games in the months after the launch of the Wii. Before the launch, a few titles, including this one and Sadness, were hyped into heaven, but none of them were available at the launch. Not only that, they wouldn’t be in store after one the console’s release. Sadness is even considered as a hoax nowadays. In my opinion, there were no interesting releases (games like Zelda) in a period of a year after the release. Well, Wario Ware and some other mini game compilations and non-games weren’t bad, but I guess I prefer those on a DS, and they don’t have a long life as single player game.

8. Kirby’s Adventure
A little time ago, Nintendo made it possible to exchange Nintendo stars (stars you get in Europe when you purchase a Nintendo game) for Wii points. I used it to download Kirby’s Adventure. While finding out how I should hold my Wii remote, it occurred to me that the whole remote was made to play old NES games. This explained the weird place of the “1” and the “2” buttons, which are quite hard to press if you are holding the controller when you are playing Wii Sports or something like that. It also explains why Nintendo didn’t come with new games in the weeks after the launch, but DID release a lot of old games on the shopping channel. A conspiracy theory? Maybe… but it is a weird coincidence, and I do think that the controller is the proof for that.

7. Super Mario Galaxy
Maybe some people won’t agree, but I do think most games, not only those for the Wii, are made to be easy these days. I have cleared the story line of this game without a problem, practically without dying. It really became obvious with this game, because you can get to the final boss without playing even one of the harder levels, something which never happened to me before, even GTA San Andreas was harder. I do think that Nintendo is dumbing down its games on purpose, to attract an as large possible audience. Unfortunately it does destroy the experience for real gamers.

6. Zelda Twilight Princess
Without any doubt, one of the best games available on the Wii. Well, not only on the Wii, it’s also a GameCube game. My second favorite Wii game, Resident Evil 4, is also a port from the GameCube. I do think that these games, and Mario Galaxy, offer the best graphics available on the Wii. Well, if my first statement is true, and my second statement is also true, then the Wii offers GameCube graphics. Well, I don’t think that’s a problem, but those games offer the best graphics available on the Wii. So the other games offer graphics that are worse than GameCube graphics. This makes me a little bit confused, you simply can’t release a “next-gen” console with graphics that sometimes seem to equal N64 graphics. This is a crime if you do give people the impression that the Wii should be able to offer better graphics than the Game Cube.

5. Curve Ball
Curve Ball, you probably know it, it’s probably one of the most popular flash games around. In a state of total boredom I started my Wii, the Opera browser and eventually Curve Ball. I have a fine computer, so why am I playing Curve Ball on the Wii? It’s too ridiculous for words. The only explanation I can think of is that I was done with all the games I own for the Wii, and that nothing interesting came out in the mean time. So I played Curve Ball on the Wii, just to make use of it. I didn’t play on my Wii for about 3 months. I do want to know why the online functions of the Wii only seem to offer this quite useless browser, a weather channel, a poor maintained news channel and a shopping channel without demos. If there were some good online titles for the Wii, I probably would have played those instead of Curve Ball.

4. Wii Sports
One of the biggest delusions I experienced was packed with the Wii. It was probably supposed to show you how great the Wii Remote is, but it just showed the lack of possibilities. You can golf with only an uninteresting swish of your wrist and tennis without any effort. It also didn’t offer any interesting things like running through the field with tennis or baseball. You only need to make one move to bat, and after that it’s all scripted. It’s like pressing buttons, but in stead of moving your fingers, you move your whole arm. Well, the Wii Remote isn’t as useless as I put it, Zelda and Resident Evil 4 do make great use of the possibilities, but I do think that they can get more out of it.

3. Call of Duty 4
This game is probably one of the best shooters available. Well, available? It’s available on nearly every electrical device except the Wii. You can even download it on your mobile phone. Not having games like these available on your console can really destroy the popularity for your product. It looks like Nintendo scares away third party producers with the controls and the graphics it can offer. This results in a lack of good third party games for the Wii, an overload of games that scored 2/10 in my favorite game magazine, and just a few games for my Wii.

2. Metroid Prime 3
I hoped this game would feature an online multiplayer mode, strangely enough it didn’t. It seems that “Oops I did it again” is the only song that fits with Nintendo’s online policy. The Cube would get online functions, but in the end, only one or two games made use of it. The Nintendo DS offers online multiplayer, so there was hope. But unfortunately the Wii can only offer the same online possibilities as the DS, which are no match for the PS3 or the Xbox 360. You don’t have a useful friends list, instead you must enter friend codes. No chat, no voice chat, nothing. Besides that, there are practically no games that offer online multiplayer. Nintendo could and should have improved the online system. Besides all those things, the only really good game that features online possibilities is Super Smash Brothers Brawl… and that game is not available in Europe and Australia yet (while it has been released in Japan a whooping year ago, and 3 months ago in the U.S.A.).

1. Wii Fit
If you really look at the Wii closely, and if you have considered my criticism above, the Wii just isn’t a match for the PS3 or the Xbox 360. So why is it selling so well? Yes, because of the incredible amount of non-games, and Wii Fit really is a non-game in it’s most extreme form. In my opinion a console is made to play games and enjoy yourself, not to lose weight, So when I first heard about this game, it really made me angry. They can’t produce enough real games to keep the (hardcore)gamers among us satisfied for 12 months, and after that, they come with yet another non-game. Why? To let every fatty in the world buy a Wii. Commerce, commerce and yet again commerce.

So, Nintendo did really disappoint me, but that doesn’t mean that I hate the console. Games like Zelda Twilight Princess, Resident Evil 4 and Mario Galaxy are great, but I hoped Nintendo would focus on games like these, and not on non-games. But all right, there’s still some time left before the next “next-gen” consoles comes out. With that, there’s still some hope that Nintendo motivates some (third party) producers to make real games.

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