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Tom Bress

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I'm the lucky guy who won the Wii at the LAVA BBQ during NI Week. It comes with Wii Sports, my favorite so far is Tennis. Strangely enough, my wife's favorite is Boxing. I'm looking for recommendations of other Wii games. So far it looks like many of the games out there are ports that don't take advantage of the Wii remote's capabilities. So, what games do you like? I'm particularly interested in family-friendly games. Also, has anyone tried the classic games available for the Virtual Console, or the downloadable games available from Wii Ware? Any opinions of web-surfing with the Wii Internet Channel?

Thanks!

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QUOTE (Tom Bress @ Aug 15 2008, 09:08 AM)

I'm the lucky guy who won the Wii at the LAVA BBQ during NI Week. It comes with Wii Sports, my favorite so far is Tennis. Strangely enough, my wife's favorite is Boxing. I'm looking for recommendations of other Wii games. So far it looks like many of the games out there are ports that don't take advantage of the Wii remote's capabilities. So, what games do you like? I'm particularly interested in family-friendly games. Also, has anyone tried the classic games available for the Virtual Console, or the downloadable games available from Wii Ware? Any opinions of web-surfing with the Wii Internet Channel?

In no particular order, here are my "Wii Tips":

  • Super Mario Galaxy is one of the best video games I've ever played in my life. If you were a fan of Mario games in the past, this one will completely blow you out of the water. My kids and I were totally addicted to it for the ~2 months it took us to beat the game (twice).
  • Big Brain Academy is a really fun puzzle game. You compete either against 1 other person or you can have teams compete to solve logic/numeric/analysis/observation puzzles as quickly as possible.
  • You definitely want to get Wii Play. It costs $50, but it includes a Wiimote, so it's an efficient way to get another Wiimote and a $10 game that's really pretty good. Wii Play includes more competition-style games (like Wii Sports), but they're only 2 player.
  • I also bought Super Monkey Ball and Mercury Meltdown, but I wasn't impressed with either of those (AQ would disagree with my assessment of the latter).
  • The downloadable games are a blast (from the past). If you have an HDTV you'll want to make sure to configure it for "game mode" (if possible), because there's a fair bit of lag when playing the old skool Nintendo games with the Wiimote.
  • I spent $5 to buy the web browser, and it's really nice too. I've actually browsed LAVA before with it! :P It's kinda hit-and-miss for playing media (flash, embedded videos), but rock solid for everything else.
  • I also own multiple editions of Guitar Hero, along with Rock Band (did anybody see me vanquish the Guitar Hero robots on the NI Week expo floor?), but I own those for the PS2. They are available for the Wii, though, and if you have a musical side, you'll probably really enjoy them. Guitar Hero has much better game play for guitar, but Rock Band is definitely the best game if you're looking for a multi-player party game experience.

-D

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QUOTE (Darren @ Aug 15 2008, 11:39 AM)

  • The downloadable games are a blast (from the past). If you have an HDTV you'll want to make sure to configure it for "game mode" (if possible), because there's a fair bit of lag when playing the old skool Nintendo games with the Wiimote.

-D

Do you play the downloadable "old skool" games with the wiimote, or did you buy the Wii classic controller? I'm more of an old skool Sega man myself and I'm looking forward to getting some of the Nintendo titles that I missed the first time around, but I'm guessing that the classic controller is the way to go.

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QUOTE (Tom Bress @ Aug 15 2008, 11:01 AM)

Do you play the downloadable "old skool" games with the wiimote, or did you buy the Wii classic controller? I'm more of an old skool Sega man myself and I'm looking forward to getting some of the Nintendo titles that I missed the first time around, but I'm guessing that the classic controller is the way to go.

I play them with the Wiimote...if you eliminate the lag issue as I discussed above, the Wiimote has a surprisingly natural feel when playing the old games. I don't own the Wii classic controller...I have 4 Wiimotes and 2 Nunchuks. At some point I'll probably get a game that requires 4 players to have 4 Nunchuks, but so far, the hardware I have has sufficed.

-D

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I bought Madden 07 when I first got my Wii, and really loved the controls. However, it's a fairly complicated game and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it unless you already like (video-game) football. There's supposedly a sort of "beginner's mode" that EA was really proud of, that's supposed to make it easier for your grandma (i.e. anyone over 30?) to play, but I never tried it out. It looks like for Madden 09 they've added some more new features to try to keep the game approachable for normal humans.

My wife & I both really like Wii Fit, but I don't know if you can find it very easily yet. I got lucky and snagged one at Amazon.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves is another game the wife and I both like. It's not terribly complicated, but it's fast-paced and cartoonish. Might be fun for a drunken party, but we never have drunken parties so I can't be sure :(, but we've gotten some enjoyment out of it.

Outside of those, I really love my Wii but don't play it all that much, and I don't keep track of what the newest/hottest games are. However, when I get an itch to get something new, I usually just go to metacritic and start reading down the list of highest-scoring games 'til I find one that sounds like something I'd like :P.

I have not tried any of the downloadable virtual console stuff, because I am a cheap bastard.

EDIT: Anybody who wants to trade Wii numbers send me a PM. For those who don't know, the basic thing this allows us to do (as far as I know) is have our Miis appear in each other's consoles (if we choose) :P.

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Hey Tom,

Congrats again on winning the Wii. I'm glad you are enjoying it, especially after my risk to life and limb smuggling it in from Canada :ninja: ... I hope the French side of the instruction manual didn't confuse too much...

Personally, I think I have spent 99% of my Wii time playing Tennis. Strangely, my wife's favourite is also Boxing. Wonder what this tells us?!?

We also bought Rayman's Raving Rabbids. Ridiculous fun for the whole family.

Guitar Hero is also dangerously fun. Just don't injure your wiring hand! I knew when my carpal tunnel fired up on a quiet programming week, that I had my priorities a bit mixed up...

Enjoy the prize.

Ben Zimmer

www.lvmastery.com

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have to chime in and say that we (me and my wife) have greatly enjoyed the LEGO games (Star Wars and Indiana Jones - with Batman coming out soon), and Mario Kart Wii.

I'll also ditto Darren's remarks re Super Mario Galaxy - it's fabulous.

Jaegen

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QUOTE (jaegen @ Sep 3 2008, 04:38 PM)

I have to chime in and say that we (me and my wife) have greatly enjoyed the LEGO games (Star Wars and Indiana Jones - with Batman coming out soon), and Mario Kart Wii.

I'll also ditto Darren's remarks re Super Mario Galaxy - it's fabulous.

Jaegen

My kids rented Mario Kart wii last week, and it was really cool racing against people around the world. One of my kids spent hours trying to set a world record on one of the courses. That's one Christmas present picked out!

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QUOTE (JiMM @ Sep 3 2008, 06:39 PM)

My kids rented Mario Kart wii last week, and it was really cool racing against people around the world. One of my kids spent hours trying to set a world record on one of the courses. That's one Christmas present picked out!

I just bought Mario Kart Wii a few weeks ago. For anyone who was a world-class expert at Mario Kart for the N64, you may find some of the differences beween N64 and Wii to be a bit annoying. For example, you can lose powerups that you're holding onto if you fall off a ledge, get hit by an opponent with star power, etc. Also, power-sliding (now called 'mini-turbo') has lost a lot of its subtlety, which is a shame for those of us who perfected it on N64. They made the off-road areas (grass, mud, etc.) slow down your vehicle a LOT more than in N64...for example, there was a shortcut at the end of the DK Jungle route where you could bypass the inside cave by power sliding directly across the cave through the thicker dirt...this shortcut (and many others) has been neutered on the Wii. I believe they tried to compensate for this by making mushrooms give you a much bigger thrust...but since you can very easily lose mushrooms you've been saving, I don't think it's enough compensation.

All that being said, the game is still awesome. There are twice as many tracks on the Wii as for N64 (although many of the Wii tracks are retooled versions of Mario Kart tracks from SNES, GBA, N64, GameCube, etc.). The races also have 12 players now instead of 8. I really like the addition of racing bikes...in fact, my favorite vehicle in Mario Kart Wii is the Bullet Bike, which has a super-tight turning circle...very helpful on some of the very wind-y Wii courses.

Being able to play people online is a major plus. Unfortunately, all the badasses online already know all the super-fast shortcuts on all the routes, and I haven't taken the time to figure all of them out.

There are several ways to drive your vehicle. One is to hold the Wiimote sideways (or insert it into the 'wheel') and use the Wiimote like a steering wheel. Another is to hook up the Nunchuk and use its joystick. Still another is to use the Wii classic controller. I have tried all 3 methods, and I prefer the Nunchuk method, since the joystick makes it easiest to power slide. The classic controller provides a joystick, but the controller is kinda small, and my hands cramped up when I tried it.

So in conclusion, I would say that Mario Kart Wii is not *quite* as awesome as N64, but it's close (maybe my opinion on the Wii will become more favorable if I ever get as good at it as I was on N64). I never even played Kart on the GameCube because I heard from enough reputible sources that it was a waste of time.

-D

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