Kinda started this up in the other boards, figured I'd turn it into a full review thread.
Feel free to review any game, even if someone else has already done it. More opinions = better. :)
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Wii Sports - 8/10
Basically just a tech demo for the Wii, but it's still the game I've elected to play the most. It makes good use of the motion-sensing to give a decent similation of the basic motions for the sports. I'm hooked on Boxing, my roommate loves Tennis, and we both Bowl. Baseball doesn't feel right (pitching is too random), and Golf doesn't seem to sense slight motions well enough, causing some infuriating gameplay when putting. Overall though, it's a great package.
Rayman: Raving Rabbids - 7.5/10
The game is quite good, with 70 mini-games total. About 20 of them are fantastic, around 40 of them are more than adequately entertaining, leaving 10 which range from annoying to WHY-THE-HELL-DOESN'T-THIS-WORK?! The art design is fantastic and the gameplay rocks, but the biggest problem is the limited replay. I bought this one, I'd suggest renting it to anyone else.
WarioWare - Smooth Moves - 9/10
This is by far the best use of the motion sensors I've seen. For those unfamiliar with the concept, WarioWare gives you a series of "microgames" to beat-- minigames which take between 2 and 10 seconds. A lot of the challenge comes from the spontenaity-- they give you a "form" to assume before it starts (point straight up, point at the TV, hold sideways, etc.), but once the game starts you have about half a second to figure out what the game wants you to do. The gameplay is ridiculous (in a good way), and never gets tedious. The game is challenging, but still very doable-- I haven't run into any puzzles I can't do with a little practice. Which is another nice feature-- if you suck at one game or another, you can go into the "Temple of Form" and practice any game you've played until you figure out its quirks.
WarioWare is a fantastic game. I wish I'd gotten this one with my system. :)
Excite Truck - 8.5/10
An absoloutely fun, jimmies-to-the-wall, racing game. A large selection of trucks, and a pretty good selection of tracks give this game some nice varriation from round-to-round. Everything about this game is pretty over the top; there are some HUGE jumps, and incredible speeds (plus you get points for nice crashes, who can argue with that?).
The soundtrack is pretty mediocre, but there's the option to play your own music off an SD card; which very appreciated.
The only thing that bugged me about this game was the lack of 4 player support. 2 players max : ( . Though, with Wii controllers as difficult as they are to find, that hasn't actually raised much of an issue yet.
Updated my WarioWare review above.
FarCry - 0/10
The control scheme renders this game absolutely unplayable. I couldn't even get past the first ten minutes of gameplay before I ejected the disc in disgust.
Trauma Center: Second Opinion - 8/10
A very engaging control scheme and premise. You perform surgery with 8 tools (selected with the thumbstick), getting points for speed and accuracy. There's also a ton of gameplay, giving you over 40 surgeries during the course of the game. My only real complaint is the lack of realism-- you start out doing regular surgery, then suddenly it turns out you have (I kid you not) Magical Surgery Powers that let you do things no other surgeon can, notably freezing time.
Uh-huh.
After that, it gets even sillier. You go from treating accident victims, to fighting a man-made "disease" (they call it that, despite the fact that you're clearly fighting tiny robots) with multiple "forms"... essentially, the game turns into Robotic Whack-A-Mole. There are around 8 different forms of the little robot things that are infecting people, and each has a different puzzle solution (some need to be burned with a laser, others need fluid drained, others need to be cut apart before they can be removed, etc). The gameplay is still fun, but to be honest, I would've preferred to simply continue doing regular surgery.
So, yeah. As a surgery game it's pretty stupid, but if you like speed/precision puzzles, you'll really get into Trauma Center.
i speak for many i believe when i say give us smash bros already :D
Yeah, I concur on the wanting Smash Bros already. I got a Wii like, last week, so my reviewing goes only so far as Zelda (which I had rented, havent finished. bah) and Wii Sports.
Sports: It may be me, but in some things the timing of the wii-mote is off, but its probably just me. I actually have nothing bad to say about this game, since my wife is now addicted to it, especially bowling.
Zelda: I'm a giant Zelda geek, and while getting used to the swinging of the wii-mote to swing your sword takes some getting used to, it makes for great fun. Another classic Zelda game I'm hoping to buy and finish.
:p
Welp, here goes...
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
10/10
Come on, tell me you didn't see this score coming. =p
Anyways, this game feels flawless. The game looks pretty (It feels last-gen, though... >.>), it plays great, it's got an excellent story, music, sound effects... Everything feels great. Swinging the controller to slash does take a bit of getting used to, but once you get it down, you can take on any challenge. Also, the game adds some "Hidden Skills" that Link can learn. Basically, their extra sword skills so you can vary your attacks isntead of just using the regular attacks... Because just using the regular attacks would be boring.
And along with any Zelda game, comes a really great story. Of course, I'm not going to spoil it for you. But, the game does take place in a little village, and ends up all across not only Hyrule, but its neighboring nations. If you look at the map, you'll know what I'm talking about.
The music and the sound effects are just cool. There are all sorts of sounds that come from the Wii-Mote, like when you slash your sword, defend with your shield, shoot your bow & arrows... Yeah, talk about awesome. And the effects in-game are awesome as well. But hearing them from the Remote is just a cool experience. And the music is amazing. Never heard the Zelda theme sound better.
All in all, this game is the first "Killer App" game for the Wii. And I think we all knew it would be.
Madden 07
9/10
For all the people who own this game for their 360's or PS3's, I'm sorry... But this game is just more fun on the Wii.
First, the gameplay almost feels like your actually playing football. Hutting the ball, hiking it, passing it... Oh-so awesome. And whenever you'll make a first down, or a touchdown, you'll be happy. Trust me. :)
The only reason I gave this game a 9, was because the controls will jitter sometimes. Like when you throw a bullet pass it'll be a lob, or when you want to juke to the right, you might juke to the left. Some things that can cause bad things, or might even cause a good thing to happen.
The graphics in this game, once again, feel last gen. But they do look good. Don't ask me how they made it that way... They just did.
The music plays from a soundtrack specifically mixed by EA, that's got varying styles of music. It's mainly got rock and rap, though. And if you don't like a song, or songs on it, you can shut them off or on. Whatever you please.
The announcers in this game (John Madden, and some other announcer guy) Get really annoying after a while of playing. They'll begin to say the same things, over and over again. So it may be best to shut them off from the beginning, just to save the pain and suffering of their voices.
The sound effects are great. Whenever a tackle happens, it sounds like to guys colliding against each other. How its supposed to be.
The learning curve for this game does take quite awhile to get used to. You have to use both the controllers for this game, and both have specific functions. Like waving the Wiimote one way will stiff arm, and waving the nunchuck one way will juke that way. So yes, it does take a while to get used to. But once your good at it, you can play against higher ranking teams. Like the Colts, or the Bears. (:p)
Overall, this game takes awhile to get used to, its got minor flaws, but its also got great fun for those who play it a lot. So overall, its definately worth a buy. But for non-football fans, or for people looking to play something besides Zelda or WarioWare, rent this.
FORIAMSPAM!
i got lost in the twlight princess :o
Wii internet channel:
Just a lil' mini review here. The final release of the Opera browser was released recently and I must say it's a huge improvement over the beta. It's MUCH more simple and faster to surf the internet now, and there's the option to hide the bar at the bottom, among other things. Best of all, it's free until june, so get it soon.
I'm actually posting this from my Wii :D .
Tiger Woods Golf (or whatever its called)
9/10 First let me say I've always hated golf, the people who play it, and pretty much every thing about it.
But I really like this. Very realistic, less frantic than most other games, and with plenty of skill.
It has lots of options and even a sort of RPG element where you can build up your player's skills and golf clubs and so on.
It's become the main (ie only) thing my friend who owns the Wii will play, (and she hated golf before too).
Best sports game ever, IMO.
I have nothing to add to this thread except that I think it should be retitled "Wii-views".
Tort
Wow, I haven't been around here for awhile. I do have a few Wii games now so here's my take on them on a scale of 1-10, (1 being absolutely terrible; 5 being average; and 10 being absolutely fantastic):
Call of Duty 3: A decent FPS shooter game although there were a few times my roommate or I would find ourselves spinning around in a circle when we were just trying to turn a corner. It is pretty fun being able to just point & shoot at the enemies on screen and driving a jeep was pretty fun, (you hold the nunchuk & Wiimote at 9 & 3 like you would a steering wheel). Overall I'd give it a 5.5/10
Marvel Ultimate Alliance: I had this and beat it on the PS2 but then I saw a used copy of it at a nearby game store so I took in my PS2 copy for store credit and picked up the Wii version for $10 ( so I could get the two extra characters and see how it compared). Graphically it's pretty identical to the PS2 version. You can pull off any of the special moves (except boosts) by holding B and moving the Wiimote in one of 5 manners. For some of the moves it makes sense others not so much, and for some reason it always had a hard time telling when I was pushing the remote forward. On the plus side most moves can also be pulled off with the buttons, for instance to use a special power you can also press B, use the direcional pad to scroll through them, and then press A. Overall not bad but they seem to have gone overboard with the motion controls in some places. 6/10
Sonic and the Secret Rings: I picked this up out of my desire for some type of platformer type game like the earlier Sonic or Mario games. Graphically it's very beautiful, although I wasn't crazy about how they did the cutscenes. One of my biggest complaints though is that instead of previous Sonic games where you were in direct control of when he moves in this one you only control when he'll stop... or at least try to stop. If you do nothing then he'll just run headlong into whatever is in front of him. Also when you do have to backtrack the camera doesn't adjust so you have to hope you don't back into some enemy or trap. It is still a very enjoyable game though, with some very fun levels but also some that will make you want to smack around that little blue hedgehog. It also has a number of multi-player mini-games that are pretty enjoyable and have kept me from trading the game in even though it's been beaten. Overall I'd give it a 7/10
Super Paper Mario: I'l be honest, I never played any of the other Mario RPG/Paper Mario games before. Again though my desire for a Mario game led me to pick this one up and I'm glad I did. Apparently the gameplay in this one takes a departure from the previous entries in the series by doing away with turn based combat, instead you deal with most enemies in the tradional Mario way by jumping on them. Along the way you'll pick up things called Pixls which are kinda like little fairy type things that help you out in some way. For instance the Pixl Boomer turns into a bomb that you can place to blow up enemies or remove certain obstacles. The Pixl Dottie turns you into a super tiny version of yourself allowing you to sneak under certain areas. You'll also be joined by 3 other party members with their own abilities including Princess Peach who can use her umbrella to glide and shield herself and even Bowser who does more damage and can breath fire. The game is filled with humor and little homages to previous Mario games including a powerup that turns your character into a giant sized version of how they appeared in the original 8-bit Super Mario Brothers. One of the only downsides is that sometimes the talking between characters seems to go on just a little too long, (I wanna get back to stomping baddies!). I think this is one of the best games available for the Wii right now and will hopefully hold me over until Super Mario Galaxy and Smash Brothers comes out. 8.5/10
Trauma Center: This one has been covered pretty well above, I too share Spud's wish that it would've stayed in the realm of doing regular surgury, (those missions are the ones that I enjoy replaying the most). Still a pretty fun game, I'd say worth a rental at least or if you can find it used. 6.5/10
Wii Play: A bunch of tech demos that comes with a Wiimote. Honestly it's barely worth the price and only because it comes with a remote, (although there doesn't seem to be the shortages with them that there was before). There are around 10 games if I recall and almost all of them are even simpler in most aspects than those found in Wii Sports. The shooting one is pretty fun and has a nice Duck Hunt type feel to it. Also the Cow Racing game is pretty enjoyable. The pool game is also pretty good, if not a little wonky at times. If you'd like another remote and wouldn't mind some average games to go with it then maybe pick it up, but you're not missing much if you don't. Basing it just on the game and not on the fact it comes with a remote: 3/10... with the remote 5/10
Spider-Man 3: *gagspukesdies*
Ok, thats my general feeling. Lets get a little detailed...
Graphics: Ok, this really looks like it belongs on the PS1, or the N64. All the peds are pretty much faceless, and there seems to be only like, 5 different pedestrian models/skins. The cutscenes are even worse, as Peter and the others look....well....bizarro. And horrible. Bad modeling, bad graphics. Bad. Bad. Bad.
Controls: Web slinging with the wii-motes! Wee? Enh. The novelty of it wears off when you realize that the game isn't registering you're movements too well. You hold down either the B button (for your wii-mote) or the Z button (for the nunchuck) and give it a flick to sling. Supposedly where you aim the wii-mote or nunchuck, Spidey will shoot his web at. Not very well though, I'd add. As for the fighting, your "light attacks" are done by flicking the wii-mote. Heavy attack is with the A button. Combos? Well, you wiggle the wii-mote a certain number of times, then hit the A button. Easy? No. Horribly unresponsive. He takes his first swing on screen when you're on your 3rd flick, making it a chore to pull combos off. Dodging? Well, you can dive whichever way you're facing...unless I was doing it wrong.
Sound: I didn't even pay attention to if there was music, but the dialog was was groan worthy. Like...first Resident Evil groan worthy. And not much variation in banter as well. Just....well, groan worthy.
Fun Factor: Well, after the novely of trying to web-sling around wears off, I don't think I'd even recommend this for a weekend rental. If you have a PS2, I'd say go get Spider-Man 2. But, if you're a big enough fan to play a Spidey game, you probably already have it.
BTW what can the WII hook up to? I'm asking because my PC monitor is pretty large and cool, while my TV is something I bought off a friend as charity, it's junk. Can I hook up the wii to a pc monitor?
My other option is to use the TV in the living room but that's where my depressed roomate spends all his waking non work hours... last thing I need is to give him another toy that will keep him from doing his part in cleaning.
Quote from: lugaru on May 16, 2007, 04:43:55 AM
BTW what can the WII hook up to?
Anything with RCA yellow, red, and white female hook-ups on it... I use a media adapter (mines from SoundBlaster) for my PC so that I can play my concole and old VCR tapes on my large monitor instead of having another TV in my office. There are some cheaper USB versions available at Radio Shack and Best Buy (or like superstore) that can fit the bill too.
- CrimsonQuill