She vowed to get this for me so I can finally haul my ass off from my chair and start exercising regularly. Who knew a game console could actually do that? I beg to differ. There are some pretty cool games on Wii already. It is a pretty cool shooting game sort of like House of the Dead, which I also heard was good for Wii.
Sonic and the Secret Rings is a pretty cool reinvention of the Sonic the Hedghog character. Then as far as upcoming games I already reserved my copy of Madden 09 which for Wii features the shot calling feature. Plus, on Wii they have duel mode where you can take your friends on head to head with your lightsabers and Jedi powers.
How Cool is that?!! Brawl and Mario Kart Wii. Least important. These titles need to come out, yes, but their success is already written in the stars. The Dojo has kept the passionate gamer drooling with anticipation over Brawl, and their word of mouth buzz they generate has enamored other potential buyers. Ditto for Mario Kart. Everyone these titles are aimed at will buy them sometime in February and thereafter.
The only danger? Further alienation of third party developers that are too lazy or too scared to try and unseat Nintendo with a truly original, groundbreaking Wii title. That will take risk and innovation on their part which is something, ironically, that Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii do not bring to the table.
In October , Ghostbusters is scheduled to come out for a number of consoles, one of which is the Wii. So, after all that negative Nancy commentary, why is Ghostbusters on this kind of list? Well, think of it this way: The title is representative of a potential watershed moment for third party develpers. One year from now, will Sierra bolt on controls to a PS2 game or will it create a truly Wii-specific experience that will make other publishers take notice?
EA's Boom Blox used Nintendo's controller in an innovative gestural manner to become one of the year's most satisfying party experiences. THQ's de Blob tested the system's horsepower with a beautiful presentation made possible with a host of taxing graphical effects. And Ubisoft's No More Heroes, with its over-the-top violence, proved that not all Wii games need be designed strictly for family play. But we've got to be honest here. Wii also saw a flood of throwaway, bargain bin software in -- titles so carelessly executed that they were dismissed by discerning players early on.
In fact, the average IGN. In , Nintendo continued to support its Virtual Console service with more than 80 rereleases of classic software, but also launched the WiiWare channel, allowing users to download simple new games designed specifically for Wii.
Included in the plus WiiWare titles this year were standout products like LostWinds, Tetris Party and World of Goo , all of which easily demonstrated the viability of the service. In fact, all three titles proved to be more enjoyable than the majority of titles released to retail this year. Despite a shortage of hardcore titles in the latter half of the year, Nintendo's little white box continued to sell at a phenomenal rate.
For most of , consumers could not find Wii systems in stock and they remain a rarity even as we write this article -- more than two years after the system released, we might add. Nintendo has sold upward of 13 million Wii systems in America alone and in officially overtook all competitors to make Wii the best-selling current-generation platform around the world with nearly 40 million units sold.
With every passing month, Nintendo's lead has increased -- and incidentally Wii has remained the number-one selling system throughout , besting Xbox and PlayStation 3 all year. Wii was last outperformed by a competitor in September of The momentum has not slowed, but increased. Nintendo announced in November that more than , Wii systems were sold during the Thanksgiving week in America alone, which means that the company will likely see its biggest sales month ever when official data is made available.
This year, Nintendo recognized that with so many Virtual Console and WiiWare releases, users have run out of storage space on their consoles. Company president Satoru Iwata promised that a solution would be made available in early Meanwhile, the Big N debuted two new technologies.
First, Wii MotionPlus, an exciting adapter that attaches to the Wii Remote and makes the measurement of more subtle movements. We tested the device thoroughly and believe it fixes any inconsistencies with the original hardware. Unfortunately, gamers will still have to wait until next year to experience it for themselves.
And finally, Animal Crossing: City Folk heralded the arrival of Nintendo's long overdue voice-chat solution, WiiSpeak, an oddball device meant to bring families whose living rooms are separated together by an online connection.
We're still waiting for a proper headset, but it's a step in the right direction. As gives way to , certain fundamental truths seem clear.
Wii was every bit the phenomenon in that it was a year prior. Perhaps more impressive is that the console continued to sell during gap months when no major new software was released, backed by the strong shelf life of casual-style games like Wii Fit. This seems to suggest that Nintendo no longer needs the hardcore crowd to maintain its position as market leader.
Thankfully, though -- and as we detail in our look ahead to -- Nintendo hasn't forgotten about the core audience. In fact, next year is on track to deliver one of the company's all-time great lineups. Games of The Wii's second full calendar year on the market was marked both by the arrival of some highly anticipated hardcore efforts and a continued transition toward more games intended for a casual audience.
Here are 11 of the year's most notable titles, presented in the order in which they first arrived on store shelves or the digital equivalent, the Wii Shop. The game, which was headlined by Suda 51 the same creative force behind the GameCube's Killer 7 put players in the role of would-be assassin Travis Touchdown, a young man who wins a Star Wars-like lightsaber in a contest and then spontaneously decides to go on a killing spree, targeting the world's most deadly hitmen.
It's a game that's definitely not for the faint of heart. And it's a game that's definitely not without its flaws, as the vibrant and over-the-top style paired up with some questionable and shaky gameplay elements that ultimately detracted a bit from players' full enjoyment of the carnage on-screen.
Despite its drawbacks, though, No More Heroes is a truly unique entry into the Wii lineup and a game that's definitely worth revisiting if you missed it back in January -- especially now that we know a sequel, called No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle, is in development for release in the future. Gamers who don't mind a little off-the-wall violence can grab a look at Travis' assassin aspirations in action by clicking here for our video review.
Super Smash Bros. Undoubtedly the most hyped and anticipated first-party title in Nintendo's history, Super Smash Bros. Brawl finally arrived on Wii in early March. The release was preceded by an epic countdown, supporting by a daily updated developers' blog on SmashBros.
Luckily, all the hype was warranted. Brawl proved to be exactly the kind of evolutionary advancement we'd all hoped for, lending even more depth and replay value to the design that was already nearing perfection in the GameCube's Super Smash Bros. The addition of new fan-favorite Nintendo icons like Pit from Kid Icarus and third-party visitors like Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake, the stage-creation mode, the full-on single-player adventure mode and more have all kept players enthralled for months on end now.
So if you missed out on the first wave of Brawl's hype and popularity, you can still get it on the action right now. A good place to start would be Super Smash Bros. World , IGN's fully dedicated subsite that hosts our resident Smash community -- its blog continues to be updated every day by hardworking contributors, keeping that hype train that started years ago fueled and still moving forward into the future.
A fair amount of the Wii's new releases in were projects originally intended for last-generation systems, delayed a bit and ported to the Wii instead -- games like Super Paper Mario and Donkey Kong Barrel Blast were two of the most notable. The most notable example of that trend continuing into , though, has to be Capcom's Okami. This third-person adventure was so highly praised by both critics and fans that it earned IGN's Game of the Year award for its release on the PlayStation 2.
And Nintendo fans, who'd been clamoring for a Wii release since even before '06, finally got their wish this past April. The celestial journey of wolf god Amaterasu was even more beautiful running on Wii, and the Wii Remote made the natural transition to controlling our hero's world-altering heavenly brush perfectly well. This is a game that you might have skipped over this past Spring, writing it off because it took a fairly long time to make the leap from PS2 to Wii.
But you don't want to make the mistake of skipping it entirely, because it's a magical experience that now serves as one of the best adventure games available on Wii. If you want to see it in action for yourself, click here to check out our full video review. Console or handheld, it doesn't matter -- if it's from Nintendo and it runs video games, Mario and the rest of his Mushroom Kingdom crew are eventually going to go racing on it.
Even with its inevitability though, for the Wii, the checkered flag waved a little earlier than we might have guessed. Though some thought it might not make it out until later in , Mario Kart Wii shipped to stores just one month after Super Smash Bros.
The game arrived as most expect a Mario Kart sequel would, with a new set of crazy tracks to race across and a handful of new characters to race as. New to this series installment, though, were motorcycles -- with altered handling and a different boosting method, the two-wheeled vehicles could be used interchangeably with the more traditional four-wheeled go-karts.
Our full video review, as well as an extensive series of IGN Strategize videos pointing out some of the game's best shortcuts, can be yours for the viewing by clicking here. Exercising, made fun? If any company could do it, Nintendo could -- and did, with Wii Fit. This year's hottest expanded-audience title for the Wii made it to market in May, and has been consistently sold out across the country ever since. Like the Wii system hardware itself, Wii Fit packages fly off the shelves any time any store gets a shipment to stock.
Because it makes exercising fun. The signature Wii Balance Board peripheral, which comes packaged with the game disc, makes it all possible -- a flat plastic controller that you lay on the ground and stand on top off, it's made to resemble two bathroom scales placed close together and functions in a similar manner.
With one foot on top of each pad, the Board measures the subtle shifts in your weight distribution and balance -- and, in doing so, facilitates Wii Fit's inclusion of both off-the-wall mini-games like headbutting soccer balls and hula-hooping, as well as more traditional exercises like yoga.
The Board itself has gone on to be employed in titles that shipped later in , too, like Skate It where it becomes your skateboard and Rayman Ravings Rabbids TV Party where you sit on it to control certain mini-games with your rear end. Wii Fit's unique appeal captured the interest of one of our own earlier this year, so in addition to checking out the game's video review right here , you can also see Mr.
Mark Bozon's progressive weight loss series by clicking right here. The summer months of June and July came and went with little fanfare on Wii, except for some of the interesting announcements made at this year's E3 -- like the Wii MotionPlus. The attachment, which promises to enhance the responsiveness of the Remote's motion-sensing capabilities, should allow for true game experiences when the device ships next year.
It made it all the more interesting, then, that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play shipped to stores one month later -- and it, without the added functionality of the MotionPlus, did an excellent job of offering a experience all its own. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play is the best game of golf to be found on Wii, and its excellence serves to provide proof that Electronic Arts' new direction for its Wii products in was the right way to go.
Though some of the "All-Play" titles still have some kinks to work out, Tiger and this year's Wii edition of Madden NFL Football both presented excellent Nintendo-exclusive features and content that made Wii owners feel like a priority -- like we weren't just getting a downgraded conversion of the Xbox and PlayStation 3 renditions.
It will be interesting to see how the All-Play branding continues into , and it'll be even more interesting to see how the developers responsible for the next Tiger Woods best their efforts from this year when they actually do have access to the enabling Wii MotionPlus.
For our video review of Tiger's latest trip to the greens on Wii, click right here. The summer came to an end and autumn began as de Blob rolled onto the Wii, bringing with him an even greater variety of colors than the shades of changing leaves outside. Color was the whole point, in fact, as de Blob was a hero committed to bringing the brilliance back to his black-and-white world -- he'd hop, roll and bounce around his monochromatic city, fill his body with vibrant paints of blue, red, green and yellow and then make contact with the structures surrounding him.
At even the slightest touch, those buildings, fences and other fixtures would then take on the same hue as him. It was a sight to behold. And quite a fun game to play, which is all the more impressive considering that de Blob was first born as a student game development project before making the long journey to its ultimate retail release. This is one of those games you easily could have missed in September, the time when the overall number of new releases each week really starts to ramp up for the holiday season.
But if you get the chance, or if you get a gift card in your stocking this year, consider de Blob. His springtime shades will bring some life back to your bleak and weary winter days.
You can see all of the colors of the rainbow yourself in our video review of de Blob, accessible by clicking right here. Wario Land: Shake It! Fueled by his gluttony and greed more than ever before, Wario Land: Shake It! And it held fast to the conventions established in the portable space, even when it seemed odd to do so for a retail Wii release -- it was strictly two-dimensional, for example. No 3D graphics at all. The decision to keep things out of the third dimension helped the style, though, as Wario Land: Shake It!
And it also took advantage of the Wii's unique capabilities in an element of its gameplay -- the "Shake It! Like a Polaroid picture, perhaps. You can get a sense of the game's great animation through our video review, viewable here. And if you want an idea of what the shaking is all about, you might want to check out this YouTube trailer. Be sure to watch the whole thing if you do. A new 8-bit NES game, almost two decades after the peak of the 8-bit era?
It seemed like a ridiculous idea, but it came true this year as Capcom took its legendary Mega Man series straight back to yesteryear for this brand-new, old-school update to the classic Blue Bomber franchise. Mega Man 9 debuted on WiiWare on September 22, giving Wii owners the exclusive privilege of experiencing it first -- the game also came to the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, but only days later.
The Wii edition of MM9, then, became the definitive edition for many. New Robot Masters, incredibly challenging levels, extra options like Time Attacks and a presentation that looked right in line with the NES Mega Man titles from the '80s all came together to make up this release, which quickly skyrocketed to the top of the download charts for both WiiWare and the Wii Shop Channel in general.
Then, weeks later, downloadable content packages offered players the chance to play as Proto Man, experience an Endless Stage or showdown against a ninth new Robot Master boss.
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