I got an xbox when they first came out and played quite a bit at first but soon realized that I am just not that into video games.
I injured my knee awhile back and am not able to exercise very much right now. I miss not being able to play golf, bowl and exercise in general.
I’d heard good things about the Wii, I thought I’d like to try it.
My wife decided to buy me a Wii for my 50th Birthday with the sport pack that includes bowling, tennis, golf, and boxing I think. We also bought the Wii Fit, a program to exercise with I believe?.
I’ve never played this type of system and am hoping for some advice on games/programs you enjoy and ones that I might want to avoid.
I’ve been gaming for 30 years, and I do the majority of my gaming on the PC. We bought a Wii about a year ago, and currently it’s sitting idle without even the batteries installed.
Benefits: Wii Sports is one of the best-selling games of all time, for a good reason. It’s fun, it’s short, and they tried to take out the boring parts of the game (e.g. playing defense in baseball is out, batting is in.)
Problems: Wii games are feast or famine, with little or nothing in-between. I don’t have many games, but in general, they break down like this:
Original games for the Wii that take advantage of its strengths, including Wii Fit.
Successful games on other systems that were ported to the Wii, and it looks like they didn’t even bother to make general changes to the game. Many, if not all, of these games are 2-3 years old. Mario Kart Wii, for example, was originally released for the Nintendo DS.
“Legacy” games that Nintendo thinks are worth $5 or more that are 20 years old that they sell directly through the game interface.
Group 3 games are just as fun as they were when they were on the original Nintendo, although why Nintendo charges for them is incomprehensible. Group 2 games are mostly clunky and obviously don’t work as well as the Wii as the original console. Group 1 games, the best of the lot, aren’t very numerous. Last I heard, only Nintendo releases good games for the Wii. Also, nearly all games are simplified for the Nintendo because of the limitations of the controller.
If all you do is play Wii Sports, don’t feel bad. Most of us do.
My first piece of advice is to take it slow. If you haven’t played a lot of video games before then jumping in with both feet to what connects with people who do play a lot of video games is probably just going to leave you annoyed.
Second, don’t overlook used games. Much like with automobiles there’s a huge aftermarket for games and by getting “the older model” you can save a fortune. And unlike cars there’s not a lot of wear on disks. Online the Amazon Marketplace and Gamestop are convenient ways to do it; I’ve never gotten a bad disk from a Marketplace seller (probably since it would be a real pain for them to deal with returns) and Gamestop is tied to a national chain so if you have a problem you can just go into a store.
Third, you need to avoid minigame collections and especially those featuring Opalcat. The high sales of the Wii to people who are not their traditional market has left a lot of game publishers confused about what to do with it. A lot of them are dumping cheap, poorly made collections of small games out there and these are typically not very good. There are exceptions and I’ll bring up one that I’m familiar with in a moment when I get to actual games; the thing to remember is if the box brags about the number of games included then it’s probably something to avoid.
Okay time to get started on the real suggestions. First of all sports games are a safe bet if you enjoy that sport because you already have the connection to the game. The Tiger Woods game for the Wii is terrific. There’s also a sequel to Wii Sports called Wii Sports Resort that includes things like fencing.
Something that the Wii interface has revived are “rail shooters”. These are simple games where the player is watching the action unfold and just has to shoot at the monsters as they pop up. Think of it as a very elaborate shooting gallery and they can be a lot of fun for two players working together. For some reason all the interesting ones are based on zombies so you’ll have to expect some things like exploding zombie heads. The Umbrella Chronicles, House of the Dead games, and Dead Space: Extraction are all a lot of fun even though they are extremely short games.
Then there are the rhythm games which are very popular right now. Basically these games play a song and while it is going you have to kind of play along on a fake instrument to keep the music going. It’s surprisingly addicting. At the moment the best one on the Wii is the Rock Band series which comes in more flavors than I can shake a stick at but for starting out you’d either want Rock Band 2 or Rock Band: The Beatles depending on if you’re a huge Beatles fan or not. You’d also need to get one of the large box bundles that contains the plastic instruments that you use to play along. I would recommend going into your local Best Buy (or big electronics store) since they inevitably have one of these set up somewhere and they play identically for all systems so you can try it out for a few songs and decide if it’s something you’d enjoy.
Personally, I am baffled by the popularity of rhythm games. These are just updated versions of the old battery powered toy, Simon. There’s no thinking, no strategy, and no storyline. Imho, it’s a love-it or hate-it genre.
Wii has versions of Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, and Guitar Hero if you like those.
I have EA Sports’ Active exercise game, which also has an expansion. This is much more of an “active” game than the Wii Fit game (you got that with a balance board, right?). The Wii Fit game has an expansion as well.
My husband likes Resident Evil 4, a good survival/horror shooter type of game. Rayman’s Raving Rabbids is a bunch of fun mini games. Lego Star Wars is always cute. Sam & Max is a point-and-click adventure full of lots of sarcastic humor.
This is all kinds of wrong. Mario Kart was originally on the Super NES. Later versions were released on the N64, Gamecube, Game Boy Advanced, Nintendo DS, and now the Wii. Each version is different, with unique tracks for them all.
The Wii version implemented the wheel control, which apparently the whole rest of the world uses, except me.
I also enjoy New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Party 8, and Wii Sports Resort.
The wheel configuration seems like the least popular control scheme in my experience but it is the one that I prefer. I think it has a very smooth analogue control that sticks don’t do very well.
ShermanAter, Mario Kart Wii is a lot of fun for a simple, goofy racing game though you have to filter your expectations through the idea that it’s about racing on zany courses and throwing things at the other racers.
Wii Sports Resort is a lot of fun. If you find yourself liking Wii Sports but wishing there were more sports, it’s definitely worth a try.
I think the Wii is most fun when you are playing local multiplayer (with other people in the room). Mario Kart Wii is a lot of fun that way, as well as Boom Blox. My daughter likes Smash Bros. Brawl, which is a goofy fighting game, but I find the controls a bit confusing and just end up mashing buttons until the fight is over.
I don’t want to get into this in a thread for suggestions for someone with no context to all of this but that is so categorically wrong I can only take it as you being completely clueless. Just a bit of cursory logic will tell you that without any other context:
Mario Kart DS was released before Mario Kart Wii.
Mario Kart Wii includes levels from Mario Kart DS alongside levels from every other 3D Mario Kart game.
So it is no more a port of the DS game than it is a port of the Gamecube game or Nintendo 64 game.
That’s without getting into things like it’s development history where it was a follow up to the DS game.
Because you don’t. The transmitter in the Wiimote isn’t blocked by things like your hand. Your fingers are not a Faraday cage.
Now your left hand does block the infrared receiver on the Wii but you’re not using it as a pointing device when you’re using the wheel so that doesn’t matter.
I’m not a gamer by any means. I’m also 30 and a female.
That being said, I’ve enjoyed Rock Band 2 the best, as well as Super Paper Mario and now New Mario Bros. Wii. I haven’t played Mario Galaxy but I totally need to!
Mercury Revolution, where you roll a ball of mercury around tilted boards, is nice and sort of relaxing. A great game to play alone.
Zelda Twilight Princess…I got bored. Guitar Hero World Tour was ok but really with Rock Band 2 I liked the songs a lot more, and liked buying songs for it.
Wii Sports is fun. More fun if you have someone to play with. Actually so is RB2.
I haven’t managed to get into anything else. I tried Mario Kart but as per usual when I try to play racing games I spend a lot of time running off the track.
Exactly. I own both games. They are not the same. Some of the tracks are the same (both games feature “retro” tracks from previous versions of Mario Kart) but most are different. A major difference between the games is that Mario Kart Wii lets you ride motorcycles as well as karts.
Keep in mind that the Wii can also play Gamecube games. There are quite a few good games there, like the Lego Star Wars or some of the earlier Mario Parties (IMO #8 on the Wii was underwhelming).
Personally I mostly play Virtual Console games, but if you haven’t done a lot of gaming before, you might want recommendations on what to download. A great start is any of the NES Mario games, Super Mario World, and Super Mario 64. Plenty of others, depending on your interests.
For the Wii itself, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and New Super Mario Brothers Wii are must-haves.
I find that we get the most mileage out of “party” games - they’re the most fun for a crowd, yet are still challenging enough that you can get a pretty good workout (if that’s what you’re looking for). Of these, we have Smooth Moves (a game featuring Wario, the evil Mario twin), Rayman’s Raving Rabbids 1, and Rayman’s Raving Rabbids TV game (the new one, I think). Smooth Moves is a lot like short attention span theatre, with tiny quick games that take 1 minute, tops - it moves quickly and is a lot of fun.
We played Zelda Twilight Princess through, but I don’t know if it has a lot of reply value. We also have Mario Galaxy, but never really got into it.
Cart’s always a classic - you can’t go wrong there. And the Lego Star Wars and Indiana Jones games are really solid; fun with a lot of in jokes to make you smile.
For the “fit” part, I have EA Active Sports too, and am just about to finish their 30 Day challenge. It strings more activities together and, I think, provides a better workout than the program that came with the Fit. That said, I’m not certain it’s quite there yet - it’s a little light on the cardio (which I think could be hard to integrate properly anyway) and you’ll need to invest in better resistance bands than the one that comes with the game as it’s really pretty light. (I got a package of 3 resistance tubes from Target for $10 that work pretty slick).
We will be buying the new Mario World; it’s just a matter of time.