Rating your Wii collection.
As of January 1st, the Wii is 408 days old. In the 13-and-a-half months the console has been kicking around, games have come and gone, with 184 titles currently available. To put it simply, a lot of them are pure garbage, and if you’re one of the three people who bought Pet Horsez 2 (yes, that’s a real Wii game—look it up), then this article is for you. Here are the top ten Wii games released in 2006 and 2007. This is your guide to cutting the crap and sticking to the pure essentials. This is the measure of your Wii mettle, as all 10 of these titles should be on your shelf, with no exceptions.
How to play: Grab a piece of paper and a pencil. No, a pen will not work, because you’ll make mistakes. Below the title of the game will be point totals. If you own the game listed above, you’ll gain plus points. If you don’t own the game, you’re missing out, lunchbox, and you lose points.
You start with +50 points of integrity because you’re reading this article.
Super Mario Galaxy
Own: +50
Don’t Own: -40
Why You Should Own It: Do I even need to comment on this? If you don’t own this title, you are completely L7.
WarioWare: Smooth Moves
Own: +40
Don’t Own: -30 (See Below)
Why You Should Own It: Fantastic multiplayer, hilarious microgames, innovative and fun usage of the Wii-mote, hysterical cut-scenes, and all around entertaining oddball weirdness make this game a must own. Since the game is ten times more fun in multiplayer, only -15 if you have no friends. Also, I’m sorry you have no friends; that must suck.
Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition
Own: +40
Don’t Own: -30
Why You Should Own It: Hands down the best Resident Evil title in the whole series is made that much better when ported to the Wii. The controls are fluid and natural, which makes the game twice as enjoyable compared to any other console. With the engaging story and the atmospheric horror Resident Evil is known for, this title also includes all the bonus material and missions of later RE4 releases and must be owned.
The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Own: +40
Don’t Own: -30 (See Below)
Why You Should Own It: Why even own a Nintendo console without a Zelda title? Twilight Princess is full of huge dungeons, each packed with engaging puzzles and boss battles, all wrapped up in beautiful graphics and a fantastic soundtrack. The story is classic yet still fresh and compelling with an overall high-quality world to explore. Only -15 if you were late to the game and bought LoZ:TP on the GameCube. You still lose points because it’s better on the Wii.
Super Paper Mario
Own: +35
Don’t Own: -25
Why You Should Own It: The best 2D Platformer/3D RPG on the Wii to date and quite possibly the only game in its genre. It’s funny, entertaining, and full of collectible cards, a personal favorite. Great gameplay and a decent replay value make this another off-the-wall title that is a must own.
How’re you doing over there? Have you bottomed out to zero yet? You have a lowest possible score of -105 points of integrity up to a maximum value of FF in hexadecimal, but we’re not done! We’ve got five more titles to go, but they’re all of lower point values, so if you have -105 points right now, maybe you should go read some other article.
You gain +5 points if you read this far just because I like your face.
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure
Own: +35
Don’t Own: -10
Why You Should Own It: The most innovative puzzle game on the Wii. Puzzles have a moderate difficulty that make the game challenging but not brain stabbingly frustrating, and they’re presented with a unique and enjoyable visual design and layout. Pirates and flying monkeys—end of story. Only -10 if you don’t own this title because it’s not a mainstream game that everyone knows about.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Own: +30
Don’t Own: -25 (See Below)
Why You Should Own It: The best and final chapter in the Prime trilogy brings us the best environment puzzles and boss battles in the series. The stages are beautiful, thematic, and well crafted while the controls are streamlined to perfection, making good use of the nunchuck motion sensors. One can only hope previous Prime titles will be ported and updated for the Wii. Oh, and an extra -15 points if you own either Metroid Prime Hunters or Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for the GameCube and you didn’t pick up this title for some baffling reason.
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Own: +25
Don’t Own: -15 (See Below)
Why You Should Own It: This game is just totally messed up and weird, but completely fun. With a wide variety of minigames, it’s a step down from WarioWare, but it still has enough weirdness to enjoy single player even though the game works best as a multiplayer. Only -5 if you have no friends. You lone wolves get all the breaks.
Trauma Center: New Blood or Trauma Center: Second Opinion
Own: +15
Don’t Own: -10
Why You Should Own It: Who didn’t let out a gasp followed by “coooooool” when someone first told you that you could perform surgery on the Wii? Great controls and gameplay leave you with a long and gradual learning curve that will reward you for lots of practice and precision. Little else beats pulling shards of glass out of some dude on the OR table.
Mario Strikers Charged
Own: +15
Don’t Own: -10 (See Below)
Why You Should Own It: The first game to make good use of the Wii’s online multiplayer capabilities. This vast improvement over the original Super Mario Strikers included a wide variety of characters, weapons, and special moves, making it the most enjoyable sports title on the Wii. An extra -10 if you’re not American or are a soccer fan and you don’t own this game.
Ready to see how you measure up? Well, not so fast, sparky. There’s some final calculations to make. If you own any of the games below, no points are lost or added. These games are good filler to round out your collection, but none of them are must-haves.
Fillers: Call of Duty 3, Elebits, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Link’s Crossbow Training, Mario Party 8, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, The Simpsons Game, Sonic and the Secret Rings, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, Wii Play.
And now, you get -5 points for any other game you own.
Tally up all your points and read an arbitrary description of yourself based on even more arbitrary criteria!
-170 or less: PS3 Owner. Yeah, you have a long life of making poor decisions ahead of you. My advice to you is to find a significant other, marry them, let them make all the decisions in your life, and hope to god they make better choices than you. Oh my, yes—I am laughing at you.
-169 to -100: Xbox 360 Enthusiast. You spend more time playing Gears of War, Halo 3 and Bioshock then you do tending to your Wii and its assorted titles. That’s OK; you just prefer running around shooting things over and over and over again in various incarnations to unique, varied, innovative gameplay of different variety and styles. That’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with being another vanilla sheeple lost in the masses. No, really—there isn’t. I’m not laughing at you; I’m barely giggling.
-99 to 0: Confused Gamer or Poor Gamer. You know which one you are. If you’re a Confused Gamer, you’re on the right track; you’re just missing out on some of the blockbuster titles of the year. Let this article help you. Go to your nearest bargain bin and pick up the titles you are missing—it’s not too late to change your ways, Ebenezer! Pick them up, put them on the shelf and try again. We’ll throw this score away, and it’ll be our little secret. If you’re the Poor Gamer, most of these titles have been out for several months. Get with the program already and start poking around eBay, bargain bins, and used media outlets.
1 to 200: Respectable Wii Owner. You most likely got here by owning three or four of the top titles and missing some of the lower ones. A handful of these games on your shelf means you have your pulse on the Wii; you know what the blockbuster titles are, and you’re able to see through some reasonable amount of marketing BS. It also means you probably missed Zack and Wiki, but it’s never to late to pick it up along with any other titles you may have missed on this list.
201 to 369: Wii Enthusiast. You’re not one to let a good Wii title slip past you. You do research before you buy a game and you probably read GameCola to swear by the words penned by its motley assemblage of reviewers. You might also have saved yourself a few point losses by not having any friends. On the up side, your superior game collection will undoubtedly impress the opposite sex (or the same sex, if you’re into that), and your chances for a deep, meaningful relationship will definitely increase. So there’s that.
370: Sprite Monkey. Seriously, you’re me. So stop being me, you freak. I own all 10 titles (what a shock, right? It’s MY freakin’ list) and four filler titles. I lost 10 points for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Excite Truck, mistakes I bought on launch day for the Wii.
380: Liar. If you got this score, you own all ten titles and you lost no points for owning any games outside of filler titles. You’re just a frickin’ liar.
381 or more: Math Prodigy. You have found some way to add numbers in such a way that their sum is greater than their actual possible sum. Try again, moron.
