Wii Recommendations?

[Rendakor]

So, Walmart was selling this bundle which came with a Wii and Wii Sports Resort for only $200, and I caved and bought one. My girlfriend has mentioned wanting one for a while, so this seemed a decent deal. We've got Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort already, and I know I want to pick up New SMB, Muramasa, Rune Factory, and Wii Fit Plus. I'm also probably picking up FFCC: My Life as a King and the FFIV sequel on WiiShop. Is there anything else out there that doesn't blow?

[Azazel]

Question 1:
Do you have a "real" console as well?

Question 2:
Are you happy to play "Wii style" games, or are you after more traditional ones?

[Rendakor]

A1: I've got a PS3 and a 360, so I don't need Wii ports of real games.

A2: While I generally prefer traditional games, Wii Sports and Resort are both good examples of "Wii style" games that I'll play. I've found I don't mind the various movements too much, but trying to aim with the Wiimote is terrible and bad.

[Malakili]

Super Paper Mario, Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Punch Out.

[Azazel]

Righto!

I found Madworld to be shallow fun, but others who played more deeply into it got sick of it.
Lots of people like No More Heroes. I haven't played it.

Nintendo-Branded Wii fodder such as Big Brain Academy, Wii Music seem like fun. I've had the students playing them at work, and actually own both, I just haven't gotten around to spending any time with them myself.
Wii play is worth picking up for simple fun and air hockey. Also, since it's only a few bucks more than getting a second controller anyway.
Guitar Hero/Rock Band etc you may as well get for a "real" console.

Shaun White Snowboarding (with the balance board) is good stuff. As it the sequel, apparently.

A co-worker swears by Tiger Woods Golf, and whatever the Tennis game is that allows you and a same-room partner to play online around the world in ranked tournaments. (PGA?)

I personally didn't like Red Steel (Haemish loved it), Pikimin 2: New Play Control (others disagreed) or Mario Strikers (some disagreed). I found Medal of Honor's FPS controls too fucking weird, and not especially responsive. I also lost interest in the new Zelda about 5 minutes of boring forced-exposition in.

Apparently, Force Unleashed lets you have spastic flailing-about lightsaber duels with a friend.
The Zelda Light Gun game is alright for the cheap price.

I plan to buy House of the Dead: Overkill and Resident Evil: Whateverthelightgungameiscalled when I see them very cheap.

There are a handful of good Gamecube games still worth playing as well, if you don't already have them.

[Rendakor]

Damn I forgot Punch Out!

Thanks for the info Azazel. Madworld looks like a rental, Shaun White Snowboarding I'll probably pick up once I get the Wii Fit board. I didn't really care for Twilight Princess on the GC, so I can't imagine it being much better on the Wii.

[Cyrrex]

If you like real golf, you'd like the Tiger Woods game with the Motion Plus controller.  Really good stuff, even if the graphics are complete ass.  Beyond whatever else has already been mentioned in the thread, here is a list of the other worthwhile games I would recommend:




 

[Rasix]

No More Heroes and Super Mario Galaxy are all that I could really recommend.  I was never a big fan of the original Punch Out, so I figure the new one wouldn't do much for me.

I'll be down to NMH, Wii Sports, and Wii Fit after I take advantage of the GS trade in deal for God of War 3.

Future looks decently bright with Galaxy 2 and the new Metroid coming out soon. Plus, I may have to get the NMH sequel sometime (have to figure out what the PS3/360 one has).  

edit: Do get FFCC: My Life As King.  One of the more addictive "one more turn" games I've ever played.

[Rendakor]

Adding NMH to the list as well; I really don't like 3d platforming games so I'm probably going to avoid Galaxy for the moment. The last one I played was Mario 64 and even that was just really frustrating to me at times.

Also, I don't like golf.

[HaemishM]

Red Steel.  

No More Heroes is a rental, IMO. The boss fights are pure gaming awesome, the spastic wanking shit you have to go through to get to them make it not worth it.

Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Strikers are both solid games. The Metroid game is good too. I liked Call of Duty 2 (launch game) but hated Medal of Honor and it's "Real is Brown" color palette. Mad World didn't grab me at all and neither did The Conduit - they don't suck but they aren't great.

[Amarr HM]

I had a lot of fun playing Mario Kart online.

EA tennis is surprisingly good for an EA sports title, it's got the cutesy thing down and once you get the hang of the controls it works quite well. I would say both could be rentals though.

[Rasix]

Adding NMH to the list as well; I really don't like 3d platforming games so I'm probably going to avoid Galaxy for the moment. The last one I played was Mario 64 and even that was just really frustrating to me at times.

Not a big fan of it either, but I found Galaxy pretty accessible.  Anyhow, I wouldn't rush to go out and buy it with the sequel on the way.  And I am trading it in, so there's no real lasting affection here. 

Haem's the only person that likes Red Steel.  I don't even think a Gamestop employee would lower themselves to recommend it to you. Interestingly enough, one did recommend Muramasa last time I was there (we bitched about the Wii game library for a bit). 

[Rendakor]

I played a bit of Mario Kart at a friend's house and didn't really see the appeal; even with steering wheels the controls felt unresponsive and generally worse than Double Dash.

[Malakili]

If you like real golf, you'd like the Tiger Woods game with the Motion Plus controller.  Really good stuff, even if the graphics are complete ass. 

Yeah, I think golf probably translates to the Wii (along with tennis maybe) quite well.  I find it fun, though its best with 2+ people for the lulz.

[Amarr HM]

I played a bit of Mario Kart at a friend's house and didn't really see the appeal; even with steering wheels the controls felt unresponsive and generally worse than Double Dash.

I reckon it needs to be played online, once you get the hang of the controls you can have some fairly enjoyable races. It does have a league system but not much else in the way of rewards.

[Minvaren]

I plan to buy House of the Dead: Overkill and Resident Evil: Whateverthelightgungameiscalled when I see them very cheap.

I got Overkill off Newegg for $12 delivered.  Well worth the money, the wisecracking between the two main characters is nuts.

Add me to the list for No More Heroes as well.  And after you beat it, search Youtube for a "slowed down" version of a scene near the end.   

[Cyrrex]

I played a bit of Mario Kart at a friend's house and didn't really see the appeal; even with steering wheels the controls felt unresponsive and generally worse than Double Dash.

I reckon it needs to be played online, once you get the hang of the controls you can have some fairly enjoyable races. It does have a league system but not much else in the way of rewards.

It can be fun in it's own right, but he is dead on with the observation of it not being responsive.  The controls are actually pretty clumsy compared to previous iterations.

[Amarr HM]

How can he be right? he merely played it in a friends house for a bit. It takes a while to get atuned to the control system in the same way Diddy Kong Racing was near impossible at first sitting. If you can't stomach a learning curve longer than an hour, then by all means leave it alone.

[Rasix]

For what it's worth, I thought the Wii Mario Kart was nothing special.  And the controls weren't great either.

It is, however, very accessible to a wide range of skill. The game really allows for a lot of different ways to make the game close. I know people that just picked it up and started doing good.  It wasn't very compelling, and I never felt the need to play it again after my initial time.  Felt like a waste of money in the end.

[Amarr HM]

My first impression wasn't a good one either, once I got relatively ok at it I had a lot of fun playing online. I did try playing it with friends, but they all suck so bad at it that it wasn't fun.

[ffc]

The best party games are WarioWare (up to 12 players passing 1 remote but you have to unlock multiplayer, it's better to just download a complete save file) and Jungle Speed (WiiWare, up to 8 players with each using a remote or nunchuk).  As mentioned Big Brain Academy is also fun in groups.

[Azazel]

Ah yes, Mario Kart is fun as a multiplayer game.

Mario Party is also a fun MP game

[Margalis]

In addition to all the mentioned above (especially MLAAK, buy ten copies of that please) I would add Silent Hill: Shattered Memories if you like adventure games (that's really what it is) and some version of Power Pros if you want a great sim-style baseball game hidden beneath a cutesy Japanese veneer.

[Rendakor]

Ok, I picked up New SMB, FFCC:MLAAK, Muramasa, Wii Fit Plus and Animal Crossing: City Folk. We're trying out the Wii Fit now, and she's loving it. I also preordered the new Monster Hunter and Arc Rise Fantasia. No More Heroes is probably next on the list; I probably would have picked it up today if it was in stock to be honest.

[Margalis]

There is a No More Heroes 2 as well, just came it. It seems that people lukewarm on the first generally like the second better, people high on the first don't like it quite as much. I'm in the "I like it but not as much as the first " camp, but then again I lurved 1.

[CharlieMopps]

With the WII, the games are either great, or total fail. There are few that are inbetween.

Games:
Super marios brothers rocks. They really revamped the game and the controller is used interestingly
Mario cart - just like the old ones with better graphics. If you liked the old ones, you'll like this one.
LOZ Twilight princess - very cool.
Silent Hill - shattered memories - A must have. Best game for the WII imo. The chase seens are lame, but when you get done with the game you feel like you've just watched a really good psychological thriller.
House of the Dead: Overkill - rocks. Not for kids
The Little King - interesting but can get old pretty quick
Monster Jam - lame. Made for little kids

The great thing about the wii is all the retro games that have been redone for wii-ware
Gradius, tetris, all the mario brothers... etc...

[HaemishM]

Apparently, they just released the SNES Final Fantasy II (yes, I know it's fucking IV in Japan) on the Virtual Console for $8. That may give me a reason to find a cable to plug the Wii up to my new HDTV. The goddamn system hasn't been turned on since I canceled my game rental subscription.

[Pennilenko]

Apparently, they just released the SNES Final Fantasy II (yes, I know it's fucking IV in Japan) on the Virtual Console for $8. That may give me a reason to find a cable to plug the Wii up to my new HDTV. The goddamn system hasn't been turned on since I canceled my game rental subscription.

I have had a Wii for 2 years now. It has been used 1 time, to play one single round of tiger woods golf. Some jackass homosexual assistant manager of a gamestop convinced my wife that any adult male gamer would want a Wii over a PS3.  So she got me a Wii instead of a PS3. I seriously wanted to bash his face in, but that would qualify as a hate crime here and I would go to jail for a long time.

[Azazel]

And returning it unopened for a full refund would have been too hard[I/].

[Ingmar]

Obviously returning things is unmanly. 

[CharlieMopps]

You just have to know that the WII has it's place. And it's place is not the old-school hardcore gamer crowd.

Nintendo tapped into a market that did not exist prior to the WII.

Instances the WII is good for:
Drunken parties with the neighbors - play one of the dozens of party game titles out there.
Children's parties - again, there are dozens of titles for this sort of thing
Middle aged couples having fun on a week night - Any of the puzzle solving or adventure titles (My wife and I played through Silent Hill together, it was great.)
Little kids pretend sword fighting ala Zelda
Light Gun games - The wii does the best light-gun style gaming out there.

What it does not work with are WWII FPS games. Now I know that's what about 90% of the gaming market is right now, but it just doesn't work with the WII remote.

I can honestly say that I've never had fun playing the WII solo. But some of the best group gameplay I've had has been on it. We even have friends that come over and bring extra controllers so we can have 4 people playing at once.

[ffc]

I just remembered a single player game I had a lot of fun with not mentioned in this thread:  Zack and Wiki.  Great puzzle solving game that makes good use of the Wii remote.  Plus it should be cheap by now. 

I think it had a second player option similar to Mario Galaxy but even less useful.  It's one of the few fond single player memories I have from the Wii but even that memory is marred by the frame rate drops in the last couple levels.

[Margalis]

I honestly use my Wii far more than my 360 and I play mainly single-player games. I'm not the kind of person who buys 6 games a month so if you require that kind of volume maybe it's not great, but if you've used it once in 2 years that's really just doing that for the sake of doing that.

[schild]

I honestly use my Wii far more than my 360 and I play mainly single-player games. I'm not the kind of person who buys 6 games a month so if you require that kind of volume maybe it's not great, but if you've used it once in 2 years that's really just doing that for the sake of doing that.

It's really not, but it's cool if you think so. I turned on my Wii when my interest piqued for a game, specifically My Life as a King and No More Heroes. When another game comes out that looks worth my time, it'll get turned on again. Honestly, there's been no drought of games this year, or even really last year or the year before. Especially if you have a boss computer and all 6 consoles (counting PSP, DS, and iPhone to make a point). If you're turning on your Wii more than your 360, you're really just doing that for the sake of doing that... and I haven't turned on my 360 since last August.

[Rasix]

Wii hasn't been on for almost a year (since Mad World's release).  If NMH wasn't going to 360/PS3, then yah, I would probably have turned it on for the sequel.  Still unsure of what we're going to be getting there.  It'll come on this year for sure though (Metroid).