Wii Used Games

In order to prove that a console with motion sensor technology can be a fun thing, Nintendo includes the easy to play Wii Sports with every new Wii console shipped. Wii Sports consists of five sports (baseball, tennis, boxing, bowling, golf) that utilize the game consoles motion sensor capabilities and make for fun, if not a little simplified, game play. The package was originally a demo to show off the capabilities of the new Wii remote, and the games still have that demo feel to them. However, despite their simplicity, they are fun games to play for both single and multiple players.

The baseball game focuses mainly on pitching and batting, with all of the outfield work left up to the AI. You swing at the ball by using the Wii remote exactly like a bat, with timing and speed being the things you need to worry about the most. Pitching is a little bit more involved. You need to throw the ball like a true big league pitcher with the speed of your motions determining the overall speed of your pitch. You can use the d-pad beforehand to help with the balls the direction and you can press the A button for a curve, the B button for a screwball, or both buttons for a splitter. The games last three innings and are more fun with two people playing. There is also a homerun derby option.

The tennis game on Wii Sports is about as bare bones as you can get with a sports game, but that does not a make the experience any less fun. You use the remote as a racket and your serve and volley accuracy is determined by the speed and timing of your swing. To start, you flick your remote to toss the ball in the air and then quickly swing it to serve it. While it might be tempting to leap around your living room in pursuit of the ball, it is unnecessary as the computer does all the moving for you, leaving you to concentrate solely on your swing. While there is not too much finesse with this game, timing being just about the only talent you need to have, it is still a fun game to play with others. Also feel free to make loud grunting noises just like your favorite tennis pro does.

Boxing is probably the most physical of all the games that are available with Wii Sports and it’s the only game that requires the use of the nunchuck device. You control the fighter through the remote and nunchuck, controlling the stance as well as the blocking, dodging and punching. To block a incoming punch, you hold the remote and nunchuck directly in front of you. You dodge punches by swaying side-to-side and front to back. You punch your opponent by swinging your fists and aiming your shots high or low. Since you need to flail your arms to get your avatar to punch, this game can end up being a bit exhausting. The controller configuration also makes it hard to feign a uppercut then go for a body shot and there is no ear biting option. .

Bowling is perhaps the most accurately depicted game on Wii Sports. Unlike the shortened versions of tennis, baseball and golf; you actually get to bowl a full ten frames. To bowl, you hold the remote and press down the B –Button then proceed to move it like you would an actual bowling ball, releasing the button as you finish your swing. Like real bowling, the ball motion, speed and spin is determined by the underhand mechanics of the your swing as well as how you twist your wrist. You can compensate for any spin by moving to different parts of the lane. Up to four players can participate in a game and you never end up getting shut out because it happens to be league night.

Golf rounds out the canon of games available on Wii Sports. Like baseball and tennis, your success in the golf game is determined by how well you can swing. The remote acts as all of your clubs from driver to putter, and the quality of your shot is determined by how much control you have over your swing. Swing with hesitation and your ball blips along only a few yards or swing with abandon and slice the sucker. The motion control system works pretty well in the game, but there are of course ways to cheat the system. Despite the swinging involved, the ball control is still determined through a basic power meter. There are a total of nine hole available to play and they range from “straightforward to “interesting”.

Wii Sports is a great game for Nintendo to include with a brand new Wii system if not for any other reason than to show off the systems unique motion detecting capabilities. What it is sacrifices in detail, it makes up for in sheer fun. Fun group play and the ability to use motion are the keys to the Wii’s success and this gaming philosophy is best represented in this game.

Anakin Skywalker has become Darth Vader, Palpatine has declared himself Emperor and it will take twenty long years for a New Hope to arrive on the scene. A lot of stuff happens during those two decades that Luke spends growing up on Uncle Owens Farm. Vader wipes out most of the Jedi and the Empire gains absolute control over the Galaxy with an exception of a small rebel alliance. What happens during this time has, so far, only been alluded to, until now when the tale will finally be told in the form of an interactive Video Game.

In Star Wars The Force Unleashed, you are Darth Vader’s Secret Sith apprentice who has been enlisted to help him get rid of the remaining Jedi that are hidden throughout the galaxy. Your presence is even kept secret from the Imperials since Lord Vader has hopes in using you to help overthrow the Emperor so that he might place himself solely in charge. As Vader’s apprentice, the force is strong with you. Your weapon is the light saber and you can manipulate objects as well as utilize lightning bolts. You first must use your talents to please the master, but later on you will be given the choice to continue serving the Dark side, or to join in the fight for the good.

The Force Unleashed is the first Star Wars game that Lucas Arts has declared as an official chapter within the Star Wars Canon. Expect a novel as well as a comic book and action figures to soon follow, further legitimizing the story. The game is also expected to be one of the best Star Wars games to date and the one that finally makes wielding the light saber a really fun thing, especially on the Wii version.

While the Wii version of the game will be lacking the stunning graphic detail of the other next generation consoles as well as the euphoria technology that instills self-preservation instincts within the AI’s, it promises to be great fun when it comes time to break out the weapon of choice for the Jedi. The player will be able to hold the remote like a light saber and yield it in battle. The nun-chuck device will be used to manipulate objects as well as to throw lightning bolts. The ability to slash with the light saber will be especially fun within the duel mode of the game.

The duel mode allows you to pit yourself against your friends using many of the popular Jedi Characters within the Star Wars Universe. Even a couple of characters from the extended universe (such as Mara Jade) make it into the roster. The fighting in duel mode is intense. Clash your sabers and enter a mini game in which you have to be the first to position your remote with the onscreen prompts and push in order to be the one who inflicts the damage. Perform double jumps and other maneuvers and build up your power meter to reach “unleashed” mode sparking off a super attack, causing lots of damage.

The duel mode, however, appears just to be the icing, with the cake being the story of what happens to all the Jedi in the years between Episodes 3 and 4. While LucasArts is hinting at a storyline that focuses on redemption, every Star Wars geek knows that the ending cannot be all that happy. At the beginning of episode four, all the Jedi are wiped out, including any secret apprentices. It will be interesting to see how this is approached and where the story is taken.

After a five-year hiatus, Bounty Hunter Samus Aran is back in this third and final installment of the Metroid Prime Series. If you are already a hard-core MP fan, then you are going to love this continuation that combines the intensity of a first person shooter with the mental stimulation of complex puzzle solving. If you are new to the whole Metroid Prime thing, you will still enjoy this game that has rich, detailed environments to explore and exciting bosses to face.

The story, if you want to call it that, is straight forward enough. Samus and her bounty hunter compatriots are on a mission to repair an organic computer that has been corrupted (hence the title) by a virus. This mission takes them through a plethora of richly detailed alien worlds full of creatures just looking to be blown away by a plasma cannon. The worlds themselves are complex environmental puzzles in which you will need both wits and continual use of your scanning visor to solve. Those of you who have played the other Metroid Prime games will find the plot a bit familiar, but will still enjoy the various little tweaks added to the game play.

The biggest change in the series is how the controls work. MP3’s maker, Retro, has managed to integrate the Wii’s unique control setup into the game in a way that makes for intuitive maneuvering capabilities that far surpass the methodical Game Cube version. You aim and turn with the remote as you move and strafe with the nunchuck. The motion sense capabilities are fully realized with the inclusion of a grappling hook. Flick the remote and use the grappling hook to grab a nearby object. Then, pull the nunchuck back to rip the object away. Switching it to advanced mode causes your POV to turn as you hit the edge of the screen, making for a much more fluid game experience. Also, if you do not feel like free aiming, the Z button locks onto a target for you.

Metroid Prime’s innovative control scheme makes it one of the best shooters yet to come out on the Wii system. This accolade, however, also takes something away from a series that has gained more renown for its complex environmental puzzles than its first person shooter play. While the worlds are rich and complex, with plenty of stuff to scan and figure out, this game can end up feeling more like a shooter than a puzzle. Still, this same control scheme also makes blowing away the baddies a great time.

Metro Prime’s weaponry is pretty straightforward. You start out with a plasma cannon and then get some homing missiles to complement them. These are then upgraded to more powerful cannon and missiles as you move through the game. Besides the standard cannon and missile arsenal, Samus also comes equipped with a Phazon Enhancement Device (PED) which allows you to enter hypermode by pressing the plus button on the remote. In hypermode you are capable of doing mucho damage to stuff, but you have a limited supply of phazon, so you need to be smart in using the PED. Also, you need to be wary of overloading on the Phazon, which will force you to release it all to keep from blowing up.

For those of you have missed this game about a malcontented adolescent that Rockstar released for the PS2 in 2006, now is your chance to join all the fun. Bully has now been retrofitted with more classes and missions for both the Wii and Xbox 360 consoles. For those of you who already own the PS2 version, this might be a waste of time since not that much has changed, but, if you have yet to experience the life as a new kid at Bullworth academy, then this game is worth picking up.

In Bully: Scholarship Edition, you play as Jimmy, cocky new arrival to the Bullworth academy. Your mission is to survive the new school and carve out a niche for yourself amongst the various cliques and clichés that seem to inhabit all schools. The game is a free roaming sand box style of game much along the same lines of Rockstar’s other popular games. You are free to go to biology class and participate in dissecting frogs, or show up for gym and play some dodgeball, or, you can just simply roam around and give nerds wedgies. . Completing missions is essential to opening up more areas of the game and unlocking different features, but feel free to play hooky all you want and explore. Just keep an out for “the man”who will be trying to put the kibosh on all of your shenanigans.

Bully has been done up in the  sardonic style that Rockstar has a reputation for, yet the main story is just as involved as it is humorous. The game is loaded with funny and, often times, painfully realistic situations that we have all gone through during those good old schooldays. The voice acting is superb and the clichéd one-liners come off as hilarious. Jimmy is a great antihero who acts cocky yet possesses a bit of a heart. He is the type of guy that the ladies just want to try to reform and the downtrodden want on their side. .   Although the main story line can be completed in about ten hours of play, the world of Bully is vast and widespread and it will take hours to explore every nook and cranny of Bullworth Academy and the surrounding countryside.

Included in the Scholarship edition are eight new missions for Jimmy to undertake. Most of these are centered on helping a drunken Santa. There are also four new classes available, upping the grand total to ten. Another new thing included in the scholarship edition is the addition of a few two-player minigames that allows you to take on a friend in a round of Consumo or geography  if you dare. These little minigames are a good distraction and tie in nicely to the new add-ons, but they really do not add to the overall game experience.

Besides a few more missions Bully for the Wii also does its best to utilize the motion sensor controls in a few of the games and classes. Most of these experiences make for a good time, yet some of them, like the boxing matches, can end up being a bit tedious to get through. Sporting new Mac Doc software, the scholarship edition also sports slightly better graphics than the PS2 version although the next generation feel is still not there The Wii version also does not seem to suffer from  the various bugs that users have been reporting in the Xbox 360 version of Bully.

While owners of the PS2 version of Bully may still want to wait for a true sequel to come out, Bully: Scholarship Edition cannot not be called just a mere port of the original.

The Zelda games have long been pillars of the Nintendo gaming world and many of its previous incarnations are now considered epic masterpieces. Both the original Zelda and its sequel the Adventures of Link defined the way action/ adventure/ puzzle/RPG games were made and played. The Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64 was a remarkable shift to 3D and it remains one of the greatest games ever to be created for any console. The franchise as a whole has sold over 52 millions copies worldwide and every new Zelda game that is released is received with enthusiastic anticipation.

Zelda: The Princess of Twilight for the Nintendo Wii system follows along the same “save the princess” storyline as the other adventures before it with a few added twists. Link, humble Hyrulian goat farmer is on his way to see the princess when all heck breaks loose over the country. Darkness has descended upon Hyrule and it is up to Link to save the day and keep the twilight at bay. The twist is that Link is transformed into a blue-eyed wolf when he enters the twilight portions of land.

As the wolf Link can do many of the same things as he could as a biped, except of course handle a sword or any other items that require the use of opposable thumbs. The advantages to following the call of the wild are high tuned senses that can lead to useful objects as well as an ability to jump higher as well as dig. In the beginning, the transformation is involuntary, happening as Link travels into the shadow realm. Further on, however, you gain the ability the shape shift at will. This ability to change is essential in the later stages of the game when certain dungeon level require both wolf and human strengths. . Throughout most of the game a little impish fellow named Midna helps you along. When Link is a wolf, Midna rides along on his back and offers hints and advice much in the same way as Navi did in Ocarina.

Of course, there are temples and dungeons to enter and puzzles to solve within in order to get your useful object and defeat the token boss. The puzzles are difficult, but not too difficult that you want to numchuck your television. Solving them gives you a good sense of satisfaction, yet sometimes you end up feeling a bit cheesy after you spend an hour poking around one section looking for a way to advance only to find the key to the puzzle was right in front of you the whole time. The quests have a very nostalgic feel to them and bring back some good memories of other Zelda games.

The game play and overall puzzle-solving scheme of the Twilight borrows heavily on the classic Ocarina of Time. In some ways this is a good thing that makes it a great game, in other ways it makes the game feel a little old and dated. While Link has always been a hero with not much to say, the other denizens of Hyrule are usually blabbermouths, dispensing with odd tidbits of information when you go up to them. Despite the Wii’s new sound capabilities, Princess of Twilight still relies upon the scrolling text method of communication. While this might help improve this nation’s reading skills, giving voices to the people might have been cooler. The lack of a decent soundtrack is also a bit disheartening.

Despite the games retread feel, steps have been taken to ensure the integration of the Wii’s new motion sensing peripherals. You attack by shaking you Wii-mote, and Zelda’s makers have made it easy to vanquish your foes without having needing too much finesse. You can also learn a few other moves, such as the shield pound, but the sensitivity of the remote makes them hard to master. Many of the games sound effects come out through the remote’s tinny little speaker muting their overall effect.

To sum it all up, Zelda: Princess of Twilight is a game that many hardcore Zelda fans will thoroughly enjoy. It has lots of challenging puzzles and the graphics are great, lending an artistic quality to the game. However, some might feel cheated from the lack of any real innovation besides the remote.

Super Mario Galaxy

Princess Peach is in trouble once again, and this time Mario is going to have to traverse the entire Galaxy in order to save her.  The adventures of Mario and friends has been a staple within the gaming world since the Eighties and many of these  games have gone one to become beloved classics. Mario galaxy is the game that Wii owners have been waiting for. With stunning graphics, tight game play, a huge universe of levels, and great soundtrack, this new addition to the little mustachioed plumber’s canon is one of the best adventures yet. The overall plot has the same overall theme that all Super Mario games have. Mario is on his way to visit Princess Peach when Bowser shows up in a UFO and snatches her away. Mario teams up with a space faring race called lumas who also have a bone to pick with Bowser since he ripped off all of their power stars, which they use to fuel their spaceship: The Comet Observatory. Mario’s mission is to travel the universe, collect the scattered stars from the different galaxies, find Bowser, and rescue the princess.

The stunning artwork and design put into the multitude of levels is what makes this game an instant classic. This is one of the best 3-d games to come out for the Wii and the best-looking Mario game since Mario 64. Every one of the worlds that Mario has to get through is intricately designed and flawless in its presentation. The difficulty level starts off as simple enough, but then builds to become a challenge for even the most hardcore veteran. Players might just as much fun exploring the different levels, looking for all the stars, then they will have beating the game’s various bosses and getting to Bowser. 

The actual physics that inhabit each of the different worlds is, well, out of this world. On some worlds Mario is allowed to walk upside down and sideways, and he is also able to float through the void of space in order to get from world to the next. There are also several worlds in which different suits are use ala’ Super Mario Bros.3. These suits range from a bumblebee, which allows Mario to fly around, to a spring, which gives him high jumping capability. 

The game play of Mario Galaxy is tight and the Wii remote is utilized to its fullest potential. To utilize the spin attack, you simply waggle the stick. This stick waggling technique is also used to trigger a launch star, which will send Mario to a previously inaccessible part of the universe.  You can also use the Wii-mote  as a pointer to gather star bits which can be used as ammo against the various dangerous creatures that inhabit the Galaxy and also as currency to unlock new stages.  To fire some star bits at an enemy, you just aim the remote and push B. While this aim and shoot feature is both convenient and fun, be careful to save some of these star bits because you are going to need them later on.

As everyone knows, the soundtrack to a Mario game has always been catchy (the castle theme from the original Super Mario Bros is stuck in my head as I am writing this), and Super Mario Galaxy’s soundtrack will not leave you wanting. Many of the old classics are updated and orchestrated and you will find yourself happily humming along to them as you play.

With its plethora of detailed levels that you will want to explore over and over, and challenging game play that everyone can enjoy, Mario galaxy is another classic game that you just have to have if you own a Wii. While its nostalgic flair gives the older Mario fans something to cling to, its innovative graphics and play set up makes this game a success with or without the help from Mario’s iconic status.