1. De Blob
THQ
A game that correlates oppression and revolution with grays and colors, De Blob creates a vivid world where the dark forces of black and white are pitted against revolutionaries who are colorful in the most literal sense of the word; they devote themselves to repainting their cities after the bad guys drain them of color. A funny and stylish platformer with an intuitive control scheme that uses motion control smoothly and intelligently, De Blob is an almost perfect Wii game, and my favorite Wii exclusive.
2. Wii Sports Resort
Nintendo
I often complain about the flood of mini-game collections that have virtually drowned the Wii, but a mini-game collection done right can be tremendous fun. Resort is, very simply, the ultimate mini-game collection. Created to introduce the MotionPlus, the game finds a lot of different ways to take advantage of the increased motion sensitivity, giving players an experience that is even more impossible on any other console than the typical Wii game.
3. Deadly Creatures
THQ
Action games are generally about fighting things you wouldn’t want to meet in person: alien monsters, Nazi soldiers, zombies, ninjas, and, in the case of Deadly Creatures, spiders and scorpions. One of the most original and exciting action video games ever made for the Wii, Creatures takes place in the dust of the desert, with fierce battles between creatures that could easily crawl into your boot and poison you when you put it on. Although in Creatures, these little critters prove they can do much worse than that.
4. Call of Duty: World at War
Activision
Many Wii exclusives are notable for being games where the same experience could not be created on another platform. World at War, on the other hand, is notable for recreating the first person shooter experience on a console poorly designed for a conventional FPS. First person shooters are tricky on the Wii, because the controllers don’t have two analog sticks, meaning the second stick’s motion must be mimicked using the Wii remote. This is tricky to pull off, but World at War does it better than any other Wii game, proving the FPS viability of the Wii.
5. Dead Space: Extraction
Electronic Arts
The Wii has revived the rail shooter, simply because the Wii remote so perfectly emulates the light gun technology used on other consoles. While other rail shooters are content to basically serve up the same old formula, the ambitious Extraction aims to create something new, adding a jittery camera and an intriguing story to the standard shooting gallery mechanics. The result is quite possibly the best rail shooter ever made.
6. Marble Saga: Kororinpa
Hudson Entertainment
Kororinpa is one of the best examples of a game that wouldn’t make a lot of sense on any platform except the Wii. Sure, you could rotate the game’s elaborate three-dimensional mazes with analog sticks, but that would be like walking on the beach in heavy boots; yes, you still are on the beach, you’re still leaving footprints, but you don’t feel the sand between your toes or the water lapping at your ankles. Koririnpa makes the relationship between player, maze and rolling marble beautifully symbiotic, and is the best puzzle game on the Wii.
7. Punch-Out!!
Nintendo
Using the remote/nunchuk combo to punch and the balance board to dodge, Punch-Out!! is a full-body game, making it both a lot of fun and an utterly exhausting workout game. I’m hoping for a MotionPlus sequel that can get rid of the couple of movements in the game that require the player to still push buttons instead of just moving, but until that day comes, Punch-Out!! is the most fun you can have swinging at the air.
8. World of Goo
2D Boy
This original and innovative puzzle game is considered by a lot of game reviewers to be the best Wii game of 2008. I don’t rank it quite so highly, but it is a wonderfully impressive game, with striking visuals, unusual game mechanics and a lot of style. And while I won’t call it the best Wii game of 2008, it is quite possibly the best exclusive WiiWare title so far.
