The Top 7 Wii Games of 2008

Recently someone asked me what my favorite Wii game was this year, and I answered without hesitation, “De Blob.” And he replied, also without hesitation, “I’ve never even heard of it.” And that is the tragedy of this game. It is a colorful, clever, challenging, engaging and original platformer for the Wii that you have probably never heard of in spite of receiving critical acclaim. And you have probably compounded the tragedy by spending your hard-earned money on some game you have heard of that isn’t nearly as good. There is too much tragedy in the world, please lessen it by playing De Blob.

A frenetic beat-em-up game, Brawl is great to play against friends, but also has a surprisingly engaging single player mode for the friendless gamer. Sure, it’s button mashing, but the prize goes to the superior button masher. With its bizarre arenas and fast pace, Brawl delivers old fashioned mayhem with style.

My first video game love was puzzle-driven adventure games, but alas, they are now few and far between. The Sam & Max episodic PC game series is a fabulous return to the glory days of comedic adventure games like Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango, and the series point-and-click interface beautifully translates to the Wii, making Sam & Max Season 1, which collects the first season’s six episodes into one hilarious package, one of the best puzzle adventure game ever to appear on any console. While my fondness for the genre has been tarnished by years of dross, Sam & Max will make any adventure game fan fall in love all over again.

A few months ago my friend Erica was given a Wii, so I loaned her my complete Wii library. Games such as No More Heroes, Kororinpa: Marble Mania and WarioWare: Smooth Moves have been gathering dust ever since: all she plays is Mario Kart Wii. In fact, for several months you could not visit her without being forced to play the game. It is understandable; Mario Kart Wii’s eccentric tracks and simple controls make it both the perfect pick-up-and-play game and something you can spend hours mastering. I wouldn’t say it is worth buying a Wii just to play Mario Kart Wii, but Erica may very well disagree.

Let’s be honest; if you were to make a list of the 50 greatest first person shooters of all time, none of them would be Wii games. It wasn’t until Medal of Honor 2: Heroes 2 that there was even proof a solid first person shooter was possible on the Wii. This year the console moved one step closer to producing a great FPS with the release of Call of Duty: World at War, a war movie come to life. Solid controls compliment both an entertaining and varied single player game and an effective and ingenious multiplayer mode. While World at War isn’t in the same league with Medal of Honor: Allied Assault or Half-Life 2, the game offers hope that someday a developer will create a Wii FPS that can compete with the best of the genre.

The Balance Board peripheral for the Wii, introduced with Wii Fit as an exercise tool, proves itself as a gaming peripheral in Road Trip, a fun snowboarding game that lets you hop on your balance board and snowboard like a champ. While Skate It, which also uses the Balance Board, offers more depth, it also offers too much frustration, making the straightforward Road Trip the best Balance Board game currently available for the Wii.