The Wii Vitality Sensor could have more uses than you realise

Okay, perhaps ‘brilliant’ is pushing it. But Satoru Iwata’s surprise E3 peripheral doesn’t deserve its overwhelmingly negative post-E3 buzz.

Of course, it’s not intended as a traditional game application - Iwata spoke once again of the need to expand the gaming audience further, inviting new players to the fold. With the Wii increasingly being used in health research, this seems to be the logical next step.

I’ve been speaking to Tim Goodchild, who is a senior lecturer at University Campus, Suffolk, who agrees that despite something of a half-hearted introduction by Iwata - what, no software, Satoru? - it could be the next big thing for Wii.

“[there's] a general keeness on the part of healthcare and academia to support simple human computer interfaces and use current tech to support lifestyle. There is an huge amount of money being put forward to fund research into lifestyle and tech solutions - for example we are putting together a bid for to explore encouraging children to walk and measure how far they walk and link this to a virtual reward system/game.”

It’s obviously not too much of a stretch to think how Nintendo could use this sort of approach - indeed, with current DS title Walk With Me, it’s already exploring the idea of offering virtual rewards for physical activities, while the forthcoming Japanese versions of Pokémon Silver and Gold will come with a Pokéball-themed pedometer which allows players to level up their ‘Mon by running around.

So can the Wii market be expanded even further by positioning it as a genuinely useful healthcare tool? Goodchild certainly thinks so. “If you consider how popular Wii Fit is and the feeling from people that gaming may actually improve their lives, and then link in biometric readings, you have an actual ‘Wii Care’ system,” he explains, sorely tempting me to register said name. “By this I mean healthcare providers can monitor an individual as they try and improve their lifestyle by fun games, which we know are effective, and better their health - this could lead to health education/promotion programmes being linked to Wii.”

“This is a massive area,” Goodchild continues. “From cancer care to post surgery to coronary care - and especialy elderly care - these all require programmes to support individuals in recovery and maintenance. Also, the fact that we can monitor people through the vitality sensor makes this simple evidence-based research, and therefore has huge potential for further development.”

Ah, but what of more traditional game applications? Well, obviously there’s the possibility of relaxation improving in-game performance - the lower your pulse, the faster you run or the higher you fly - but I can definitely see some ideas in games which purposely try to raise your heart rate. Think of how effective the forthcoming Ju-On game could be if you were rewarded for how calm you remained during the scariest bits? Or a game which featured a lie detector test where you have to remain cool and collected in the face of interrogation? Or a stock-market sim like Capcom’s Kabu Trader Shun where you have to keep your pulse low while rapidly buying and selling in the pressure-cooker environment of the trading floor? And assuming the peripheral is a success, then a Wario Ware game where you have to regulate your pulse to prevent the games from reaching impossible speeds surely wouldn’t be too far off.

So while its primary uses would almost certainly be for non-gaming applications, perhaps the Wii Vitality Sensor shouldn’t be written off just yet. It’s a big ask, but if Nintendo can find the right piece of software to bundle with it, there’s no reason this can’t be the next Wii Fit.

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New Super Mario Bros. Wii is currently getting rave previews

After a conference that all but alienated core gamers last year, E3 2009 was a much more exciting one for Nintendo’s loyal fans. A series of core-focused announcements - admittedly almost entirely concentrated on established franchises - made for a more interesting conference, though a rather aloof and curiously flat presentation sucked a little bit of the life out of some of the major reveals. Not helped by an oddly muted audience - compare and contrast with the whooping and hollering at Sony’s briefing two hours later - the likes of New Super Mario Bros. Wii were greeted with silent interest rather than wide-eyed excitement, while even Super Mario Galaxy 2 got a polite rather than rapturous reception. It wasn’t until the ‘wow, really?’ surprise of a new Metroid from Team Ninja that the attendees finally started cheering and clapping to any significant degree.

Yet take Cammie, Reggie and Iwata out of the equation, and the line-up of games shown was pretty impressive. Two brand new Mario games on Wii, both of which look great, and both of which will be here before mid-2010 (Miyamoto confirming that Galaxy might be a Christmas 2009 release were it not for NSMB Wii). A thrillingly different take on a popular franchise in Metroid: Other M. What look to be two vastly improved sequels to two of the console’s biggest games in Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus - both offering more to core gamers than their predecessors. And plenty of interesting DS titles - WarioWare DIY could well be the handheld’s LittleBigPlanet, while Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is a welcome return for one of Nintendo’s most unfairly underappreciated franchises. Golden Sun DS was arguably the most warmly-received announcement for the handheld, and we got a brief reminder that we’re getting another portable Zelda by the end of the year. Then there’s Flip Notes Studio - the DSi killer-app you don’t know you want yet. Believe me when I say it’s one of the most significant pieces of software Nintendo announced at the show - the non-game formerly known as Moving Memo is a masterful app which will give creative types hours upon hours of fun.

Endless Ocean 2 - sharks and crocs add a dose of danger

But E3 is about more than just the conferences, and it was interesting to note what Nintendo didn’t show, with plenty of assets on the company’s press site for games which the big N chose not to reveal. On DS alone, we had role-player Glory of Heracles, Picross 3D (née Rittai Picross), The Legendary Starfy and - why didn’t they mention this? - Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. The latter’s predecessor might not have been the unbridled success in the US that it was in Europe and Japan, but ignoring Layton completely is still a bit of a baffler. Then on Wii, we have - hurrah! - Endless Ocean 2, Sin and Punishment 2 (sadly pushed back to early 2010, but looking tremendous on the show floor) and a triumvirate of games about which little is known. Monado: The Beginning of the World is an RPG from Baten Kaitos creator Monolith, looking not unlike Final Fantasy XII, while Artoon’s Span Smasher is a platformer-cum-pinball game as you swat a rotund hero about the screen, obliterating barriers for points. Meanwhile Line Attack Heroes is apparently a  ‘fast-paced melee action game’ for up to four players. A few shots and a brief press sheet suggests that the games aren’t high on Nintendo’s priority list, and while both could be fun, it wouldn’t be a major surprise to see them sneak out at a budget price.

Taking third-party titles out of the equation for the time being - I’ll be analysing the line-up for DS and Wii in more detail very soon - Nintendo has plenty of interesting titles coming out over the next year or so. The non-appearance of Pikmin 3 and franchise favourites like F-Zero and Starfox was a little disappointing - and we’re still waiting for some really groundbreaking new IP that I’m sure Nintendo is more than capable of - but overall, us Wii and DS owners have much to look forward to.

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Saturo Iwata has been speaking about Nintendo’s future at the company’s third-quarter financial results briefing for the fiscal year ending March 2009. An English-language transcript of Iwata’s address has been posted on the investor relations section of Nintendo Japan’s official site, and it’s certainly an interesting read, giving a fascinating insight into the next fiscal year for Nintendo, and the ideas of Iwata himself.

He’s refreshingly honest about the success of Wii, suggesting that prior to launch, Nintendo was “hopeful that we would make this new system the best selling hardware in the next generation” but that “if you ask me if we were able to foresee today’s situation, I am not that optimistic so I have to admit that today’s situation is exceeding even our original expectations.”

Iwata suggests the unexpected nature of Wii’s success is the reason why third-party publishers have thus far failed to take advantage of the console’s large userbase, and that explains why “some are reportedly saying that they bet on the wrong horse or that they need to change course.”

Obviously, the current global financial crisis has made things difficult for third-parties, something which Iwata recognises - hinting that companies will have to reduce the overall number of games they make, but that we will soon see the focus on Wii and DS start to bear fruit. “Overall, we recognize that our relationships with the software manufacturers are shaping up better than before. So, in the mid-term, we believe that more attractive titles will be launched by them for our platforms.”

He also speaks frankly about Wii Music’s failure to scale the heady heights - at least in sales terms - of Wii Sports, Play and Fit, admitting that it’s not necessarily for everyone, but that its comparative lack of success doesn’t mean it won’t perform well in the long run. “I agree that Wii Music, as of now, has not achieved its true potential,” Iwata concludes. “I feel that Wii Music is a software that elicits largely two extremely different reaction from consumers. There are people who highly appreciate it and those who do not appreciate it at all. Usually for other software, if there is a fair amount of people who evaluate the software positively, the appreciation level of that software becomes slightly skewed toward a positive note, but on the other hand, if a number of people evaluate it poorly, the overall reaction to the software is bad.”

Iwata goes on to compare it to Brain Training, which wasn’t initially a huge success but went on to become the DS’s most popular software. Referring once again to the oft-discussed ‘long tail’, Iwata warns “we should not have the attitude that a game does not have sales potential because the first week or first month sales were small.” In other words, expect Nintendo to continue promoting Wii Music, and perhaps trying new strategies to sell the game to those unconvinced by its qualities. DLC would help, Iwata-san. Just saying.

Also, while many are saying this is the year Wii truly goes hardcore, expect Nintendo to continue to work on games which have real breakout potential - the kind of phenomenon that brought Wii success in the first place (Wii Sports, Fit) and those which helped DS dominate the handheld market (Nintendogs, Brain Training). Wii Sports Resort we know about, but that won’t be the only one, especially with Iwata talking of the need to create a new buzz around Wii - a cycle of new buyers who experience these mainstream hits with friends and relatives and decide it’s high time they owned a Wii for themselves. A new Wii Play would undoubtedly sell the idea of MotionPlus, but Iwata’s suggestion that it’s a new phenomenon Nintendo needs suggests something completely different may be on the cards.

As far as other strategies go, it seems Iwata is very keen for Nintendo to clamber aboard the user-generated content bandwagon. Indeed, to a degree it already has, with Wii Music offering the opportunity for players to easily share songs with other Wii Music players (though I maintain it would have better viral appeal were Nintendo to allow users to share their tunes with Wii owners who don’t own the game either). Iwata talks about the growth of network gaming being one way to expand the medium, but that to a degree its competitive nature can be off-putting to novices, with the gap between skilled players and beginners widening, and preventing those curious parties from taking their interest in gaming any further.

“This is where UGC comes in,” claims Iwata. “There are some people, although they may be a minority, who love to create something creative, share that with others, and enjoy seeing other people being entertained or responding positively to their creation. At the same time, great majority of people are rather passive and love to applaud the creative efforts by others and enjoy playing with them. In other words, UGC has the unique characteristic that, regardless of their game skills, people on both sides can enjoy.”

Iwata talks about Daigasso! Band Brothers and its music composition side, suggesting up to thirty times more users are downloading user-created songs than those who are submitting them, but that “both sides are happy”. And the next big thing in UGC is a small piece of software that’s starting to become the best reason for people to upgrade from DS Lite to DSi - the free application Flip Book, which allows users to create simple animations and share them online with other DSi owners.

Interestingly, he moves on to discuss the Japanese success of Wagamama Fashion: Girls Mode, suggesting that it is likely to be a big title for Nintendo in the west this coming year - but also that overseas markets were initially reluctant to embrace the idea. As Iwata explains, “when we announce that a new Mario or Pokemon software is developed, marketers of Nintendo products all over the world naturally look forward to the launches even when they do not know the contents of the game. On the other hand, when we make a presentation to the same people about software which has had no previous track record and no name recognition, their reactions are not positive for most cases. I am not trying to offend our people in overseas marketing companies at all, and actually, their attitude is quite natural. If one is presented with two products, and the successful sales of one of them is guaranteed, and if they have to anticipate allocating a lot of resources to sell another, it is only natural that people have higher expectations for the one guaranteed to sell.”

He uses Nintendogs and Brain Training as examples of this phenomenon, and then moves on to talk about Girls Mode and Rhythm Heaven - admitting that reaction to the titles in the west was cool to say the least. But Iwata is happy with proving the ideas in Japan before selling them overseas - “we are establishing a system where we produce some tangible results in Japan first and thereby encourage overseas people to get excited in order to sell them locally, and I see no issue with this system,” adding that “overseas subsidiaries are looking forward to the launch of Girls Mode and Rhythm Heaven as strategically important products in the next fiscal year.” In other words, expect big marketing pushes for those two.

More exciting, perhaps, is the suggestion that Nintendo will be developing more titles in the west. Iwata observes that the difference between eastern and western cultures means that even a publisher as universally-loved as Nintendo has to tailor its content according to the territory. “As we strive for the expansion of gaming population worldwide, we are also thinking of developing products that cater to the American or European markets. We are actually working on U.S. and Europe-originated Touch Generations products, which may have a smaller demand in Japan than overseas. I can not tell if it will go well or not at this moment. I think one or two of these initial trials will reach the market within this year. If they actually flourish, I think our strategy will have to take the next step.” Fingers crossed.

It’s not all good news, of course. It seems we’ll be paying a premium for DSi when it finally makes the journey over from Japan. “Considering the current foreign currency exchange rates, there is no possibility of selling DSi overseas with the same price as DS Lite at all. There will have to be a difference in price. With this price difference, I think that the DS Lite and DSi will be sold side by side in the Americas and in Europe, but I will not be able to comment on their ratio today as we have not announced the prices and we will have to see how people react to the announcement.” With DS Lite still selling well in the west (as opposed to Japan, where it was starting to labour a little against the renaissance of the PSP) Nintendo will do well to provide compelling enough reasons to upgrade. The camera and its photo-manipulation tools will help. Flip Book, too. But is that enough to convince Lite owners to move on, and - as seems likely - pay upwards of £130 for the privilege? I’m not so sure. That said, I can see GAME doing well from trade-ins - allowing DS Lite owners to swap their old handheld plus a wodge of cash for a spanking new DSi.

More than anything else, this all proves that Nintendo absolutely has the right man in charge. Iwata clearly has an excellent awareness of the current market, and for someone in charge of a massive corporation, he stays well on top of things at ground level. He’s refreshingly honest about where his company has gone wrong, and has plenty of ideas on how to keep Nintendo on top, even in these trying times for the global economy. 2009 represents a very important year for Wii and DS, and if anyone can steer the good ship Nintendo through the choppy waters that are claiming all sorts of victims in the videogame industry at present, it’s Satoru Iwata.

The full document can be found here.

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If you’ll permit me this slightly off-tangent indulgence, I’d like to bid a fond adieu to indie games show Consolevania, whose last episode was released today, and can be downloaded here. There’s little content in this particular vid pertaining directly to Nintendo (save for a nod to World of Goo in its ‘Best of 2008′ list), but for my money, this - along with BBC Scotland offshoot videoGaiden - is (or rather was) the best games TV show you never saw, and so is more than worthy of a brief eulogy.

Always frank, funny, brutally honest, and clearly deliriously in love with the wonderful medium we call videogames, Consolevania was the brainchild of Rab Florence and Ryan McLeod, two likeable Glaswegians with a sharp sense of humour, who crafted a ramshackle but genuinely hilarious show which celebrated gaming perhaps better than any other program ever has. The final show carries a slightly apologetic tone, as Rab suggests he’s not proud of the verbal batterings he’s dealt out to certain games over the years. But while these were undeniably amusing, Consolevania was never about scathing reviews. Instead, it revelled in gaming’s inherent daftness, embracing its glorious idiosyncrasies, and evangelising about its most transcendental moments. Some of the best Consolevania pieces had me buying games I never otherwise would have considered. Its review of God Hand remains one of my favourite videogame critiques of all time, and the show’s enthusiastic appraisal of Super Mario Galaxy - “a wee fat man in space having the time of his life” - was another highlight.

I had wondered whether the show was due for a renaissance recently after an endorsement from the Guardian Guide - a Saturday supplement of unquestionably good taste, clearly - but if Rab’s insistence that the show’s hectic schedule had led the team to fall out of love with gaming, even if only for a short time, then it was best for Team CV to bow out. The final show’s well worth a watch, and if you’ve managed to miss it and wonder what the fuss is all about, you can download episodes from the official site, with special streaming versions you can watch on your Wii here, here and here.

So long then, Consolevania. WiiWii shall miss you.

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Okay, it’s not an argument that’s exclusive to Nintendo systems, but John Lanchester from the London Review of Books has written an exceptional piece on the popular topic of whether games are indeed art. It’s a lengthy, detailed and insightful commentary on the subject, and Lanchester has a few interesting things to say on ‘the Nintendo difference’, initially focusing his attention on Shigeru Miyamoto.

“Miyamoto has, throughout his career, engaged with the question of arbitrariness by making his games more arbitrary, more silly – by making that silliness part of the fun. He is the inventor of Mario and Donkey Kong and Zelda and Nintendogs: in other words, he’s Walt Disney. At his best, as in the recent Super Mario Galaxy, made for the Nintendo Wii, his games are visually beautiful, witty (a quality expressed mainly through the design of the many small planet-worlds in the game, heaving with imaginatively designed traps and enemies), and have a sublime, enchanting silliness.”

More interesting still is the comparison of the three consoles currently on the market.

“Sony’s PS3 is a wonder of the world, with two astounding new technologies inside, the multi-threading Cell computer chip and the new generation Blu-Ray Disc; the Xbox 360 is a powerful computer in its own right; but the much lower-tech Nintendo Wii is a lot more fun than either of them.If one were trying to find a point where video games are turning into a form of artistic expression, however, it might be towards the more powerful consoles that one would look. The Wii is great entertainment but in spirit it is closer to a toy than a game; I don’t mean that as a criticism, it’s a virtue. In the form of games such as those of Miyamoto, it is close to a spirit of pure play.”

It’s certainly an interesting opinion, and very well expressed, though I’d argue that the best Wii games can offer artistic expression through control - I don’t necessarily think that’s reserved to the HD consoles - indeed, just look at Wii Music, which offers a way for players to express themselves through musical play.

Anyway I urge you to read this fascinating piece, though you’ll need a bit of time to sit down and really take it all in, as it’s quite a lengthy feature. But do take the time to read it.

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Five weeks on, and I’m already getting a little bored of Animal Crossing: City Folk. Sure, it’s a relaxing way to wile away half an hour every day, but the more I play, the stronger the sense of deja vu gets. And the stronger that gets, the more irritating the omissions from the GameCube original get. It’s in danger of turning my general apathy into a sense of total injustice.

I’ve spoken already about one of the most obvious omissions. In the GameCube version, you could download a tool to your GameBoy Advance, allowing you to design t-shirts on the move, bring them home and upload them to your console. Despite the DS being perfect for this sort of thing, this feature is not available in the Wii game. Moreover, tailor Mabel always used to recommend the must-have fashions when you ventured in. Now you’re not given the option to find out what the must-have threads of the season are. The latter might only be a small issue, but it’s symptomatic of the often bizarre tweaks to the template that make it probably the weakest Crossing yet for fans.

Take the house expansion, for example. In the DS game, you can have a back room, and rooms to the left and right as well as an upstairs room. Granted, if other players were sharing your copy of the game they’d have to live in the same house too, but how few people will that have affected? The Wii game offers a larger first room, a second floor and a basement and that’s your lot.

Then there’s the city - it offers a change of scenery but little else, and makes certain tasks more of a chore. Getting your hair done now requires you to leave your village (you could always just pop into the salon in Nookington’s in the DS game) while expressions require you to sit through a hopelessly unfunny thirty seconds of dialogue. With Lyle now fronting the Happy Room Academy, there’s none of that amusing insurance banter, and no reward for getting yourself stung by bees. That had always been a nice little earner in Wild World, but it’s also gone.

As for the decision to allow the ground to wear away where you’ve been walking - well, how silly. A lot of people spend significant amounts of time beautifying their village, and yet they’re more likely than anyone to suffer the problem of grass and snow being eroded into dirt pathways, with every step potentially leaving their town looking less attractive than before. A barren area where a villager’s house used to be is supposed to evoke sadness at their departure, but in reality you’re more annoyed that there’s a big messy-looking patch in its place.

Couple that with the load times as you enter and exit each building - astonishing in this day and age where consoles can stream huge open-world landscapes - and the laggy menus, the occasionally clunky and inconsistent mechanics (I can sell several items at once, but only order one item at a time from my catalogue?) and you’ve arguably got one of Nintendo’s laziest releases ever. What makes it worse is Reggie Fils-Aime’s insistence that this was Nintendo’s big ‘hardcore’ release this winter. The true hardcore will be the ones most ill at-ease with City Folk - it’s only those newcomers that are enjoying the Animal Crossing experience from the first time who won’t feel let down or cheapened by Nintendo’s penny-pinching approach to one of its most novel creations of the past ten years.

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Platinum Games (formerly Clover Studios) created some of the finest and most original titles of the last generation. MadWorld is their big Wii title for next year - an ultra-violent brawler that many are holding out as their big hardcore third-party hope for 2009. But there’s a chance that it won’t be the game that many people are expecting.

For one, its violence isn’t your tabloid-baiting Hostel-rivalling torture porn, but something akin to The Running Man meets Itchy and Scratchy. Secondly, while some are envisioning an unholy union of Sin City and God Hand, it’s nowhere near as technical as Clover’s bonkers beat-em-up - it’s far more focused on showoffish environmental kills than high-intensity, high-difficulty scrapping, making judicious use of motion-attacks in an attempt to appeal a little more to Wii’s relatively inexperienced userbase.

Still, with truly stylish looks, some top-notch voice talent on board - the familiarly gruff John DiMaggio, Gears of War’s Marcus Fenix, growls one-liners as anti-hero Jack - and the talented Platinum Games team at the helm, this is more likely to be a No More Heroes than a Soul Calibur Legends. Fingers crossed it has the gameplay smarts to match the stunning art.

MadWorld is due for a worldwide release in March.

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Let’s Go To The City? Let’s Not Bother, more like. I’m starting to tire of the same dialogue from the animals gathered around the fountain in the town square - even if Chow Down Meltown does sound like a good name for a bistro. And it’s a bit odd that they all change every time I exit a building - like they were all waiting for me to venture inside and then legged it so they didn’t have to speak to me on the way back. And the auction house is possibly the most pointless thing in a Nintendo game since the controls in DK Barrel Blast. Or the tracks in DK Barrel Blast. Or DK Barrel Blast in general. So far, in my four weeks of playing the game, I’ve seen one - one - item in there, which I bid on, and the stupid gyroid that runs the place still can’t tell me if I’ve won or not. And Redd’s run out of stuff until Christmas Eve, and I wanted to go in and give him a piece of my mind after he flogged me a dodgy painting. Again. Not happy.

Thankfully, things are going pretty well in Meltown - Nook has upgraded his store to the two-storey Nookington’s, and I’ve now earned enough points to get my hands on a Yoshi egg (which wriggles and yelps ‘Yoshiii!’ when you prod it). The HRA is officially in love with my house, and my new asymmetrical stripe top seems to be going down well with the locals. I’ve made two perfect snowmen so far and received two special pieces of furniture for my troubles. Oh, and I got a hat that makes me look a bit like Kapp’n. Gar!

Best of all, I’m now bezzie mates with Brewster in the museum’s coffee shop - ’pon the advice of WiiWii.tv reader Richard Schroeder (thanks, fella) I ventured in there for his finest pigeon blend for seven days in a row, and he expressed an interest in storing my gyroids for me. Rather than taking up valuable cupboard space, I can now pass them to Brewster, and can look at my collection any time. He’ll also tell me if I have any duplicates so I can sell them on to Nook. Well worth the 200 bells a day for a cup of java, methinks.

It’s little touches like this - and seeing Prince having a cuppa in the Roost the other day was another pleasant surprise - that makes your village feel more alive than ever before. But it’s disappointing to see Nintendo has left out as much as it’s put in. The GBA holiday island from the GameCube game? Nowhere to be seen. Surely it couldn’t be too much effort to allow DS owners this additional bonus. Of course, the more glaring omission is the lack of portable t-shirt creation tools - which the DS would be perfect for. Designing a top on your bus ride home and then importing it to your Wii? Makes perfect sense to me - especially given that the DS is more suitable for such a task than the GBA was. Nintendo might have had its hands bitten with the whole connectivity malarkey, but given that it allows the DS to be used as a suitcase to travel between villages, surely this isn’t too much of a stretch for the hardware?

(Incidentally, it doesn’t allow travel between villages from different regions - I transferred my items from my US copy of City Folk to travel to my father-in-law’s PAL village, and couldn’t transfer the info over. Bah.)

With DLC still yet to be announced by Nintendo - will it happen at all, or was that always just going to be a possibility rather than a reality? - it’s still arguably too early to effectively review Animal Crossing. It’s certainly got the most potential for expansion of any Wii game. Let’s just hope that Nintendo makes good on its early promises - even if it’s just a few pieces of Ikea-branded furniture or a Coke machine in the museum. The caffeine might help Blathers stay awake, after all…

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Here we go, then - the five games which I feel represented the very best on Wii this year. Once again, feel free to add your thoughts if you spot any glaring omissions. And I’m sure a few people will argue about the game in the number 2 slot. Opinions, eh?

5. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

To all extents and purposes it’s a GameCube game. It doesn’t have particularly good graphics, nor does it make any use of the Wii remote’s pointer functions (surely that could have been included as an optional control scheme?) and it’s best played with a Classic Controller - or, better still, a WaveBird. But it’s lost none of the series’ inherent charm, and has a few tweaks to its mechanics that make it a better game than the Cube’s own Path of Radiance. Some interesting story stuff, too - flitting between characters at key points yet still allowing the player to retain an affinity for his or her troops. Hopefully one day, Nintendo will throw a bit of money at this franchise and it can have the presentation and polish it deserves.

4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl

A love letter from Nintendo to itself, with its most hardcore fans CCed in. Brawl, for my money, is a far superior game to the overly-hectic Melee, dialing down the pace a notch or two for a four-player battler that’s still frantic but arguably a little more tactical. What makes Brawl so great is the wealth of content - the ridiculously large cast of characters, the frightening number of extras and the encycopaedic information about past franchises. With stages that reference Electroplankton, collectable stickers of the Ouendan and assist trophies from Sin and Punishment, Brawl is happy to celebrate Nintendo obscura as well as its biggest franchises. And finally, Mario and Sonic got to face off against each other. Throw in an appearance from Solid Snake and you’ve got a game that, for all its inherent shallowness, is a true celebration of Nintendo, and an essential lesson in gaming history.

3. Mario Kart Wii

Play it in single-player and you may wonder what the fuss is about. Hoping to get your mates round for a bit of local multiplayer? You might well be disappointed in the ‘improvements’ Nintendo has made. No two ways about it - there are better Mario Kart games for offline players. Go online, and suddenly it all slots into place. Twelve-player races are undeniably fantastic - very light on lag (I’ve rarely experienced any) and the wider tracks and increased number of racers make perfect sense. My very first online win is one of my gaming highlights of the year - pipping two other racers to the post at literally the last few metres. The downloadable ghosts and the twice-monthly online challenges add substantial longevity, and the Wii Wheel is a great balancer if you’re playing with non-gamers or casual players. So, after an initial period of disappointment, Mario Kart Wii leapt up in my estimations, becoming one of the best Wii games of the year. It’s not perfect, but hopefully the sales of this will encourage Nintendo to get a sequel out sooner rather than later.

2. Wii Music

Like all the best art, Wii Music is incredibly divisive. Many critics hated it. Quite a few serious fanboys denounced Nintendo and Miyamoto after the (admittedly faintly embarrassing) E3 demonstration. Then people played the game, and word of mouth started to spread - people forced to eat their words as they realised that Shigsy hadn’t lost it at all. Wii Music is certainly not for everyone - it’s bound to be too simplistic for some, while the tracklist is off-putting to many. But its simplicity is one of its strongest suits - making it accessible to casual players who just fancy a quick jam session, while affording more creative types the chance to stamp their own personal touch upon a tune without ever getting bogged down in needless complexities. Crafting a unique take on a song is amazingly rewarding, and sharing with others sparks a creative flame which inspires you to try and try again. In future years, Wii Music might just be hailed as a stroke of genius. It’s certainly one of the most innovative titles of the year, and while it might have a slightly more niche appeal than Nintendo would have hoped for, anyone falling into that niche will undoubtedly look back fondly on their time with the game. You never know - it may even inspire future generations of musicians. Though it needs DLC now, please, Nintendo.

1. No More Heroes

Mad as a box of frogs and with more rough edges than a sandpaper decahedron, No More Heroes deserves top spot on this list by virtue of its sheer, gleeful invention and gloriously exuberant iconoclasm. It’s a game that’s not afraid to take pot shots at both itself and other videogames, simultaneously celebrating and laughing at videogame traditions. It also plays brilliantly - the lightsaber combat besting both Wii Star Wars games released this year by a long way, simply by using remote-waving judiciously and sensibly, rather than requiring arm-knackering movements for every sword slash. At first it seems too much of a button-masher, but the further you go, the more the combat opens up, and you’ll have to dodge, block and parry with well-timed blows. And those finishers are incredibly satisfying - enemies exploding with booming sound effects as you slice through them with Travis’s beam katana. Throw in some terrific use of the remote’s speaker, scalpel-sharp writing, a terrific story, memorable characters and an audacious finale (indeed, the true ending is one of the best climaxes to a game I’ve ever seen) and you’ve got easily the most exciting and unique Wii game of the year. A sequel is already in the offing - with the potential for MotionPlus-enhanced combat, the enigmatic Suda 51 could well have the best Wii game for two years running.

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I’ll be the first to admit that Wii hasn’t had the best year ever. Nintendo has tested large sections of its core fanbase this year - certainly in the last six months - with very few first-party titles which appealed to a non-casual audience. While Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl - among others - meant Wii got off to a great start this year, the fact that Animal Crossing was considered to be Nintendo’s big Christmas game for the hardcore gamers (at least, according to Reggie Fils-Aime it was) arguably showed the company was starting to get a little out of touch with that fanbase which had kept the faith during the GameCube years.

Yet while the Wii undoubtedly has more than its fair share of shovelware and disappointing multiformat ports, it’s become all too easy for videogame commentators to dismiss the Wii’s software line-up without even pausing to consider some titles which should be exempt from criticism - or, preferably, highlighted as bright spots amid a sea of casual-pleasing nonsense. Major websites are starting to perpetuate the myth that Wii has little compelling to offer core gamers, seemingly happy to ignore some well-crafted titles from third-parties. To paraphrase Edge (in their case discussing the ill-advised contempt for the PS3 from some quarters) this then breeds idiotic comments from the gurning cretins which populate the grubbier recesses of the internet. It’s little wonder that publishers struggle to sell their titles when the gaming press is happy to lazily fall back on sweeping generalisations. Some of these games don’t have a chance because it’s all too easy to play follow-the-leader and join in with the braying consensus of the internet ignorants.

What’s more disturbing is that it’s not just the fratboy witticisms of large corporate websites or fanboyish utterings from biased fanzines. Even places like Eurogamer - a site I hold in high regard - are starting to slip into this lazy hazing of Wii games. While Ellie Gibson’s round-up of some of the casual titles available this festive season is undoubtedly amusing in places, it’s become all too commonplace for Eurogamer to review the tat on the console while ignoring some far superior titles. So Goldenballs gets a 1/10 review while I still await EG’s opinion on Art Style CUBELLO and ROTOHEX, not to mention MySims Kingdom, while Wii versions of multiformat titles either get very short shrift or aren’t mentioned at all - for example, Call of Duty: World at War, reportedly a really quite accomplished port. 

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’ve a lot of time for Chris Kohler, whose Game | Life blog for Wired.com I visit on a daily basis. Yet I was disappointed to read a post of his about Wii’s forthcoming schedule, where he ignores several potentially-interesting third-party titles to focus on the lack of fresh Wii content from Nintendo. Sure, there’s definitely a story in that, but it’s a shame that even quality journalists like Kohler fail to highlight the good stuff on its way in early 2009.

I don’t want people to turn into dribbling sycophants, happy to praise Nintendo even as it metaphorically kicks us in the teeth. I’m just calling for a little balance for a change. Wii might not be keeping everyone happy at the moment, but it’s hard to see things changing to any great degree if we all focus on the negatives and perpetuate this generalisation that there’s nothing to play. There are quality games out there - and it’s our responsibility as journalists to get the word out about them.

I like my cynicism with a side of occasional positivity is all. I don’t think that’s asking too much. 

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