Top 10: Wii Games made for Gamers

The Wii gets a hard time for appealing to a new breed of gamers. For many people Nintendo’s desire to appeal to this new ‘casual’ market has resulted in a console devoid of proper games – the kind of games Nintendo made during the ’90s. In order to ease the pain felt by many disgruntled long-time Nintendo fans, we’ve put together the Top 10: Wii Games made for Gamers. It’s a list full of quality, with the majority only being available on Nintendo’s latest console. Time to dust off those Wii Remotes and go hardcore.

10. Battalion Wars 2

Kuju’s second game in the series builds successfully on the GameCube original. With some of the most impressive visuals seen on the Wii, intuitive controls, large-scale battles and an awful lot of action, there’s really nothing else on the console that compares. A relatively disappointing two-player mode and an ability to employ brute force over tactics prevent BWII from being a classic, but it’s a game that every gamer should consider picking up for their Wii.

9. No More Heroes

Probably the most adult game on the Wii, No More Heroes is a hardcore gamer’s wet dream. Criminally the excessive blood seen in Japanese and US versions has been removed from the European version, but the swearing, sexual references and continual nods to hardcore and retro gaming remain. It blows hot and cold, with excellent hack and slash style combat juxtaposed with boring open world sections, but No More Heroes is still the Wii game that all the cool kids should own.

8. PES 2008: Pro Evolution Soccer

Football is a game for everyone, but PES 2008 on the Wii isn’t. Despite Ian Wright and Michael Owen’s couch antics on TV, the controls are massively complicated at first, requiring a degree of hand eye coordination usually reserved for hardcore Japanese shmups. It gets easier as you start to familiarise yourself with pulling and dragging players with the Wii Remote, and creating runs for everyone on the pitch, but at the end of the day, this is more RTS than traditional virtual football. It’s still great, mind.

7. Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure

The point and click adventure game is one sadly out of time with today’s gaming landscape, but that hasn’t stopped Capcom from taking a punt on the genre with this excellent nod to yesteryear. Featuring barmy Japanese sounds and characters, Zack & Wiki’s got some wonderfully memorable point and click puzzles that will tax anyone who busted open Monkey Island and Sam & Max back in the day. Get if you used to have an Amiga 1200. Get if you didn’t.

6. Resident Evil 4

Capcom had Resident Evil 4 fans pretty riled ahead of its release. The Japanese developer/publisher had changed the gameplay so dramatically that many feared it just wouldn’t feel like Resident Evil. Thankfully, the game turned out to be a modern classic, brilliantly taking the series into the modern era – which in truth is what the rather dated gameplay mechanics needed. No serious gamer should pass up Resident Evil 4, and this Wii version’s smooth Wii Remote aiming makes it the one to own.

5. Geometry Wars: Galaxies

Although perfectly accessible to new or casual gamers, the core high-score based gameplay in Geometry Wars is like sweet nectar for gamers. Plug in a classic controller and you’ve got the best and most feature rich version of Geometry Wars money can buy. With full online leaderboards for every level, a single-player campaign of sorts and multiplayer support, no other game on Wii comes close to delivering such focussed bursts of adrenaline fuelled gameplay.

4. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

While Twilight Princess didn’t mark the return to the series’ N64 greatness we had hoped for, it did provide a classic Zelda experience which fans of the series thoroughly enjoyed. Darker in tone than previous iterations, an older Link battled creepy monsters in light and dark worlds with the help of a mysterious demonic sidekick. Oh yeah, and he could turn into a wolf. Twilight Princess is a Zelda game born and bred to please Link’s fans.

3. Super Paper Mario

Nintendo is often accused of abandoning its hardcore fans, but Super Paper Mario is a perfect example of why that isn’t the case. Following on from brilliant Nintendo 64 and GameCube entries in the series, Super Paper Mario blends RPG and platfomer gameplay, mixes in some brilliantly funny and clever dialogue, and adds a wonderful 2D/3D morphing gameplay mechanic. When a game makes a joke about people posting on video game chat forums, you know it’s targeted towards hardcore gamers.

2. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

For a long time, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was seen as ‘the’ game that would show doubters just what the Wii Remote was capable of when it came to traditional first-person shooters. The believers weren’t wrong either, with the game still standing tall as the best example of Wii Remote controls done well. With far improved production values over previous games in the series, Corruption is a game no true gamer should ignore. We were just hoping that more Wii games would follow suit with their controls.

1. Super Mario Galaxy

If there’s ever been a game perfectly designed for gamers, Nintendo gamers in particular, it’s Super Mario Galaxy. The platforming genre was responsible for getting many of us into games in the first place, and it seems that Nintendo is the only developer willing to invest time and money into keeping the genre alive. Super Mario Galaxy takes what gamers loved about Super Mario 64, adds some ingenious level design, seamlessly integrates Wii Remote control and wraps the whole thing up in visuals totally unrivalled on the Wii.

What games do you play on your Wii? Let us know in the comments below.