Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Infendo has taken a snarky poke at the bevy of Marble Madness-y labyrinthine games gearing up for appearances on the Wii, and frankly, we too are surprised at the sheer number of such titles. Super Monkey Ball (obviously) already featured ball-rolling as one of the better parts of an uneven offering, and now three more upcoming games are centered around labyrinth puzzles.

You know, we love rolling balls as much as the next guy, and certainly the gametype suits the console on many levels; the controller and the games-for-everyone theme are both well-supported here. But four games in the first year seems a little excessive. The Wiimote is also really well-suited to pointing and shooting, but we don't need four simple shooting gallery games, either. Sure, each game has different features. In Dewy's Adventure, the "marble" can go vaporous or crystallize into ice. Awesome. Except at the end of the day, it's still all about rolling around from here to there. This is really a pretty simple theme, and there are only so many variations on it. How many labyrinth games are we really going to buy? Does anyone expect to own all of these?

Many of you are just getting your hands on a Wii (at last!) and others are just settling in for more in depth play on your games, so we figured it was a good time to ask: what have you played? What have you skipped? Which games have you liked most so far?

This particular blogger has only been a little disappointed with Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, due to the controls. Everything else has been pretty engaging. Twilight Princess, Wii Sports, and Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam (skateboarding games are a longtime habit a girl just can't shake) have gotten the most play on this Wii, though we're always happy to throw down on a variety of other games. More recently, it's been extensive sessions of Wario Ware: Smooth Moves. But hey, we figure everyone's got different tastes ... so how about you? Don't be shy -- tell us what you've liked so far!

The first Super Monkey Ball featured six mini-games in addition to the main game; the second upped the ante with twelve. These little diversions are what make SMB such a wonderful party game, and as such, Sega has decided to throw somewhere around fifty into the upcoming launch title Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz.

Our dear friends at IGN apparently had the moxie to convince Sega to give them an early run-through...of every single one. That's right; over the next fifty days or so, IGN will unveil a video and hands-on impressions of one of the mini-games found within. The first game covered was Ring Toss, which seems enjoyable enough. Check it out daily for more!

Seriously. Fifty.

Scott Steinberg, VP of Sega's marketing division, recently spoke to GameDaily about the next generation of consoles. There was a good amount of Wii-speak, including a reaffirmation of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz at launch and a tentative release date of March for Sonic Wildfire. From the interview:

"There's a bit of a design, creative learning curve on how to fully exploit the nunchuks and Sega is already thinking about its second generation software. So if they're not already here, they probably weren't on board at the beginning and the companies are going to have a harder time thinking about ways to innovate and Sega's already thinking second generation."

Sega's quite a supporter of the Wii, but Scott does comment that he hasn't seen a metric ton of Wii games in development from third parties, contrary to the raving Nintendo fanboys. Hopefully, games like Banana Blitz and Wildfire can create a large enough install base to make those third-party games worthwhile for developers. More delicious interview in the link.