Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Is Mercury Meltdown Revolution a part of your Wii collection? If not, it absolutely should be, for Ignition's addictive puzzler must be one of the most criminally overlooked gems on the platform. And now Costco has it for $10.99, along with a bunch of other titles that range from pretty damn good to shovelware (oh, hai Pool Party). Angelina Jolie favorite Ghost Squad is also on sale, giving you a chance to knock terrorists from their speeding, swan-shaped jet skis, and save money in the process. If a better offer has come along this century, we've yet to see it.

Below are the six titles that most stood out to us (the full list is past the jump); we expect at least two of these to be in your house by June 22nd, when the sale ends:

• Ghost Squad
• Sonic and the Secret Rings
• Sega Bass Fishing
• Mercury Meltdown: Revolution
• Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
• SSX Blur

In an interview with Ubisoft UK's Managing Director, Rob Cooper, GamesIndustry unveiled some insight regarding Ubisoft's policy on Wii-exclusive titles. Many gamers have complained about the piles of shovelware and lousy ports while Wii Play and other mini-game compilations continue to dominate sales charts worldwide.

His line of thinking makes sense. While it may be easy to port the latest rubbish from other consoles, Wii gamers are clearly buying original titles by the bucketload. Cooper explains that exclusive titles for the Wii will always get that extra bit of attention, and since gamers are already rocking out with casual party games, they will be looking for bigger games you can't find anywhere else. Okay, Ubisoft still likes to throw a few random games out there, but based on Cooper's interview, from a business perspective they know what will end up being the most popular.

Need some examples? The Raving Rabbids series, No More Heroes and yes, even Red Steel are some of the successful names in Ubisoft's portfolio. As gamers, we already know the Wii is something different entirely, and it's good to see some positive reinforcement from the powerful players in the industry. For further Ubisoft shenanigans, check out the full interview.

It was only a few months ago that Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot was promising us all "Nintendo-like quality" games. Since then, the company has announced Raving Rabbids TV Party, Babies Party, Shaun White Snowboarding, and much, much less. It's a line-up that has generated only ripples of laughter on the internetz, rather than tremors of fear in Kyoto.

The snickering is not limited to NeoGAF. Ubisoft's own forums have come under attack from those who are disillusioned by the company's planned Wii output, so much so that UK Forum Manager "Raide" recently had to ride to Ubi's defense. The gist of his argument seems to be: because the best-selling games on the Wii aren't necessarily the best games, it's actually okay for Ubisoft to release stuff that, well, doesn't have "Nintendo-like quality."

"If you look at the most successful Wii games, they are not amazing new AAA games, they are predominantly family-orientated games/alternative games," explained Raide, adding that Ubisoft is pursuing the casual dollar because "parents who are buying a console for their children do not really care about Prince of Persia, Rainbow Six or Far Cry on the box."

On one level, Raide's logic is fairly sound; after all, games targeted at the casual sector do sell well (particularly in the UK and Europe), and it's understandable that Ubisoft has shareholders to keep happy. But promising higher quality Wii games and singularly failing to deliver on that pledge? That's just weak. Hit the "Source" link below for Raide's full defense.



[Via Kotaku]

One of the biggest criticisms routinely thrown at the Wii is related to the amount of shovelware that has popped up on the system, yet not everybody is convinced that the likes of Pool Party and Rig Racer 2 are a force for evil. Chatting to Next-Gen.biz about his company's forthcoming Major League Eating: The Game, Mastiff chief Bill Swartz seemed to defend the wealth of filler software that appears on Nintendo's machine, arguing that a wider range of games will ultimately yield more gems, and that consumers are perfectly capable of making their own choice.

For what it's worth, we agree that bigger libraries generally produce a greater number of top-drawer titles -- the PlayStation 2 is a fine example of this trend -- but we're not so sure about the second part. Are consumers really educated enough about games to make a good choice? Game Party's continued success in the UK suggests not.

Based on data pulled from GameRankings, folks over at GameFunk have prepared the nice little chart above. Apparently, Wii games don't get that great of marks from reviewers. Compared to the marks of games on other consoles, it makes the Wii's library look even worse!

Here's the numbers:

• Xbox 360: 374 games: 26% good, 24% bad
• PS3: 122 games: 33% good, 17% bad
• Wii: 189 games: 11% good, 37% bad

But, before you punch your computer monitor in a fit of rage, know this: the Wii does have a lot of shovelware. It's just the price of success, as publishers and developers see the console as a means to make money. And that's what they're in it for.

Also, keep in mind that the PS3 and Xbox 360 don't have Metroid Prime 3: Corruption or No More Heroes. So they pretty much lose.

[Via Joystiq]

You may or may not know that Nintendo no longer subjects games to the company's Seal of Quality. Do you think that this is a good or bad thing?

Would you rather the Seal of Quality be enforced, in order to prevent some of the shovelware that we've seen flood the Wii? Or, do you think it wouldn't make much of a difference? After all, even with Nintendo's seal, there were more than enough bad games in existence.

So, which is it: Seal, or no seal?

Chris Kohler has taken a somewhat surprising stance on an issue that Wii enthusiasts have to face daily: shovelware. Most people online seem to be of the opinion that Wii shovelware will cause the Wii to fail, the game industry to crash, and life on Earth to end (when aliens discover our copies of Chicken Shoot and declare us unfit stewards of our planet), but Kohler sees Wii shovelware as not just not terrible, but maybe even good.

Supporting his argument is one of his best examples of shovelware gone right: D3 Publisher's Simple series. D3 admits in the very packaging that their games are cheap, with the implication that you shouldn't expect much. People buy them expecting flawed experiences, and can then ignore the technical issues. Simple games allow games by new developers with small budgets to share shelf space with AAA games. And if people don't want that, they know not to pick up the game.

People can spot a crap game, Kohler says, and know to avoid it. Nobody's going to be fooled into thinking a Data Design Interactive game is high-quality. Kohler likens it to knockoff He-Man toys or bargain-bin DVDs in Walgreens: people can tell the difference, and these things don't deter sales of real products at all. What they offer is a cheap, occasionally novel choice, and more choice is always better. If a "shovelware" game is at least a little bit fun, then it's good that it exists.

The final point he makes, which is something we hadn't considered: allowing garbage on the system is a message that Nintendo isn't so closely restricting content for the Wii. This could translate into AO-rated games in the future, or (we think) wildly experimental games.

Checking this week's releases, the titles on that list have become quite the story. The whole debate over shovelware on the Wii and its possible benefit or harm to the console is one that is likely to not resolve in quite some time. So, we wonder about how we'll game through the time times up until we get No More Heroes and, after, a crack at paradise.

How will you get through? Get a new title over the holidays you have yet to finish?

Shovelware: it's been an issue since the Wii took off. Some people are concerned, some don't care, and some think that any attention on the console is good attention, but today? We're not interested in where you stand on that, or on the origins thereof; we talked about that yesterday, after all. Oh, we care, but we have some other things we want to know today. What we want to know is: how many people do you know who buy things you might consider shovelware, and why? Is it the box that lures them in? The sound of a game? Is it that they don't ever read reviews?

Wii owners certainly can't complain about the number of third-party games available for the console. As MTV's Stephen Totilo puts it, where there was once a game drought for Nintendo systems (specifically in the N64 and GameCube eras), there's now a flood.

What Wii owners can complain about, however, is that a lot of these Wii games are nothing but shovelware. But, how do these games end up on the popular console? And, is it even ultimately a bad thing that they do?

Here's a rumor that's easy to believe: Gamefly has a listing for an upcoming game called Carnival Games from budget publisher Global Star Software (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Scaler).

Carnival Games sounds like a collection of uncomplicated midway-style attractions like ring toss and a shooting gallery; in other words, more minigames. It's a pretty safe assumption, we think, that something called Carnival Games won't turn out to be an RPG or a fighting game, right?

We don't necessarily blame Global Star for (allegedly) taking the easy way out, because they do budget games, but we feel like we should deliver the following message to publishers: stop making minigames. At least put a year-long moratorium on them. Let's try to diversify the Wii library a little.