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Wii Christmas Roundup Review
Wii Review by Ellie Gibson
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So here it is, merry Christmas, everybody's having fun. Except me, because I've been given yet another pile of pisspoor old tat for the Wii to plough through. Thanks, Santa, try not to catch your beard on the barbed wire I left up the chimney.
To be fair, not all of them are completely terrible. Monopoly looks nice, though obviously it is quite boring. Boogie Superstar will make your dreams come true, assuming you are nine and have ovaries. Celebrity Sports Showdown will also make your dreams come true, assuming you dream about playing badminton with Keith Urban.
But what's this? Why, it's a rotten videogame tie-in for a rubbish daytime TV show that looks like it took all of 20 minutes and two pounds to develop. And look here! It's a collection of board game conversions that's ultimately so pointless it's driven me to the point of existential crisis. Ho ho ho!
Celebrity Sports Showdown
A Wii roundup just wouldn't be a Wii roundup without a mediocre mini-game compilation to go through. This month's comes from EA and is titled Celebrity Sports Showdown.
"Celebrity" is a bit strong, especially if you're not American. Paul Pierce, anyone? How about Kristi Yamaguchi? Do we have any Mia Hamm fans out there? (Basketball player, ice skater and female "soccer" player, if you really care). Mediocrity Sports Showdown would be entirely more apt. The better-known characters include Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtado, Leann Rimes and Fergie. I could not give a toss about any of these people or anything they have ever done.
Look, everyone! It's Keith Urban, surrounded by mountains of snow! He just loves that powder!
There are 12 mini-games to choose from and they're pretty varied. Highlights include Inner Tubing, where you steer your character on a rubber ring by holding the remote sideways. There are points to collect, ramps to jump off and mines to avoid. The steering is slightly over-sensitive, but that adds to the sense of knockabout fun.
Air Racers uses a similar mechanic but you're piloting planes through twisty canyons, flying through rings to get boosts and pick up weapons. Again, it's simple but enjoyable. Hurdle Derby is a rip-off of the cow racing game which is the best thing in Wii Play. Joust Battle is a rip-off of the Duel event in Gladiators, where your Wii remote becomes a virtual pugil stick. Rapid-fire Archery pretends to be about accuracy but is really about speed, and is therefore more entertaining than most Wii games which revolve around shooting things. Slalom Showdown is a basic but fun skiing game.
Beach Volleyball, Wild-Water Canoeing, Smash Badminton and Arena Dodgeball are self-explanatory. None of them is anything special, but all are competent. Curling is the lowlight of the compilation. It goes on for far too long, and is based around curling.
There are no real duds, and EA has grasped the fundamentals of making a decent mini-game compilation. None of the games require a nunchuk to play, or must be unlocked in single-player before you can access them. Gameplay instructions are clear and concise. There's a good range of options for competing individually and in teams, and for customising your own tournaments.
In addition, the controls for each game are cleverly designed to provide two levels of gameplay. Novice gamers who just want to wave a remote about and only worry about one button can do so. Those who want more of a challenge can use the extra controls to do stuff like slamming opponents off the track, building up the boost meter and use power-ups.
It's just a shame the presentation is so rubbish. The characters are horrible to look at and the environments are ugly. At least the games are quite good fun, in a limited sort of way, and the selection isn't bad. If you've exhausted Wii Sports and Wii Play and have a strange affection for mini-game compilations, in the same way that some people get sexual gratification from watching people drive cars, you could do worse.
6/10
Are you excited about Golden Balls on Wii?
View Eurogamer readers most anticipated games
Related Games
Monopoly
Hasbro Family Game Night
Boogie Superstar
Celebrity Sports Showdown
Golden Balls
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Bless, looking forward to all the Wii hate comments even though you could easily find a random selection of bad games for the PS3 or 360 released over Christmas and do comedy reviews for them. Guessing it's easier than actually reviewing a game properly.
Reviews of actual games we might be interested in would help, for example my parents were buying the fantastic HMV bundle last week and asked me if they should choose Tiger Woods, FIFA or MySims Kingdom...it made me realise that EG has never reviewed FIFA on the Wii, which is a bit odd when we get reviews of Golden Balls etc. |
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BartonFink
18/12/08 @ 08:37
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You guys at EG are so cruel to Ellie. What did she do to deserved such cruel punishment. Reviewing Wii games ffs it must have been something very bad to deserve this treatment.
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BartonFink
18/12/08 @ 08:42
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Still I guess this is the sort of shit the majority of Wii owners want.
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So there still hasn't been time for a Star Wars: The Force Unleashed review, but there is for this? I suppose if I had to choose it be difficult, based on the fact these round-ups are awesome, but I'd endd up choosing SW:TFU since I'm still waiting on it to see if it's worth buying.
That Golden Balls being 2 player only is the worst thing ever. Well, not as bad as that Ninja Turtles game that was also 2 player, but pretty bad and hyper lazy. |
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BartonFink
18/12/08 @ 08:59
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Great review of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Wii
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 18/12/08 @ 09:04
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BartonFink
18/12/08 @ 09:04
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Maybe the majority of games released on Wii just don't warrant full reviews.
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Doctor_What
18/12/08 @ 09:08
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I can feel Ellie's will to live dripping away with each word she typed. Someone give her the number for the Samaritans, please!
I know it's a cliche, but 99% of Wii games really do suck, don't they? |
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Bremenacht
18/12/08 @ 09:11
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I could not give a toss about any of these people or anything they have ever done.
:D |
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Bremenacht
18/12/08 @ 09:15
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I want to be an air hostess.
:D I look forward to seeing the Nintendo UK person (if they still exist) in an EG interview early next year!
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 18/12/08 @ 09:16
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Eighthours
18/12/08 @ 09:18
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It's that one with the clawhand! Run, little Irish chimney sweep!
Brilliant. :) |
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MoGamer2006
18/12/08 @ 09:23
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What is the point of these review 'round-ups'? Would anyone coming to this site be thinking of buying *any* of these games?
It's like those dreary Xbox 360 vs PS3 face-offs, which seem to serve no real purpose other than to stir up hits and fan boy bitching. As others have said, I'd be far more interested in seeing reviews of Wii versions of the big hitters - for example, if the controls are good I'd be far more interested in buying CoD for the Wii over the Xbox version. So, instead of some actually useful info, all we've got another excuse for the witterati to roll out the usual "Wii is shit/wagglelol/I'm selling mine/it's covered in dust". *sigh* |
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"it made me realise that EG has never reviewed FIFA on the Wii, which is a bit odd when we get reviews of Golden Balls etc."
Agreed. Also, if you'd have loved Boogie Superstar age nine, and the game seems to be made for people aged nine, what on earth are you doing giving the game a 5? :) "What is the point of these review 'round-ups'? Would anyone coming to this site be thinking of buying *any* of these games?" I am considering any game. How could you possibly know anything about their quality if no-one went out and actually tried them out? I'd have thought Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam was absolute drivel if I hadn't given it a chance, and look how that turned out, flawed but fantastic fun. I say "yay" to EG for doing those games, but "nay" for making them into some kind of comic relief.
Edited 4 times,
most recently on 18/12/08 @ 09:37
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MoGamer2006
18/12/08 @ 09:35
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@oerhort
So, you're a big Goldenballs fan, right? ;) I see your point and I'm all for 'unexpected gems' being brought to a wider audience's attention, I just think there's more pertinent stuff out there that EG could be spending their time on. |
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Pac-man ate my wife
18/12/08 @ 09:42
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So, from these comments alone, it's clear that EG hasn't bothered to review the Wii versions of CoD, FIFA, Star Wars TFU or even Wii exclusives like MySims Kingdom. Frankly a review of just one of those would be preferable to this kind of boring round-up of shite games funny though Ellie is.
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most recently on 18/12/08 @ 09:43
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@BartonFink
it's because Ellie writes excellent funny reviews for bad games. She does it so well in fact that sometimes she writes a funny review for a bad game even when she gets a good game (see TR:U for instance). So you see, it's not so much that Ellie deserves awful wii games as it is that awful games deserve Ellie. Still, I agree it is cruel ;) |
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Even Eurogamers 'shovelware' choice is poor. I have yet to see a review of "Order Up" which was getting surprisingly decent reviews elsewhere. Maybe the publishers simply don't send the games?
On a brighter note...World of Goo is released on Wiiware tomorrow in Europe...I hope we can expect a Eurogamer review of the Wii version in a timely fashion...considering it'll likely be the Wii's highest reated game this Christmas. |
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What is the point of these review 'round-ups'? Would anyone coming to this site be thinking of buying *any* of these games?
Actually, I was considering buying Monopoly. I'm actually a fan of the board game, and the videogame isn't actually much more expensive than buying a copy of the board game nowadays. Plus you get the other boards and stuff. Sad to hear its a bit pap, but then, i wasn't expecting miracles from it.... |
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neonemesis
18/12/08 @ 10:00
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Maybe the majority of games released on Wii just don't warrant full reviews.
Well, I'd have to agree when it comes to the sort of games featured in these round-ups. Everything else aside, I think I'd find it hard to write a proper full length review of these things. Anyway, these round-ups are hilarious and rightly so; I mean, who takes these kind of games seriously anyway?
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most recently on 18/12/08 @ 10:10
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What is the point of these review 'round-ups'? Would anyone coming to this site be thinking of buying *any* of these games?
For me at least, I don't just read Eurogamer as some sort of "buying guide". I read it for entertainment. I don't even own a Wii, yet I read this roundup because I saw Ellie's name attached to the review and figured I might enjoy reading it regardless. I was right. I'm sure I'm not the only one who reads Eurogamer like that. |
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kinky_mong
18/12/08 @ 10:41
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For me at least, I don't just read Eurogamer as some sort of "buying guide". I read it for entertainment.
Exactly the same for me. |
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yes, let's give crap games 10/10 because 9 year olds, who after all are the focus of this site might like them
I'd prefer if the site tried to be as general and broad as possible in its view on what interactive electronic entertainment should be. Your comment reeks of elitism to me. I think the scoring system should take into account to whom some product tries to appeal. Most of those games directed towards the mainstream Wii buyer are easy to criticize without bringing some misjudged "hardcore gamer" mentality into it. I couldn't care less what the average Fallout 3 fan thinks of Boogie Superstar.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 18/12/08 @ 10:59
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