Wii Christmas Roundup Comments by Ellie Gibson

cubello is good, as is rotohex, and hopefully orbient makes an appearance tomorrow alongside world of goo.
although i'm not holding my breath waiting for a review from this site, as mentioned EG prefer to do quick and easy roundups like this instead of providing an interesting review.

Rock Band 2's only just out in the US, mind. Indeed, I'm not even sure if it's available in most stores as yet - IGN will just have an early review copy.

But yeah, it seems a bit cheap to just post sneering LOL reviews at Wii shovelware (amusing though they often are if Ellie's written them) and then ignoring the decent stuff. Like someone else said, no MySims Kingdom review either.

And yep, Cubello's been out for weeks now. European Wiiers will probably get Orbient on Friday too, with any luck.

What happens if you're nine and a boy who simply collects ovaries? Does that still count?

Some laugh out loud moments in this lot. If you are daft enough to buy any of this tosh on any platform you have got what you deserve.

Haha I love the Wii roundups, hugely entertaining.

I'm really gutted to see that 1/10 for Golden Balls; I was hoping to buy it as a joke Christmas present for a friend, but was put off when I couldn't find the damn thing for less than twenty quid, which is just an unspeakably obscene amount for this game. Now I see that it would have been every bit as Christmas-ruiningly awful as I'd hoped it was going to be. :( Oh well, my friend will have to just be happy with the High School Musical 3 Mystery Date board game instead.

Dear, oh dear... so where are all the great (as opposed to merely OK to good) games for the Wii this Christmas? Did it even get any besides Animal Bloody Crossing?!?

I haven't switched my Wii on since July (it might even be Easter I forget) as I've had absolutely no reason to as there's no games on the system that interest me anymore and I'd rather play multiformat games on the 360, thanks.

I'm no Wii hater but I have to say that it is the most disappointing console I've ever owned and it really breaks my heart to admit that as a long-time fan of Nintendo's consoles and games. It had so much potential and was initially interesting and fun but Nintendo have totally failed to capitalise on it IMO and pretty much turned their backs on their core audience too. The Wii might be selling well and grannies and mums love it but that doesn't mean that it's good IMO as witnessed by the games charts each week.

Wait, there's a Deftones song in the new Boogie game?

They should just make the monopoly game like the one on the itbox then it might actually save me some money. It'd be worth buying a Wii for... maybe.

/agrees with Skillian. I read every review on this site, whether I own the console or not!

Can you put Avril Lavigne in a costume that enables you to see upskirt?

Wasn't it mountains of shit that helped Atari and the 2600 almost completely destroy the games industry in the 70's?

Don't get cocky Nintendo...

The anti-Wii sentiment on this site is so obvious it's funny.

Maybe they want to be a "niche" site, because the majority of the gaming public will be elsewhere pretty soon...

I dunno. I don't have any other consoles other than the Wii, and though I'm quite happy because I only buy the good stuff, it's clear that Nintendo need a kick up the arse for the state of the Wii catalogue. The market will only suffer so much tripe before it stops buying altogether, surely.

The market will only suffer so much tripe before it stops buying altogether, surely.

Indeed. That's why the PS2 and Megadrive failed.

Of course, if EG only reviews tripe for the Wii then that's the impression that will be made about the Wii.

@K-Project

The thing is, there's plenty of high-profile and interesting Wii stuff around - the frustrating thing is EG chooses not to review it in favour of the shit, just so they can flex their 'comedy writing' muscles and pander to the easy-to-please prejudices of the anti-Wii crowd.

I'm not saying the bigger titles might be any better, but I would like to hear EG's opinion on the matter.

Fair points from you both. As I say, I only play the Wii and am very satisfied with the games I play (stuff like Okami, RE4, MP3, Mario Galaxy, Bully, Excite Truck etc, etc), but it upsets me to see it cast aside as a joke. I still feel there is more crap on the Wii than ever appeared on the Megadrive or PS2, but maybe that's just a perception.

Hopefully next year will prove the doubters wrong.

**As you can see, the figures for Wii are nothing short of disturbing, indicating just how many terrible games get rushed senselessly onto the system. Or, to put it less politely, almost one in four Wii games in 2008 were utter, utter crap.

Taken from IGN yearly analysis.....

@JeroenZM

you're thinking of "BE QUIET and drive". now i need to listen to around the fur, haven't done so for ages, great album.

1 in 4 games for most systems are utte crap though. I'm surprsied the number is not higher.

Dear Ellie,

Thank you for the very funny reviews, but please - never ever - link to any "pedalpusher" type sites again.

Sincerely,

Cyber_Nicco

p.s. Please.

It quickly becomes apparent that virtual Chess is just as boring as real Chess. The fact there are a variety of different game boards doesn't help, as unlocking them involves playing Chess.

Have we learned anything?

Oh, and to Mogamer, when it comes to high profile games, some of the games here have very high profiles, but I imagine you're tying your thoughts to a particular context of 'high profile'?

Curse you EA, finally a chance to play with Kristi Yamaguchi and you mess up the visuals! DAMN you to hell!

Golden balls?!?

Oh f-ing dear...

which marketing genius thought THAT was good idea to turn into a game?

"The anti-Wii sentiment on this site is so obvious it's funny.

Maybe they want to be a "niche" site, because the majority of the gaming public will be elsewhere pretty soon... "


Its called appealing to your audience.. 99% of the posters on this site are people who enjoy slagging off the wii.. The other 1% visit to be shocked at people who are slagging off the wii.

And at the end of the day.. there arent really any major releases on the wii at the moment anyhuws...

BUT - There are just as much shovelware shitfests released on other machines.. but EG seems to steer clear of doing round ups on them.. I can go into my local game shop and see LOADS of shitty 360 games that i wouldnt even batter an eyelid at...

So it's kinda obvious there's nothing much decent being released this chrimble on the wii.. but to do roundups like this.. seems like its just trying to appeal to the fanboyz

It does seem pointless slating a game because it will only appeal to girls who are 9 years old. Perhaps the site shouldnt try to review those games, or get a family member to play it and tell them what they think. Seriously a 9 year old kid is not going to think the same of a game as a 20 or 30 something woman. Perhaps its because they dont have an real games to review and they are just filling space so they have something to post. Oh well.

So it's kinda obvious there's nothing much decent being released this chrimble on the wii.. but to do roundups like this.. seems like its just trying to appeal to the fanboyz

There are titles that could be interesting, and considering there are a number of fairly obvious titles that are being offered in bundles at the moment (such as MySims Kingdom and FIFA) it would be nice to know what they are like. Sure there are no killer apps, but there is certainly better stuff than the games being reviewed here, which will be of no interest to 99.999% of the visitors to this site as genuine potential purchases.

WiiWare seems to have been ignored by EG for some time now as well, which is a shame as apparently there are some very interesting titles that have appeared recently or that will be released soon.

@makeamazing: I was wondering that.

I feel sorry for game developers sometimes (used to be one).. I know a lot of them get bonuses based upon review scores. If you just so happen to be writing a game to appeal to 9 year old girls.. and you KNOW nine year old girls would give it a 8 or a 9 score.. it must be quite soul destroying to see a review say "i'd have liked it if i was 9.. but im not.. so it's a 6" (or whatever).

its no wonder so many developers only make "mature" games with blood/guts and guns in nowadays...

On the other hand.. these do tend to be a fun read...

If you want to appeal to your audience, wheres out fifa 09 wii review and Call of duty world at war wii review? Surely these games fit the audience of this site.

games look rubbish, will sell millions, bring on the shovelware!

Lots of quality gaming time to be had with the Wii this Christmas, you just have to look past the typical shovelware of a booming success of a platform. One would thing EG could do it...

Apart from the few cross-platform "mainstream" games already mentioned in this thread, why not show some love for the brilliant art-style wiiware releases? And where is the hype for this years indy GOTY, World of Goo?

Made my Friday working in Retail that much more bareable, thanks Ellie! Feel free to send all the terrible, terrible Wii mini-games to the Griffiths' household this Christmas, if so only we can give them to the less loved members of the household.

WiiWare seems to have been ignored by EG for some time now as well, which is a shame as apparently there are some very interesting titles that have appeared recently or that will be released soon.

I believe WiiWare round ups were dropped and in exchange more effort would be put into proper reviews. In the end we had five Reviews in November and one at the beginning December and this round up. The PS3 has had five reviews in November and a Singstar round up. As a comparison the 360 had 19 reviews in November and 6 so far this month.

The WiiWare round ups were quite good and were regularly linked to from The Inquirer so they did bring traffic to the site. I'm not sure why those were dropped and round ups of games like these carry on and reviews of big games still haven't shown up. I'm sure there's a reason for it, it's just nobody here in this comments thread can work out what it is...

maybe nobody sent Eg a copy of Tiger Woods for the Wii

EA were so ashamed of it they couldnt bear to show footage on the TV, instead showing the 360 version as the wii graphics were not fit to be broadcast !?

You mean decent games don't turn up to EG HQ but games like these do get sent in by publishers so they can be slated off?

I doubt it.

If EG had to cough up for the games then they could have bought 3 decent ones instead of 6 lemons.

If there were 3 decent games that they hadn't already reviewed.

I'm sure we'd see more serious Wii reviews if there were more serious games out there, but there isn't. I'll cite Boom Blox as an example of where this site picks out a good game from the growing pile of mediocrity that is the Wii software library. If the 360 gets more favourable reviews of it's games, it probably means the software on there is of a better quality - even if it happens to be mostly FPS'.

Having said that, I don't really mind. I have a still-wrapped copy of Okami to look forward too, plus quite a few stars to catch up on on Galaxy. Wii/360 works well for me.

Forgot to add - if the regular mocking of Wii titles does anything to encourage Nintendo to improve it's output, then it's a good thing.

BTW - The editor of this site has invited questions on the way the site site runs here, so I'd suggest that anyone who thinks they have a hardware bias should post a question there.

Bremenacht: You seem to have missed the games that were posted above in the thread that could have been reviewed but weren't.

Am I the only one who thought these reviews were a bit poor?

Oh wait, a girl wrote them? WOW AW3SOME REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111 Please have the s3x with me..!!

Dan234 - Those games don't seems to have been reviewed much anywhere. Maybe there's a code of conduct around reviewing such games e.g. "Here's £200 - review our game."

Have the Nintendo magazines reviewed them?

smelly: the other consoles (mostly ps2/psp/ds) have these roundups too actually. As you say the Wii has little to nothing else to offer, so these kind of roundups are probably included as a 'better than nothing' or maybe just what they get sent for review.

The thing is, occasionally on the other platforms a hidden gem is discovered.

The only thing more depressing than the amount of shite being peddled for the Wii is this confirmation that people will never stop complaining about content that costs them nothing and nobody's forcing them to read. If you've got proof that these games were reviewed using time and money officially set aside for High-Profile Game X, great; if not, please, spare us the tedious 'outrage'.

I pretended to read Nausea at university as well. Obviously this means I only enjoyed reading these reviews because Ellie is a girl and I'm desperate.

@Bremenacht: I don't have access do ONM and I'm not the right person for answering accusations of bribery.

@merkdot: That would imply there's nothing but unmitigated rubbish for the Wii, which is untrue. For a start there are the games mentioned above and secondly WiiWare. The complaint being made is that the games mentioned above aren't being reviewed and WiiWare roundups were dropped and if you only read the reviews EG puts out now then you will get the impression that there is only rubbish for the Wii.

Shovelware review roundup