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Wii Roundup Review
Wii Review by Ellie Gibson
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Hello, readers. Welcome to the latest in our series of Wii Roundups, or as I'm campaigning to have them rebranded, Why Roundups. As in, why did anyone make these games, why would anyone buy them and why do they always land on my desk? The pile is now so big my desk resembles a stall at a jumble sale. If I half-close my eyes I can believe I am in a church hall, surrounded by clothes that smell of sick and dead people's jigsaws.
Or sometimes I pretend I am a princess locked in a dungeon by a mad wizard, forced to chew nugget after nugget of dragon excrement until I crack a tooth on a single tiny diamond. I suspect my imprisonment will last for centuries.
So what's in store this month? There's a contemporary Sonic the Hedgehog game which is as good as most other contemporary Sonic the Hedgehog games, a pisspoor bowling "sim" and some rubbishy old Star Trek tat. Plus two Japanese fighting games I barely understand and care even less about. Let's go!
AMF Bowling Pinbusters
Ah yes, because the Wii could do with another bowling game. It's not as if a perfectly adequate one comes bundled in the box with the console. And it's not as if the other bowling game already released for Wii wasn't spectacular fun to play and well worth the money. OH WAIT.
Don't you step on my poorly rendered shoes.
At least this one has AMF stamped on the box - you know, as in AMF Lewisham, South-East London's premiere bowling venue. I have been to AMF Lewisham many times. As a general rule, the lanes are populated by knife-wielding children and mad people who shout at everything and attempt to pleasure themselves with bowling balls or pins, depending on gender.
Never have I seen the lanes of AMF Lewisham occupied by cowgirls, Elvis impersonators, "surfer dudes" or drill sergeants. Yet these are some of the characters you can choose from in AMF Bowling Pinbusters. You can't just play as your Mii of course, that would be ridiculous. There's also a Latino whore and a gangster rapper, which is a bit more like it, but the realism ends there as the rapper says things like "Mmm, I'm just doing my thang" rather than "Why even lie I know you've got a pay-as-you-go voucher in your bag give it."
Having selected your character it's time to get to grips with the control system, which isn't hard as it's exactly the same as that in Wii Sports bowling. The ball physics, however, are much worse. The sound effects are hilarious. "Effects" is a bit generous, in fact; "A single and endlessly repeated recording of a man throwing a marble into a sink" would be more accurate. The characters' endlessly repeated exclamations ("Whooooo!" "Duuuuuude!") will make you want to take the batteries out of the Wii remote and stab them in your ears until things pop.
There are two mini-games. Pool Bowl is like normal bowling except you must hit an eight-ball positioned in front of the pins to knock them down. Obstacles is like normal bowling except you must avoid a cardboard box with AMF written on it. Neither of these mini-games are worth playing ever.
The tournament mode is utterly rubbish. Up to four players can take part but tournaments require a minimum of eight competitors, so the numbers are made up by AI characters. This means you have to stand around watching each other play against NPCs while waiting for your go. The quick play mode doesn't suffer from this problem, but who cares.
AMF Bowling Pinbusters is like Wii Sports bowling only several thousand times less good. The game mechanics are awful and the presentation is a disgrace. And with a price tag of GBP 19.99, it costs GBP 19.99 more than Wii Sports bowling. Which also comes with free golf, tennis, baseball and boxing games. Next?
2/10
Are you excited about AMF Bowling: Pinbusters! on Wii?
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Poor Ellie. At the least you can look forward to the next roundup in the comfort of knowing that at least someone finds these articles entertaining enough to justify the existence of the games therein. Sadly for you though this will probably last for as long as the Wii is around. Good show nonetheless.
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Godlikegenius
17/04/08 @ 13:22
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Why bother reviewing this tat at all?
Is the return worth the pain that poor woman has had to endure. Focus on the good stuff eurogamer. Don't need five pages dedicated to this. Four pars would have been enough |
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FabricatedLunatic
17/04/08 @ 13:48
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Guilty Gear certainly isn't "tat" and, though I don't like to criticize, deserved a better review than that.
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all popular consoles are, as you put it, "a dumping ground for sh*t".
the 360 and PS3 don't suffer from this so much because they require far more time and resources to make a game, but IMO that's not necessarily a good thing - granted you don't get so much shovelware, but it also means it's harder for small developers to try something creative (and therefore risky) |
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Muddtallica
17/04/08 @ 13:50
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Cyhwux: I'm sure that they are quite fun to review once you get to the actual writing part of it, but you have to bear in mind that that part is preceded by a "Having to Spend Hours Playing amf Bowling Pinbusters" Phase. Which, judging from the tone of this write-up, I'm going to assume is rather less enjoyable.
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Domstercool
17/04/08 @ 13:58
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Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is actually a really fun game. I've never played a DBZ game before and I pick it up because I saw it around for cheapo. I enjoyed it's crazy over the top arcade fun and now I'm actually watching DBZ, a show I never had interest in before. O_O I guess the game did it's thing with me.
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thedaveeyres
17/04/08 @ 14:08
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The reviews are better than the games.
Give this woman some proper games to play, STAT! |
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Godlikegenius
17/04/08 @ 14:13
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@peterfll
Speaks volumes in that they don't get as many releases as the Wii? Are too expensive to develop for etc? |
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1. I like it when Ellie reviews these sub-par games. She keeps me laughing. Keep it coming!
2. Guilty Gear isnt one of those sub-par games, and deserved a designated review. 6/10 is to be expected if she only played single-player modes - but that's really, truly, not where the fun is.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 17/04/08 @ 15:24
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Der_tolle_Emil
17/04/08 @ 14:32
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I couldn't care less about those games except Guilty Gear and this review doesn't do the series justice - I haven't played the Wii version yet (I will get it though) and no doubt will the game be unplayable without a classic/cube controller but it's getting stamped off rather quickly in this review. Especially because - with the exception of the standard controls - there is nothing wrong with the Wii version. The animation is as it has always been and it looks just like it does on every other machine it has been released on.
Of course that doesn't mean that you have to like it but the review does give the impression of it being another hacked together beat 'em up when in reality there is a reason why the Guilty Gear series is alive in the 2d beat 'em up genre next to Street Fighter and King of Fighters - because it does have great gameplay and a certain art style. Again, it's not something you have to like, but the review doesn't even explain the gameplay of GG at all and makes it sound like yet another cheap cash in attempt in Wii game form, complaining mostly about a spelling error on the back (unprofessional no doubt) and funny names for special moves (like Spinning Bird Kick is that much more poetic). As much as I enjoy reading Ellie's reviews and her humor, this review is blog quality at best. |
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nickthegun
17/04/08 @ 14:35
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Yahtzee was right. Hating games is a lot funnier than liking them.
I LOLD at Steve Peadophile.. |
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I don't ever remember the GameCube getting so much dross as the Wii seems to. Hmmm... :/
I must admit that beyond a few third-party releases like Resident Evil 4 and Zack & Wiki, the only games that interest me for the Wii are Nintendo's own games which is exactly why I bought the machine in the first place. Just about everything else seems poor in comparison and the console does seem to get an awful lot of substandard tat, far more than the Xbox 360 or PS3 for example. Is there no quality control at Nintendo? Surely Nintendo are the ones who approve these games for release on their console? |
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it hardly hurt the ps2 did it? i mean how hard can it possibly be to just ignore the bad games and pick up the good stuff (of which there is plenty). as has been pointed out countless times before, every successful console gets the most crap as well. i cannot remember whether the bulk of ps2 shovelware was reviewed or not however.
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SlackMaster
17/04/08 @ 14:56
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There is so much dross coming out on the wii... it's a shame as I could probably count on my hands the number of worthwile games to get on it.
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"O come on Guilty Gear has always been 'meh' at best. It's never been the pinacle of 2D fighting games not by a long way."
Nah. It's a masterpiece if you take 2D fighters seriously. Plus, it IS the pinnacle of 2D fighters if your in on the arcade scene. There simply is no competition right now (save for perhaps Melty Blood). |
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what the hell are you all jumping on my back for????
lets be real here, the Wii's game library is fucking dross, pure and simple too many lazy developers see a game and make a ham fisted attempted to put the wii mote in. have you see some of the scores on the wii, they're awful, simply fucking shite. Now, i;m not saying theres no bad games on the ps3 and xbox 360, but jesus, she just mass reviewed 4 or 5 games and the highest score was what, 6? Christ, i didnt think the fanboism meant you were blind |
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Pac-man ate my wife
17/04/08 @ 15:29
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You have to be a complete moron to judge a system by the crap games on it and ignoring the gems. It's like going into a library and declaring that all literature is shit because they got Barbara Cartland and Jeremy Clarkson books.
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@ pacman ate my wife
firstly, if the that library ONLY had clarkson books, and didn't have any literature, then yea, i could say that library is shite.Quite easily. More to the point, the ratio of shit games to good games doesn't seem as healthy on the wii as it does on other systems if you took the wiimote away from the wii, what do you have? A cheap console with games library that is a shadow of former glories. Quite frankly, the wii's entire success depends on a single gimmick, a gimmick that seems to be forced, welcome or not, into any game that a developer can imagine know, review scores are subjective, but this link does put the wii under some uncomfortable light http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option... |
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Pac-man ate my wife
17/04/08 @ 15:47
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Your link is pointless fanboy fodder (EDIT: And I'd warrent the PS2 would be on a par with the Wii).
It doesn't matter if the Wii has 6 or 6000 shite titles what's important is that it's home to Super Mario Galaxy, Zack & Wiki, PES 2008 and No More Heroes to name just four recent titles that any person calling themselves gamer should be itching to try out.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 17/04/08 @ 16:48
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anomagnus
what exactly are you trying to do? are you trying to convince somebody that their collection of Wii games is no good simply because they can see past the crap and pick out the gems and you can't? Like it or not the Wii has loads of good and great games already, and they aren't going to suddenly vanish cos some publishers decide to throw out any crap they can. i repeat a point i made earlier, the most popular console always attracts the most shovelware, its nothing new. or were the nes, snes, ps1 and ps2 suffering because of it? |
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Der_tolle_Emil
17/04/08 @ 15:56
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@anomagus:
if you took the wiimote away from the wii, what do you have? A cheap console with games library that is a shadow of former glories. Quite frankly, the wii's entire success depends on a single gimmick, a gimmick that seems to be forced, welcome or not, into any game that a developer can imagine What point is that? If I took away Live! from the 360 all I have left is a console with short SP experiences? Since when do we compare parts of a complete package? A Ferrari without wheels is just as useless as a broken down VW Bus. So what? The Wii's success doesn't just depend on a single gimmick. It depends just as much on the Nintendo franchises. And to call the Wiimote controls forced in every game is unfair even if you are right. It wasn't a very wise decision in my opinion to not include a cube or classic controller with the Wii because if it was the Wii controls wouldn't feel forced but more like an (useless) option. That would be marginally better. However I am glad that companies nevertheless release games like Guilty Gear that simply don't work with Wiimote controls. It's a risky move because it basically requires that players buy an extra controller before they can enjoy the game. This however is Nintendo's fault and not the developer's fault so it's unfair to critize Guilty Gear for this. In fact I'm glad that I can finally play Guilty Gear on a home console that I actually own myself - it's not like the Wiimote controls would bother me, it's not like I have to use them. |
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@ krelle, i didnt think my post sounded that angry
as for the other points, my very first point was that the wii has an excessive quantity of shit forced on it. It has a few good titles, but, come on, ellie just reviewed five games, and the highest score was 6. When the Wii hits a high point, fair enough, it does it, but it also seems to hit the lows VERY easy and VERY often. @ Der_tolle_Emil See, you've already tied the Wii in to the emote, that its the be all and end all of the system. Thats why theres so many shit games on the wii, because developers see a wii and all they see is the remote. If you took Live away from the games, you'd have what i have. A system that houses some excellent single player games. I dont even use live, except to talk to my friends for free in Oz. The wii depends on its control method to an unhealthy extreme, and most developers use it as a way to disguise lazy development, or old ideas. Christ, the wii mote should be re molded into an actual shovel at this stage If Sony or MS had developed the wii mote first, how wel do you think the wii would be doing? |
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Pac-man ate my wife
17/04/08 @ 16:10
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You still haven't said why it matters if a console has loads of crap on it. The SNES and PS2 both had loads of crap both both were very popular and had many classics.
As for your "If Sony or MS had developed the wii mote first, how wel do you think the wii would be doing?" statement it's a pointless, empty statement. You might as well say "What if Nintendo had given a million pounds to each customer?" as it's equally hypothetical and nonsensical. Neither Sony nor MS developed the Wiimote, so therefore it's a moot point. Metacritic has 20 titles that score over 80% for the Wii. That might not be as many as the PS3 or 360 but it's still a substantial number, many of which are exclusive to the platform. In my mind that justifies purchasing the console especially as it's pretty cheap.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 17/04/08 @ 17:15
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right pacman, will this make you feel better
if it had been ANY system getting this amount of dross, i'd actually have said the same thing. but, as you've just pointed out, thats an empty statement as its both hypothetical and nonsensical. Look, i used to be Nintendo's biggest fan boy, but that ended with the snes. I bought the N64. TOTAL waste of money, apart from Golden eye and Turok 2, bought a game cube and dont even want to discuss it. And now here comes the wii. its release schedule is BLEAK. Its quality control, terrible. Its over dependence on one gimmick dire. I'm just gonna put my money where my mouth is, if it had been ANY other company than nintendo, that threw out so much shit, it would be derided. But all is forgiven because of Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros, and Zelda. Theres nothing else coming, there never is. Theres always a few good first party titles, and thats it. Now, things could have been different, who knows? Maybe in another dimension, the wii is the dogs bollocks, but right here, right now, the system suffers because of its wii mote, because developers are blinded to it, and force the mechanic, where it does not belong i should also point out that i know quite a few non gamers that bought a wii, played it until the novelty wore off, and threw it in the corner. Most game developers think they're going to get mum and dad pulling off 30 move combos with the wii, cause its easy to pick up. sorry, doesn't work like that. Firstly, the wii mote only belongs in certain games, secondly, if a game is shit, its shit, and swinging your arms around wont change that at all
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 17/04/08 @ 17:20
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>lets be real here, the Wii's game library is fucking dross, pure and simple
Whichever format is most popular will always get the most shit. Look at ps2 and ps1 before it. And to claim that the ps3 hasn't had it's share of shit is pushing it a bit.. http://www.eurogamer.net/archive.php?typ... Not exactly rolling in "MUST HAVES" is it? And it's funny you mention review scores as the wii has the best scoring game on all of the 3 systems (mario galaxy) To suggest that the wii has a lot of shit games - i'd agree with. To suggest that the wii doesnt have any great games worth buying - you're talking nonsense. |
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Pac-man ate my wife
17/04/08 @ 16:26
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Hey, I'm not here to convert you, I just wanted to know why you are judging a system on it's bad titles when you should be judging it on the great ones of which the Will has it's fair share.
Cut off your nose to spite your face, miss out on some of the best games of this gen and continue ranting away with ill-informed and down-right wrong-headed notions, I'm off home to have fun playing games! ;) |
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@ i dont have a ps3
it has dross to, just not as much, and i havent seen anything that would make me splash out on it @ pac man its not the shit games that are putting me off, i just COULD not play another Zelda or Mario game, i just can't do those games anymore thats my choice, but i'm not blinded by the remote. |
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