Five games that should have been on the Wii
Once again, many games just don’t get the attention they deserve. Although these games may not have suffered completely from poor sales, I believe they could have received more love if they were only released on a different console.
Flow
If you have played the Flash version of the Flow, you’ll know where I’m coming from. This game screams Wii controller. You can also add newer features to the game by adding extra motion gestures. Additionally, you could elaborate and create a four person multi-player feature.
Viva Piñata
Isn’t it obvious? The majority of the XBox community shunned this poor title based on it’s bright colors and happy-go-lucky feel. The idea of Viva Pinata is to raise and attract many new pinatas in your garden. You spend time feeding them, breeding them and watching them fight. Sound familiar? Putting this game on a Nintendo system would have been a natural choice if it weren’t for the disputes between Rare and Nintendo. There are already millions of people familiar with this kind of game, who just “gotta catch ‘em all!” Lastly, Nintendo fans aren’t afraid of bright colors, rainbows, and fluffy things that just don’t make any sense whatsoever.
Scene it? Lights, Camera, Action
Hmm, it’s a party game that wants you to use peripherals to buzz in. This sounds like a job for the Wii controller. There would be no need to charge extra money for peripherals that maybe only one or two games may use. One nice thing about the Wii controller is it can be many things; a buzzer, a sword, a tennis racket, etc. Additionally, the Wii audience tends to love the idea of party games.
Command and Conquer 3
Using a standard controller to navigate through a Real Time Strategy (RTS) like Command and Conquer has never been satisfying. Although Keyboard and mouse still dominate this genre, the Wii controller could be the closest we will ever get to reproducing that experience. The Wii pointers can act as mouse leaving all other buttons for other commands. The biggest problem with a standard controller is that the acceleration of the cursor has to be set statically unlike a mouse or a Wii controller. In other words, just like a mouse, using the the Wii controller, you can’t slow down or speed up the cursor based on how fast you move your wrist. A standard controller cannot do this. For this same reason, this is why First Person Shooters such as Metroid Prime, and Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 play so smoothly and can easily be picked up by newbies to the genre. Unfortunately, we have yet to see any developer bring an RTS to the Wii. Maybe it will take Nintendo to take the first step and release Pokemon the RTS (…ooh the potential I can see in that).
Lost Via Domus
I know they went out of their way to make this game extra pretty by upping the graphics. But did that really attract as many buyers as the publisher may have wished? Using a controller in a puzzle game like this could have been remarkable and no doubt perked the ears of many Wii fans dying to find new ways to waggle the Wiimote. You could manipulate the environment not only solve puzzles but also incorporate the Wii controller motion to mimic objects in the game.
These games are not bad where they are at. However, I must say they could have received a little more love on the Wii. Be sure to check back to see five games that should have been on the XBox 360.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: Nintendo, Rant or Rave
May 7th, 2008 at 10:48 am
First, flOw.
Absolutely not. flOw suffered with a mouse as its main control mechanism. You could not make subtle movements with the mouse in order to deal with the quick moving objects on the screen. The wiimote would be as bad if not worse.
Second, Viva Pinata was released on 11/9/2006. The Wii was only released for sale on 11/19/2006. And Viva Pinata is as much about HD as it is anything else. The character model designs would have been no where near as detailed at half the resolution. The basic things that make Viva Pinata something other then just another animal raising game are tied to its graphical presentation.
Also, Rare doesn’t have any dispute with Nintendo. Microsoft OWNS Rare. So anything and everything they produce will be on the X360. I am sure they are quite happy with the Viva Pinata IP, as it has spawned a second game and is its own TV show as well. RAREly (sorry for the pun) does a video game IP have that happen to it.
Scene It should have been a multi-platform launch, I don’t know what they were thinking to develop it in any other way. There is nothing to its presentation that ties it to a higher resolution. It could have been an xbox live game, but instead they made it a full $60 release. That made no sense. And the game isn’t very good anyway.
C&C3, is full-on rediculous to imagine on the wii. Even with a mouse-like device, which I think the Wii fails to be, you need a LOT of buttons to control a real-time strategy game. The Wiimote lacks buttons. While pointing the pointer a paltry two buttons are accessable, add in the nunchuck and you’ve got a whole four buttons.
C&C3 got by on the X360 by using all eight buttons, and even then that was weak.
Lost: Via Domus, I think you are just grasping for a fifth game. Did you play this game? Motion control is not a panacea. In most cases I have only seen it be a poison. I consider Lost: Via Domus to be a great, albeit short, game. Adding motion control gimmicks to it would not have made it better.
Any Wii fan desperate to waggle their Wii would be better served renting all the wii waggling trash games that are already available and realizing that the wii is way over-hyped. Motion control doesn’t make a bad game good. Nor would it make a good game, like Lost:via Domus, any better.