Let’s assume you finally got your hands on a Wii. You probably noticed that the Wii came only with one controller- but there are four of you in the family. Prepare for another $120 (plus Tax) for Wii-motes and $60 (plus Tax) for Nunchuck’s –of course sold separately. Your Wii runs you about $400 total by now. Good thing it comes with a Game (Wii Sports) – cause every additional game will set you back another $50.
You can Rent games at places like Gamefly for about $15 a month or check your local Blockbuster, some offer game rentals - at least for now – rumors are that Blockbuster will no longer rent videogames in the future. However, more then likely your kid wants to buy and own a game. There are about 40 Titles available at the time of this writing with plenty more to be released in the coming month. In contrary to the Playstation 3 launch title line-up, you and your family actually have a lot of variety to choose from.
Kids will likely choose a game with a flashy picture on the cover. Be advised that the flashy pictures on the front and on the back have often not much to do with the actual gameplay. So how do you know what game is good and if it is appropriate for your kids? You can google it – chances are you will land on some CoreGamer Site like IGN, Gamespot, 1UP etc. All these are really good sites – but keep in mind that these guys review games for males 18-34. Not for mom with kids 3 to 11. We are in the process to close this gap by building a videogame review site for parents. There are some in existence already but none of these are written by real gamers or offer videos with gameplay footage.
Enough self-promotion, let’s get back to the best Wii Games. Here are our Top Picks. For the whole Family we enjoyed Wario Ware, Elebits and Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz.
Excite Truck is great for little boys, stay clear of 4×4 World Circuit or Need for Speed Carbon. If your kids are older (11+) Zelda is great game, it requires a lot of reading. We highly recommend to buy a third party strategy guide ($20) for Zelda - suddenly your kids even read books!!! Think about it from this perspective.
If you watch House, ER, Greys Anatomy or any other hospital show, then you should buy Trauma Center for yourself. If your kids don’t have enough of sports games with Wii Sports, then consider Madden Football, however this game is not very easy and requires some football knowledge to play.
Stay away from all First Person Shooter Games (FPS) like Call of Duty, Red Steel or Far Cry; not only are these games not suited for kids under (at least) 12, but they also feature terrible graphics and sluggish gameplay. Most other Wii games we played fall under the “average” to “waste of money” categorie. In our opinion $50 is way to much for a couple hours of mediocre entertainment. Sponge Bob Creature from the Krusty Krab, Rampage Total Destruction and Happy Feet are prime examples of games your kids probably want -but are unfortunately pretty lame.
Trackback: http://thomasandcola.com/blog/2007/01/21/what-wii-game-to-buy-for-the-kids/
on June 1st, 2007 at 9:51 am
Great blog you have going here… I just stumbled across it today and read the above and wanted to chime in as a tried and true Gamefly subscriber… believer… town crier. We’ve been using them since Christmas and the addition of the Wii to our family. You hit the nail on the head insofar as money is concerned. With games running nearly $60/ea. the rental route is the only way to go, particularly given what you wind up spending just to get your console set up. Also of note is that Gamefly has a parental control feature so if you don’t want your kids getting their hands on the “M” rated stuff you don’t have to worry about it. All in all a great service and a great selection of games for the Wii… and your pocketbook.