It's a throwback triple bill for me, cleared out 3 Wii games over the past week in my quest to catch up on stuff I missed during the Wii generation.
1.
Need for Speed: Pro Street (2007)
Not gonna lie, this is a pretty boring game. They ditched the actual streetracing for semi-underground aesthethic; circuits are now closed off and only accessible for sideways baseball cap wearers. These idiots with tribal stickers on their cars compete in a seemingly endless string of samey races, all to be crowned King Douchebag.
It's a hacked-to-the-bone port of the PS3/360 version I think, there's empty grandstands everywhere, visuals are dull and a bit muddy. But for what it's worth, everything is functional. There's cutscenes with some very mild sexism, a super annoying announcer praising the living daylights out of your every move.
Steering works fine with the tilt controls; the drag races are, well, a real drag though. You gotta take the Wiimote out of the Wii Wheel, and use waggle to shift gears. Awful.
I couldn't stand this one anymore after a few cups, so I used a cheatcode to skip to the final one. That one looked equally drab and lifeless, so I retired this game for good. It's functional, sure, but just a messy project. It controls like an arcade racer, but you can total your car easily and then you need to spend hard-earned cash on repairs. That's not what I want from Need for Speed yo.
Two stars. Functional, but very lifeless.
2.
Kororinpa: Marble Mania (2006)
It's a marble rolling game. Guide a marble, or a round penguin/pig/cat/dog/the planet Saturn through an obstacle course, collect crystals along the way, and reach the exit. This one's a Hudson production, there's a sequel too!
This is a fun use of the Wiimote, basically what Super Monkey Ball on Wii should have been like. It has a cute aesthetic with vibrant colours and lil' animal sounds when you roll a cat around. Some 50 levels, which you can clear in about 2.5 hours max. There's mirror modes for all of them and another 15 or so bonus stages to get if you're diligent about getting all the special green gems.
For someone like me though, who only plays through games once most of the time, I just did the basic levels and was happy with that.
An annoying thing is that you wanna flip the Wiimote fast to see if you can launch yourself to the goal in time-saving Monkey Ball style, but the game often doesn't allow you to. You absolutely must get a bunch of the gems to finish a level, and it'll easily tell you you're out of bounds even when it's obvious you would land on a further piece of track.
Worlds are okay, 2 of them (toyland and candyland) have absolutely atrocious music, while the forest and 2 city worlds are pleasant and jazzy. It's good you can custom pick your soundtrack though, which includes stuff like a Latin version of the main theme and a Star Soldier remix?
Three stars, short but decent, and kinda cute.
3.
MadWorld (2009)
Famously hyped but a sales dissapointment for Sega. I think this is PlatinumGames' first solo outing right? This one's better than I thought, even if it does feel like a shallow version of Bayonetta. The art style shamelessly rips off the Sin City film adaptations, so it still looks pretty good nowadays. Music is decent too, lots of rap songs which feel appropriate.
The violence in this is ridiculous and after a while becomes oddly stale, but the plot is just interesting enough and the announcers juuuust amusing enough to not check out completely. Lots of bossfights in this which are the main highlights. Some annoying waggle though, who thought mapping the dodge to a nunchuck waggle was a good idea?!
Sometimes the game struggles to correctly interpret your flailings which really sucks during the power struggles/finishing moves in bossfights. High tension situations are the worst possible times for control issues, kinda annoying.
Honestly this one is most interesting as a precursor to Bayonetta. Over the top style, focus on scoring systems, weird motorcycle stages, funny credits, crazy bossfights - all of which are PlatinumGames hallmarks by now.
Three stars, a bit shallow but better than its juvenile style suggests.
Topic: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions? (Read 589170 times)
