WiiWare's First Anniversary

By: Pedro Hernandez, Staff Writer

It's only a year old and it's already fulfilling lots of its promises

It might be weird to celebrate an anniversary within an anniversary, but this event marked a special moment in the Wii's third year of existence. When Nintendo made the WiiWare service live, it did so with the hopes of players embracing downloadable content through this service. It also gave many young developers the opportunity to showcase their talents at an affordable price, as well as allow third parties to create low budget games with a lot of value and creativity put into them. In its first year, it was able to successfully accomplish both aims thanks to some incredible games coming from the unlikeliest of places.

The one jewel in WiiWare's crown is 2D Boy's World of Goo, a title that's been celebrated as both one of the best WiiWare titles and one of the best games of all time. What's even more impressive is that the game was done by only three guys. And yet, despite the limited staff it shines thanks to its silly, whimsical nature, and very polished gameplay. It's a game that accomplished WiiWare's goals in one swift move; showcase new talent and make people download the game in droves. A year later and it's still one of the best selling games on the service, giving it enough street cred for Nintendo to showcase it as one of the best titles.

WiiWare has also seen a lot of franchise revivals. More than a dozen franchises were revived as downloadable WiiWare titles. One of the biggest and most successful revivals was that of Mega Man 9. Not only was this one of the first Megaman games in years it was presented like an NES title, making it a delicious retro treat players just couldn't resist. Konami's Contra series also saw a revival in the form of Contra ReBirth, a game players welcomed with open arms. Hudson Soft brought back their old school star Master Higgins for a romp through WiiWare land with Adventure Island: The Beginning. The game wasn't as good as people expected it to be, but the intentions were welcomed. Taito didn't stay far behind and brought to WiiWare their classic Bubble Bobble franchise. Their first release was Bubble Bobble Plus, a remake of both the arcade and NES title. Then it was followed by Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure!, a game starring the colorful dinosaurs in their human forms. The trilogy was completed with Bust-A-Move Plus, the classic bubble busting puzzler that brings back the classic Bubble Bobble characters.

A nearly forgotten game genre was also revived thanks to WiiWare: the point and click adventure. TellTale Games, creators of the Sam and Max series, made history by bringing the first episodic game series to WiiWare and game consoles: Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. Based on the internet cartoon Homestar Runner, the series starred the most beloved character in the cartoon, Strong Bad, as he went through many misadventures, proving his unseen cool to the masses and bringing torture and mayhem to his friends and neighbors. TellTale Games followed this act with the newest release in a classic franchise: Tales of Monkey Island. Unlike Strong Bad, Tales of Monkey Island followed a new narrative with each release. The new games starred once again Guybrush Threepwood in a journey filled with piracy and amazing treasures.

WiiWare, however, has also been the home to some stunning original titles. Hudson Soft's Onslaught was a multiplayer focused first person shooter made exclusively for WiiWare. It even featured online play, which was a stunner. In contrast to the sci-fi elements of Onslaught, Hudson Soft released Water Warfare, a near parody of the first person shooter genre, featuring children fighting each other using water guns. The Nintendo published Bonsai Barber by Zoonami also raised some eyebrows thanks to its quirky premise. You play as a barber whose clients are cartoony vegetables. The goal is to give them five star haircuts. You can only cut the hair of five clients per day, meaning that when you were done, you were literally done. The replay value might have been limited, but the concept proved that anything is possible with a little creativity. Ronimo Games' Sword and Soldiers was a very colorful strategy game in which players re-lived some of the biggest events in Aztec, Viking and Chinese history.

Gaijin Games' BIT.TRIP series of games have also been impressing players around the globe with its retro inspired visuals, soundtrack, and level of challenge. BIT.TRIP CORE became famous for being the 100th game in the North American WiiWare service! Over the Top Games' NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits featured solid platforming in a beautiful looking package. When the WiiWare service launched in 2008, one of the first games that saw release was Frontier's LostWinds, a whimsical platformer that used the wind to control its charming. Thanks to the success of this title a sequel was quickly announced, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias. This game even became WiiWare's 100th game in Europe!

Then there are the odd ducks that have found surprise success on the service. Hudson Soft's My Aquarium, a virtual fish tank, has been a best seller since its release. XGen Studios' Defend Your Castle charmed a lot of players since its debut on WiiWare, thanks to its enjoyable gameplay and inspired visual presentation. Nintendo's My Pokemon Ranch, a Pokemon petting zoo simulator and storage bin, proved that no amount of hatred will stop the Pokemon hype train, with its refusal to leave the sale charts week after week.

And I haven't even begun talking about the upcoming releases! Team Meat's Super Meat Boy will be a bloody platforming game featuring lots of humor and challenging goodness. Nicalis' has two games for WiiWare: Cave Story, a remake of the famous computer game done by one guy, and Night, a Gothic but interesting title. Konami will bring some undead goodness to the service with Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth. Continuing with the theme of revivals, Hudson Soft will unleash Bonk: Brink of Extinction next year.

But despite its great intentions there are some issues that still haunt WiiWare. When the service debuted players were having severe issues with storage. The Wii's internal memory simply wasn't enough, forcing players to delete games in order to have enough space. This, however, was solved, thanks to a Wii System Menu update that allowed players to save their games directly onto an SD card. But with that issue gone another one was raised; getting players to download games. The market for WiiWare games is still small, despite its tremendous lineup of games. Nintendo even admitted this. Recently, they confirmed that they will be testing a demo program for WiiWare games, in hopes of convincing players to download games other than the ones they know about. If the test is successful, there could be WiiWare demos in the future.

As you can clearly see, there's a lot to talk about when it comes to WiiWare, and there's a very good chance I missed many games. Nintendo accomplished what it set out to do: create a service that would feature unique games from both independent developers and famous third party companies. And did it in less than a year. There's literally a game that suit your tastes on WiiWare, so start downloading!