Nintendo Wii.
1. Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars
The platformer is a sadly dieing breed. Where it used to be a staple of the industry in the late 90's it is now almost a once in a console life cycle occurance. Gamecock and Red Fly Studios aims to change that by giving Wii owners a unique and satisfying platform game this fall with Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars. While Nintendo continues to drift further and further away from the audience that made them a success, third parties are taking up the helm and delivering core gamer experiences while Nintendo busies themselves with grandpa and soccer moms.
Mushroom Men features a intriguing plotline of a meteor crashing on earth and making the resident plant life sentient. Much like our own species, being sentient has brought about war between the species and its up to the games hero to stay alive and turn the tides in The Spore Wars. The game features a combination weapon system where you take the collected junk you find and turn it into a weapon, such as razor blade tied onto a lit match with a rubber band. The game also employees a moody and twisted game world complimented by its own bizarre humor. The current game lineup for the Wii this fall is looking pretty slim, but Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars looks to be a bright light in the murky sea of shovelware.
2. Mega Man 9
Instead of trying to pile on yet another gimmick to one of gamings longest running franchises, Capcom has decided to strip Mega Man back down to his core and return to what made the character so great to begin with. There are no fancy effects, no detailed backgrounds, even many of the characters moves from later games are gone. This is pure, stiff, unable to aim Mega Man from the 80's.
While the attitude of most companies is to make every new iteration of a series a little bit easier with a pie in the sky mentality of getting every family member into being a new fan, Mega Man 9 ditches those ideals and not only is the game harder then recent entries, its as hard as the very first game! This is not only a game for diehard Mega Man fans, but anyone who grew up with Nintendo in the late 80's and gamers who simply love a challenge. Mega Man 9 will be available on Wii Ware for 1,000 Wii points sometime this fall.
3. Samba De Amigo
Rising like phoenix from the ashes of the Dreamcast, Samba De Amigo returns to the console that almost seems like it was built for it, The Nintendo Wii. Strangely enough, the new Samba De Amigo is not created internally in Japan by Sonic Team, but by Gearbox, more commonly known for its FPS games. Luckily that has made no difference on the quality of the title, as Samba De Amigo plays almost as well as its predecessors did with maracas and a mat. Instead of holding the remote high or low like the maracas, Samba De Amigo on Wii simply requires the player to point them forward, pointed up, or pointed down. It takes a few seconds to get used to since you naturally want to raise or lower your hands, but it works well.
Gearbox has also wisely decided to take advantage of dual remote play. First demonstrated in the very first Wii video released by Nintendo, Dual remote has never materialized until now. Samba De Amigo offers the perfect opportunity to start, while it does work with nunchuck as well, The feeling and accuracy gained from two remotes far outshines the alternative method. Gearbox has also included a ton of new modes, as well as new songs and possibly other DLC. Thats right, just like Guitar Hero World Tour, Samba De Amigo will have DLC on the Wii. The game also features a ton of extra modes as well as wisely featuring many of the classic games original tracks. Forget Mario Party 8 and Carnival Games, this is the real deal for a party game on the Wii.
