Wii Sports - Nintendo Selects Wii

Wii Sports - Nintendo Selects Product Details

Released on 18/05/2011

• Noobs of the World

  
  

  Ah, noobs. So full of hope and ambition, and usually very quickly pwned at the hands of a more seasoned player. Games wouldn't be the same without them, and we must all remember that we were all noobs once. So, once again a gentle prodding was done around the office, as members of the digital team drudge up memories of their own noobish moments...

  

  Carl - Design Doodler

  As a lot of people did, I got Battlefield 3 the day it came out and I was really excited about the jets and couldn't wait to fly around and blow some noobs up.

  However, after missed chance after missed chance and finally getting into one I made the mistake of hitting the throttle before I had learnt any of the controls. I managed to take off and do a perfect loop-the-loop. The only problem being that I looped straight into the ground, leaving my fellow players laughing and me a bit embarrassed...

  Tom - All About The Assets

  The great example of my own noobishness was in Battlefield 3. I was having trouble getting to grips with the jet controls, so I changed them up and found them much easier to use. Unfortunately whilst showcasing my new airborne skills I banked sharply and flew straight into a tall tower...

  

  The noobishness of another player springs to mind when playing a frantic multiplayer session of Transformers: War for Cybertron. A rather mouthy teenager came online on the opposing team as an Autobot, stating he was going to "own all n00bs and turn them into scrap". Upon entering the match as Megatron he declared "I AM THE MIGHTY MEGATRON, ALL SHALL FA--", his speech ending as I shot him point blank in the face.

  In the next match it was a team switch with him now choosing Autobots and me Decepticons. He chose Optimus Prime and once the match started and he'd killed one member of my team he declared "One Shall Stand--"; I again cut him down mid-quote by shooting him again, point blank. I then finished the quote "One shall fall"

  

  Robyn - In-your-face Interfacer

  When I first joined the Online Team a few years ago, I was introduced to the merits of the Xbox 360 controller. Which, I discovered harshly, handles nothing like the Wii-mote which I was most used to, or any PS2 game I ever recalled playing. Anyway, after giving the team a dose of motion sickness, I gave up on Dead to Rights: Retribution after "Look up at the ceiling - ooh no - down at the floor - ooohh no back up at the ceiling... waahh, into a wall... oh no back at the floor. And I'm facing a wall again."

  

  I was rubbish. 

  I probably still am.

  
  

  Damien - Good Word-Writing Man

  Wii Sports. First time using the Wii controller I did so a bit more... enthusiastically than my brothers. So there's me, running halfway round the room and working up a sweat in tennis, and then pulling my bicep muscle on baseball, while my brother looks at me like a complete idiot as he gently twists and turns the controller for way better scores. Still, exercise is exercise...

  

  Ali - Queen of the Internet

  I heard that Legend of Zelda: Occarina of Time (LOZOOT) was one of the best games ever so when it came out on 3DS I rushed to buy it. Little did I know that it was so metaphorically complex.

  I needed to wake up some bloke who was in my way while trying to sneak into the castle. After hitting him with my sword, jumping on him and shouting into the mic nothing worked. The next day I was moaning at work about it and was informed that I needed a chicken. Brilliant.

  I went home and travelled in search of the chicken. On my adventures I found a village full of chickens. Even better there was a distressed NPC saying she needed help capturing the chickens and promising a reward for my help. Perfect - clearly all I had to do way round up the chickens and she would give me one of my own. Nope, not in Zelda land. All I received was some kind of token and her gratitude. Rubbish. Turns out I needed to go back to the castle, chat up some girl so she gives me an egg, wait till dawn, let it grow and introduce myself to the man I had previously been beating. I clearly need to do more crossword puzzles.

  So, does this bring back memories for you? Do you recall your own truly noobish moments? Why not add your confestion using the comments field below - we're all friends here!

• Get off the couch - GAME looks at fitness games

  
  

  

  Asthmatic Athletics

  The popular image of video games is that of a pastime requiring no more physical effort than a sofa slouch and nimble thumbs - along with a carb-heavy diet of pizza and sugary soda. The fast-track to a slow death from obesity, in other words.

  Fitness games fly in the face of that assumption, but they're not the recent invention many think they are. Even as far back as 1982, companies like Atari were looking at ways of connecting exercise bikes to a virtual reality under the codename Project Puffer. In 1986, Bandai released a control mat for the Nintendo Entertainment System which came with Family Fun Fitness, a suite of exercise games. Nintendo was so impressed, it bought the product and repackaged it as the more exciting sounding Power Pad.

  This, of course, led to games like Konami's seminal Dance Dance Revolution, which ushered in the age of the dance-mat as a legitimate and popular game controller. 2005 brought EyeToy: Kinetic to the market - the first modern motion tracking exercise game - while 2006 saw the short-lived and rather naffly titled Gamercize system wire actual exercise equipment up to games consoles.

  

  The Rise of the Wii

  It was the Wii that really pulled all these ideas together to create the fitness game genre though. Indeed, it almost had to be Nintendo who would finally crack the nut and make gaming and exercise feel like natural bedfellows. The Wii was a friendly machine, and with titles like Wii Sports it had already made jumping around part of the gameplay experience. Here was a console where the all important mums and dads might buy into the idea of gaming to get healthy.

  With Wii Fit's balance board Nintendo finally had the peripheral to make it work, while the software cannily combined solid fitness goals with more accessible video game mechanics. Motivation is the key to any exercise regime, and video games are nothing if not efficient effort-to-reward systems. What better approach than to tap into our natural desire to beat our last score, to reach the next level, and to be congratulated for doing well?

  In the years following Wii Fit's 2007 release, the floodgates opened. Celebrity endorsed fitness packages aped Wii Fit's style, but without adding much to the genre. It was only when SONY and Microsoft got involved, with Move and Kinect, that there was enough competition to drive the development of even more advanced fitness games.

  

  Which brings us to today, and the chart-topping success of Zumba Fitness. Based on the popular fitness franchise, it ditches the squats and thrusts in favour of more fun dance-based exercise. With its Latin rhythms and have-a-go simplicity, it's no surprise that it's selling so well - this is a fitness game disguised as a dancing game, which is then dressed up as a bloody good laugh. Perfect for people who might otherwise feel intimidated by the genre.

  EA Sports Active 2 goes in the complete opposite direction, with its wireless heart-rate monitor and resistance band accessory. This is the game for serious fitness nuts who really want to push themselves further with each new workout, with loads of stats and options to tweak your experience for maximum calorie-crushing impact.

  Similar in style, but slightly less ferocious in approach, is Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. This also concentrates on scalable aerobic workouts with an emphasis on personalised training routines and lots of encouragement to keep the pace up. For players who have taken Wii Fit as far as they can, both titles represent the obvious next step.

  

  Workouts Are For Wimps

  But what if this is all still a little too much like leotards and headbands? What if you're worried that doing star jumps in front of your console won't impress your hard mates? Well, that's why there's UFC Trainer. This manly fitness game for manly men offers much the same workout results as other fitness titles - but in a style that makes you feel like you could kick a man's head through a wall. Heavy on the cardio and sparring, it offers an experience as tough as its name suggests. Unless you actually do fight in the UFC, we suggest you don't go steaming in, ready to show off with the hardest settings.

  It's doubtful that motion control is going anywhere soon, what with Wii U around the corner and the next Xbox likely to incorporate Kinect, so it seems that far from being a passing fad the fitness game is here to stay. Maybe the stereotype of the lardy wheezing gamer is finally coming to an end. Pass the leg-warmers.

  Published: 10/08/2012

• Time magazine picks the 100 best games ever

  Respected American journal, Time, has ventured into digital waters to list what it considers to be the top hundred video games ever made. The result is a suitably eclectic mix, presented in chronological order stretching from the 1970s all the way up to the 2010s.

  All the retro arcade classics you'd expect are in there - Space Invaders, Frogger, Pac-Man and more - while Nintendo's core franchises dominate the 1980s as consoles made their way into US homes. Mario and Zelda are among the only games to appear in more than one guise. The original Super Mario Bros and Mario 64 both make the grade, as does the original Metroid and its 2002 first-person sequel Metroid Prime.

  Resident Evil and Tomb Raider join the list in the 1990s, and are still going strong today. Resident Evil 6 launched recently, while Lara Croft is being relaunched in 2013.

  More recognisable names also pop up as the list draws closer to 2012. Bioshock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Guitar Hero, Wii Sports, Portal, Gears of War and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion are all held up as examples of classic modern gaming.

  Just two games from the last few years have been deemed worthy of a place. Mass Effect 3 and Batman: Arkham City are the lucky pair. Notable by their absence are current big hitters such as Assassin's Creed, Borderlands and Uncharted.

  Is Time placing too much importance on the past? Would you pick any of these for your top 100?

  Published: 16/11/2012

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