Another year has come and gone and now its our favorite time of the year: top 10 lists!

As nintendo added to their online shopping experience with WiiWare, new Wii games availible for download in exchange for the same points used for Virual Console Games and Wii Channels, there have been many not so great games and amazing titles that make it difficult to believe that the game you are playing was a download. Behold the top 10 of 2008.

10.  Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King

Genre: RPG     

1500 points

Square Enix

Square Enix just never seems to fail. Final Fantasy Crystal Chroicals : My Life as a King (yes, that is a mouthful) provides us with the other side of the Crystal Chronicals series, the life back at home  and as king of course! Beautiful graphics, addicting though sometimes repetitive gameplay and a content that will keep you coming back for a while earns this game a spot on the list.

9. Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People — Episode 4: Dangeresque 3

Genre: Action 

1000 points

Telltale Games

This game is highly entertaining and funny, if thats not enough for you to download this game then let me add that it looks great and theres more in the series to choose from. These montly installments on the Strong Bad series do many things right but the most important is that the keep getting better!

8. Art Style : Rotohex

Genre: Puzzle

600 points

Nintendo

Wiiware provides a big number of puzzlers to choose from, and not all are worth using your points for but this GBA to Wii game is. Its straight from nintendo so you can expect high quality work! The goal is simple,just rotate your triangles to form a hexagon of the same color, unlock modes and progress on the solo mode

7. Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People — Episode 5: 8-Bit Is Enough

Genre: Action 

1000 points

Telltale Games

The fifth installment in the Strong Bad series and like i said, they get better!

6. Toki Tori

Genre: Adventure 

1000 points

Two Tribes

This Game Boy Color game has found new life and glory on the Wii. Classic puzzling platform play is implemented well on wii controls, the music if fun, the visuals bright and the game entertaining.  Dont miss out on this game.

5. Art Style : Orbient

Genre: Action

600 points

Nintendo

Another one of Nintendo’s ports from the GBA succeeds on the wii. The simple attract/repel (only two buttons used!)  gameplay is mesmorizing and will keep you playing for hours.

4. Lost Winds

Genre: Adventure 

1000 points

Frontier Developments

An amazing WiiWare Launch Game! The game is obviously about wind which you control with your wii remote. Helping Toku save the day is worth more than the points the game costs.

3. Tetris Party

Genre: Puzzle  

1200 points

Tetris Online inc./Hudson Soft.

Tetris will probably never get old. You just cant go wrong with going old-school and dowloading this title for your Wii. Classic Tetris gameplay is always fun and new game modes keep things fresh. Great package overall and very reccomended

2. Megaman 9

Genre: Action 

1000 points

Capcom

Old designs seem to fill up this top 10 list and Megaman 9 is no different. Classic Megaman gameplay does the job well. Challenging levels will keep you coming back as you try and better your scores and if that isnt enough for you downloadable content will extend your play on the game.

1. World of Goo

Genre: Puzzle 

1500 points

2D Boy

Wow… That pretty much sums up this game. You just cannot top this. Use goo balls to build structures play with psysics and lead other balls to the exit. The concept of the game is very simple but the way it is executed is just amazing. It is definately hard to believe that this is a wiiware game, lets cross our fingers and hope that many out there learn from this and provide us with games that not only match this quality game but also exceed it.

Publisher: Shin’en Multimedia

Genre: Sports

Wii Points: 900

Rating : Not Recomended

Play minigolf with your friends in beautiful environments. Choose a character and turn your Wii Remote controller into a golf club. With its easy-to-use controls, all you need to do is aim, swing, and see who’s the best putter. Play 27 holes spread across America, Asia, and Europe. Enjoy exotic locations all over the world. Go for gold in single-player mode, or invite your friends. Fun! Fun! Minigolf supports up to four players. You can use one to four Wii Remote controllers. Fun! Fun! Minigolf is the ultimate party game for everyone.

Ok i bought the Nintendo wii for three main reasons

1. My family to spend more quality time together.

2. I love Boxing Games.

3. I thought the golf games would help me improve my slice ( and it has! ).

when I saw Fun! Fun! Mini Golf had came out I got excited! so excited I  ran out to wal-mart  the day after Christmas ( which was a big no no )  Just to get a wii points card.   After dealing with the mad shopping crowd.  I downloaded the game and went  looking for the option to set my golfer to left handed, but there isn’t any options.  So sorry lefties Fun! Fun! Mini Golf is for right handed players only!

But I thought “what the heck, I can putt right handed” .  So me and my wife started up a two player game and whent at it.  I must say the controls suck, they suck so bad my wife found her self playing better swinging the wiimote like a ping pong paddle.  Another issue is that if you dont get the ball with-in a certain distance from the hole, they consider it “Out of bounds” and starts you back at the tee, which gets very annoying.   I whent ahead and gave my kids a chance at the game figuring “well the kids will like it they like every game” WRONG! Let me tell you my kids will play any game they can get their hands on, and play it till I force them to shut it off.  Not with Fun! Fun! Mini Golf after about three minutes they put the wiimotes down and actuly walked away.  Man that is the first time I have ever seen them do that! This is one game I wish I could get my 900 wii points back from.  I will say one positive thing to the creators of  Fun! Fun! Mini Golf  “Thank you for getting my kids off the wii, so i can play a real Fun! Fun! golf game” .

Publisher: Reflexive Entertainment

Genre: Puzzle

Wii Points: 700

Rating : Recommended

Embark on a tropical adventure with the explosively charged Big Kahuna Party! Looking to make the ultimate party game, we started with a concept that’s accessible to the whole family—the popular match-three game. On top of that, we crafted a unique multiplayer experience in which you can choose to work together to complete the challenging levels before the timer runs out or go head-to-head and compete in a frenzy of fun. To top it off, we added 99 uniquely free-flowing levels, the challenging Tiki Pole, 20 hidden tropical sea creatures to unlock, the strategic Fish Net, and last but not least, BOMBS! The result is a family party game like no other. Easy to pick up but impossible to put down. Play alone or with friends, and unleash the Tiki spirit within!

This game is really fun! me and my family have been playing this for the last two nights none stop I do highly recommend this game, especially if your into puzzles.

Publisher: Square Enix

Genre: Shooter

Wii Points: 500

Rating: Recommended

Everyone remembers Space Invaders.  Ever since it’s release in 1978, Space Invaders has been successful in every way it possibly could be, from causing coin shortages in Japan to becoming the first thing that came to the average person’s mind when they thought of video games.  Even in the more recent 1990s era arcade glory days of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, more often than not there was probably a Space Invaders machine in there as well.  Well now instead of fighting the space invaders, you are them in Space Invaders Get Even.

The storyline of the game is simple enough.  Invade the humans and their land.  When the game starts, it explains the background story of how one ship was able to defeat all those aliens by itself, which I thought was a nice way to connect the old game to this one.  It’s not that the story is all that deep, but the way the game presents it in the introduction really makes it sound serious.  The introduction makes you feel like you really were a hero when you put in that quarter to play Space Invaders back in the day.

The controls aren’t too hard to figure out.  You lead your band of space invaders by using the analog stick on the nunchuck.  To aim where you want to attack, just point the Wiimote to what you want to destroy or kill.  Button A is used for all the different types of attacks.  The most basic one is where the aliens are thrown Read the rest of this entry »

Publisher: Big Blue Bubble

Genre: Sports

Wii Points: 500

Rating: Not Recommended

This might be one of the worst games ever made.  Big Blue Bubble may have started out not horribly with their simulation release of Home Sweet Home, but they have clearly hurt their name by releasing the extremely shallow Hockey Allstar Shootout.  This is really the type of game that hurts not only those who made it, but the Wii brand itself, further divulging the Wii into the stereotype that nothing but shovelware comes out for this console.

There are three modes to choose from, Head to Head, Sharp Shooter, and Power Shot.  Head to Head is basically you against the goalie.  To shoot the puck, you hold the trigger on the Wiimote and swing your arm.  This might be amusing the first 2 or 3 times you try it.  But after a while, one starts to wonder why there isn’t more to this game.  I mean, that’s it.  There are five shots before the round is over and the mode starts from the beginning.

Okay now let’s move on to Sharp Shooter.  There are bulls eye targets on the corners of the net and the goal is to hit each of them.  Again, this might be fun the first time you try it.  But the controls here are so inconsistent that it becomes nearly impossible to figure out how to really have a chance at the target being aimed at.  I must have aimed high above the net a million times only to see the puck scampering along the floor leaving me in puzzlement as to why the result ended up like that.  Even if I had figured out the controls though, there is just no depth to doing this.  This seems like something that should be a bonus mode in a full fledged hockey game, but it shouldn’t be a mode that one pays money to play.

Finally, there is the Power Shot mode.  In here, one has to Read the rest of this entry »

Publisher: Tetris Online, Inc

Genre: Puzzle

Wii Points: 1000

Rating: Recommended

Another puzzle game has been released on WiiWare?! There are a couple of sure things in life. The sun will come out at some point. The sky will always be blue. Puzzle games will be consistently released on WiiWare. WiiWare is home to tons of cheap, cash-in, puzzle games that will never be remembered (with the exception of World of Goo). There is one puzzle game though that seems to stand the test of time, no matter where or when it is released. Yes, I’m talking about Tetris. In this version of the legend of all puzzle games, there are plenty of single and offline multiplayer options to go around. The graphics are bright and fit the game. The familiar music everyone loves from the original Tetris is still there, but there are lots of other tunes as well. The only real letdown here was… Read the rest of this entry »

There is a beautiful looking new WiiWare platformer coming soon from the unknown developer Over the Top Games.  It sure looks like Kid Icarus to me…

From the official website…

“Fly with Nyx in her dangerous search for her dearest friend Icarus. With ICARIAN: KINDRED SPIRITS™ you will discover a new type of game play and mechanics that will surprise you…

The action takes place in ancient Greece, a place inhabited by all kind of fantastic creatures, where the fate of humans is in the hands of capricious Gods.

Potpourii Screen Shot

Publisher: Abstraction Games

Genre: Puzzle

Wii Points: 800

Rating: Fair

Potpourri is a new Wii Ware game from Abstraction Games. Potpourrii is a modern puzzle game with some new twists and also presents the game in a new look and a relaxing soundtrack. Potpourrii looks like a blend of other matching games like Bust-A-Move, Zuma and Tetris.

The story of Potpourrii is an appealing one where an evil wizard has cast a spell on a forest, and you have to match different colored sprites to disengage the spell. Each colored sprite symbolizes a different season like spring, winter, summer and fall. The game is not very clear and it is confusing at first, so there is a quite a learning curve to understand which color sprite goes with the season. To make things worse, the game doesn’t even have a tutorial for newbie’s. So after playing for quite a bit, you will understand the game and how to win against the evil wizard. The controls of the game are not as easy as other matching games; it takes a little getting used to the controls before you can shoot the spirits with accuracy. The whole game is also based on shooting spirits and matching them which results in freeing trees from the spell of the wizard.

One thing which makes the game stand out from other games is its graphics and audio. Graphics is lively with subtle colors which makes, it easy on the eyes to play the game for hours at stretch. It is also accompanied by smooth and cheerful audio which makes the game fun to play. All in all, Potpourrii is a good game with a slight learning curve.

Defend Your Castle Screen Shot

Release Date: May 12, 2008

Developer: XGen Studios

Genre: Action

Wii Points: 500

Fair

Defend Your Castle is a recreation of the popular Flash game released by XGen Studios. The concept is very simple. You have a castle and all these stick figures come and try to break into that castle. The castle has to be defended from the stick figures. This seems like it works very well as a free Flash title on the PC, but the real question is whether it warrants a 500 points purchase on WiiWare.

Killing the stick figures is fun at first. It really is. It sounds awesome to pick one of those stick figures and torture it to no end. They can also be converted to your side once the pit of conversion is purchased. Once that happens, the converted stick figures are put to work in your castle. After about 30 minutes though, watching the attacking stick figures die just gets old, no matter how they are disposed of.

As with a lot of Wii games, multiplayer is the best way to play this game. People can easily enter a game that has already started. The one with the most points at the end of a round becomes a “general” of sorts, getting to pick which upgrades are bought. Getting four players together to work towards a common goal of defending the castle is great and has the potential for some epic moments of teamwork. Without a good storyline though, playing Defend You Castle alone is a lonely experience.

There is no music in this game either. Something that might have really helped is having climactic music play when the castle is about to be broken into. That would have made a more tense and anxious, but fun experience. But I suppose the transfer of this game from a free Flash download to something people have to pay for is not enough of a reason to give Defend Your Castle more than a couple of nifty sound effects.

I actually love the art style of this game. The style is bad, but it’s done that way on purpose, in the same fashion as Mega Man 9. XGen went for a certain look and for the most part nailed it. But as good as the style is, there is not enough variety. I am looking at essentially the same exact castle, the same exact hill background, and the same exact stick figures the whole time. Some trees might have helped to create more variety. There has to be something different they can put in the background.

This is the type of game that sounds perfect when one is sitting in the back of a classroom or lecture hall with nothing to do. But paying 500 points to play this game in the bedroom alone is a steep price to pay, especially when you consider that a lot more can be bought for 500 points in the NES section of the Virtual Console store. But if you know for certain that friends can be brought over to play this, then the price becomes acceptable by the slightest of margins.