Writer’s note: I use the term ‘gamer’ frequently in this article, though I am loath to do so because it has some fairly negative connotations in polite society. All associations with darkened rooms, loneliness, virginity, body odour and energy drinks are to be left at the door. In most cases I use it for lack of a more appropriate alternative term. I also use quotation marks in an attempt to distance myself from the common usage of several words, whilst sneakily hijacking that usage anyway. Perhaps I should take a bit more responsibility for my thoughts…

I’m a gaming fanatic. A ‘hardcore gamer’ if you will. By which I mean I spend a lot of time reading about games, streaming videos about games and playing games. I’ve read pseudo-academic studies about narrative in games. I’ve bought 48 games on the digital download service Steam. I play Counter Strike: Source and CoD 4 against other idiots online fairly regularly, and I have every 6th generation console hooked up to my TV (including the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast)*. I don’t, however, have an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3. The only current generation console I own is a Wii, which might seem a little odd. It may be largely to do with being far to skint to be able to afford either of the much more powerful consoles and the associated games (I got my Wii free with a mobile phone contract) but I think there’s a little bit more to it than that. There’s been a lot of Wii dissing going on amongst those who consider themselves to be ‘true’ gamers, and I want to fight back for the diminutive white box from Nintendo, if only for a few paragraphs.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the Wii is considered to be to ‘proper’ gaming what a Lego model of the Sistine Chapel is to the actual Sistine Chapel; a childish imitation of the real thing. This is partly to do with its sub-HD graphics and lack of a hard drive, but mostly to do with snobbishness. Because it has been largely sold to kids under the age of 10 and women over the age of 35 as a repetitive-strain inducing Tamagochi and a groin-strain inducing yoga machine respectively, developers have been falling over each other to create cartoony bits of digital fluff or half-arsed fitness games. These are pretty much all awful, but this doesn’t really matter as the target audience will never have played a ‘proper’ game and won’t know the difference. At least that seems to be the attitude amongst the most prolific games developers for the Wii.

Nintendo has released a couple of undeniably excellent games in Super Mario Galaxy and Zelda: Twilight Princess, but rehashing old franchises doesn’t really cut it anymore. Neither does adding motion controls to Gamecube games and selling them in a new box for twice the price. But there is hope yet. It usually takes a third party developer to boost the credibility of a console, which is exactly what has happened with the Wii, and hopefully why it can continue to be home to a small number of game fans looking for a bit more than a way to count calories or collect coins.

The Violent - No More Heroes, House of the Dead: Overkill and Mad World

The obvious way to appeal to the older gamer is to whack a load of blood into a game. Usually this is an arbitrary choice, made to enrage the censors and stir up some publicity (see Cod Modern Warfare 2). The three examples available for the Wii prove that graphic violence and gore can be used for quite different reasons.

I bought the delightfully insane No More Heroes as soon as I got the Wii, and there is nothing else quite like it on any platform. Despite having the fountains of blood removed for its release in the PAL regions, it is still full of completely hilarious and utterly foul-mouthed cut scenes. It is also relentlessly difficult to get to grips with, and, one suspects, deliberately broken. It is a parody of gaming, or more specifically the kind of gaming that is popular in Japan. There are tons of in-jokes that you have to be seasoned gamer to get, though these will all be lost on the mostly ‘casual’ gamers who own Wiis. It’s this fact that allows me to feel a little bit smug. Being a fan in gaming is sometimes/often about being elite in some way, and making a game that is difficult to understand and get into for most people makes those who do ‘get it’ feel awesome, even if by being part of the small group they are paradoxically disproving this. No More Heroes is getting a sequel for the Wii, and is also being remade for the 360 and the PS3, though the original is still worth a purchase in the run up to Christmas. It’s also going to be a bloody bargain.

House of the Dead: Overkill is another game that parodies games themselves. It rips off 70s exploitation movies for the plot and is full of profanity and violence from start to finish. Like NMH, its brand of humour is unsophisticated, but beneath this surface layer of guts and gore there is a slightly more cerebral chuckle to be had, both at the game and at the player. Yahtzee is able to explain this game as well as anyone.

Mad World is almost like a point and click adventure game with waggle controls. Here is a typical sequence of the gameplay:

Press ‘A’ to pick up tyre. Swing remote up to use tyre with goon. Pick up road sign. Swing remote down to use road sign with goon’s neck. Drag goon to spike wall. Use goon with spike wall until dead. Move on to the next area.

Everything in Mad World is rendered in a black and white cell shaded style, and it looks like a Manga comic strip in motion. The only element that has colour is the blood, and there is tons of it. You get more points for dispatching enemies in increasingly convoluted and ultimately satisfying ways. And you have a retractable chainsaw on one arm for when you get bored of the more complex methods. Mad World is also a satire of gaming culture and stereotypes, as before each boss battle you are introduced to a violent mini-game by the Black Baron, a pimp of some sort who is killed by a scantily clad woman after he explains the mechanics of the game, only to reappear completely unharmed the next time a violent spectacle is about to unfold. It’s not subtle, but then so little about gaming ever is, and rather than preaching for change it is thoroughly infatuated with the games which it lampoons.

The Quirky – Boom Blox, Zack and Wiki, Tales of Monkey Island

Bloody violence and adult humour may be a mainstay of modern gaming, but there is challenge and entertainment to be found in some of the more mild titles on the Wii. For a console with a progressive control scheme it can still hark back to the retro thrills of past gaming eras.

Boom Blox is a party game conceived in part by Stephen Spielberg, and it basically amounts to a virtual game of Jenga. That’s not entirely a criticism, as the Wii’s controls lend themselves to operating in virtual spaces, and the sense of depth and interactivity you get in the various game modes of Boom Blox is virtually unbeatable. There’s a sequel planned, and for fun this Christmas this is going to be a good value choice.

Now, in the early 90s when I was a small child, we didn’t have a SNES or a Mega Drive. Instead we had an Amiga 600, so I cut my teeth playing adventure games from Lucasarts, and developed a love of the point and click genre that I still hold today. As such Zack and Wiki’s modern update of the classic genre is obviously of interest to me. It essentially presents the gamer with a series of set-piece puzzles to work on one at a time, and whilst it lacks the strong narrative forces which drove the likes of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, the actual game play mechanics have been vastly improved beyond the frequently clunky and illogical methods of the past. Zack and Wiki borrows heavily from the piratey themes of the former whilst adding in the mandatory massive Japanese quiffs and oddly spiritual animal companions. Another Christmas bargain for people of all ages.

Speaking of Monkey Island, the Wii has also played host to the most recent episodic series starring Guybrush Threepwood and pals, and though the return to classic franchise has been less than perfect, those of us who were brought up on the adventure gaming formula could forgive its misdemeanours. I’ll give the Tales of Monkey Island a more thorough going over after I’ve completed the recently released 5th and final chapter. Oooh, and Wold Of Goo is another neat little downloadable title that is worth checking out if you like casual games and building stuff with other stuff.**

There are a few other Wii games that might grab your attention at the moment. The Wii release of the now 2 year old Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has received positive reviews everywhere, so if you missed it on the PC or other consoles then it is well worth picking up. The Metroid Prime Trilogy is also a good choice, though it does breach my ‘no mascots/remake’ rules a little. Also Dead Space: Extraction is good, though it’s another rail shooter a la HotD: Overkill.  Oh, and I wouldn’t bother with New Super Mario Bros Wii. Please add your own/disagree in the comment box below, would be lovely to hear from you.

Reading this might make you think that I am a self-hating gamer, embarrassed by my hobby and its perception in the eyes of the world, and embarrassed by my commitment to the Wii because of its perception in the eyes of most gamers. And you’d be right. I’m like a digital suffragette. Except that I am driven by cowardice and am reliant on inappropriate analogies to express myself.

*I also have ‘real’ friends, a job and a ‘life’. See, we’re already breaking down stereotypical boundaries aren’t we?

**What a terrible sentence.