Every six months or so, there’s a back log of Wii exclusive titles that release that make me stop for a half a second and say to myself, “Hmmm…I wonder if I should get a Wii yet?”. I then trundle down to my local electronics store with its ridiculously liberal return policy and “rent” a Wii so I can get caught up on the handful of backlogged decent-looking Wii titles.

Here’s the rundown: New Super Mario Brothers Wii, Dead Space: Extraction, Silent Hill: Shattered Origins, and Madworld.  Sounds like a hardcore cornucopia! You know, all those “Rated M for Mature” titles that always bomb so terribly on the Wii for some ungodly reason.

New Super Mario Brothers Wii:

It just so happens that my wife and I were having a “Game Night” at our house, which was going to just be a traditional board game night with some friends.  Seeing as I had a Wii at the time, I ran to the same electronics store with its liberal return policy and picked up three Wii Motion Plus Controllers (almost $175 holybajezus).  If you’ve read anything of mine in the past, you probably know that I wouldn’t touch a Mario game with a ten foot dead baby, but after hearing so many other podcasts and websites orgasm over the four-player experience, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try it.

In a room full of people, toss three hardcore gamers and one Mario fangirl into the mix who was shrieking every time she made a difficult jump or got a powerup, and yeah, it was a hella good time.  I generally was rolling m eyes and trying to progress through the level as best I could dragging everyone along with me, but the four-player nature almost makes the campaign mode unplayable.  The game is fun, if by “fun” you mean in a “I just picked you up and threw you in lava” kind of way.

The next morning, I decided to pick up where I left off by myself and see how much further I could get, only to find out that the game had turned back into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight, and now it was just another stupid Mario game.   I stopped playing about five minutes later, only having cleared the first world.

Madworld:

You know, Sega likes its weird twist on storyline.  I mean, rent Bayonetta and have fun trying to translate that story.  Madworld’s story line is borrowed from liberally from the movie “The Running Man”, which sounds great, but then it gets all Japanese-d up by the end with long-winded cutscenes that seem to ask more questions than answer.  You play as Jack, a bounty hunter who gets caught in the middle of this live action television show designed to kill off its contestants.  I’m completely dumbing this down for the sake of brevity.

The concept was there, but much like Jack’s chainsaw arm, it loses its shine over time.   Your objective is to kill as many guys as creatively as possible to score points.  After so many points, you unlock a boss fight to gain rank and advance you to the next stage.  The problem here (and it’s a BIG one) is that there is no devaluation for repetition of kills.  If I want to stand in front of a giant industrial fan blade and throw guys in until I get two million points, I can totally do that.  You have a giant level with dozens upon dozens of interesting ways to off your opponents, but if you find a good killzone near a spawn point, you can stand there for 10 minutes and keep racking up the points.  If they had fixed this one aspect of the game, it would have made all the difference in the world.

The repetition is almost negated (but not quite) with the blissfully short campaign; maybe five hours in one playthrough.  One of the only saving graces in the game is the duo of announcers, voiced by comedian Greg Proops and another random voice actor.  Their two-man commentary of Jack’s murder spree is gleefully wicked and adds a lot to this mediocre and very repetitive game.

Dead Space: Extraction:

God damn, you know when people smirkingly talk about how a Wii isn’t a “next gen” console?  Well, it certainly shows its plussed-up-Gamecube qualities with this game.  The graphics are miserable, and I’m not usually someone who notices that kind of thing.  I was just playing thinking “640×480” the whole time.  It was brutal, especially being babied with all my 1080p HD gameplay between my PS3 and 360.

I loved the first Dead Space, but the lightgun shooter on rails concept behind this game…god help me, I just couldn’t get into it.  I got four or five levels into it, and I could feel my eyes closing at least on three separate occasions.  I typically don’t fall asleep during games.  I used to fall asleep “playing” Eve:Online, when I would be flying across the universe running cargo or somesuch, and I’ve passed out from exhaustion after playing 13 hours of World of Warcraft while I’m working on my blacksmithing skill, but in a game that’s supposed to be a shooter that’s trying to scare you, I shouldn’t be falling asleep.

I had such high hopes for this game too.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories:

The only pleasurable experience I really had on the Wii.  After hearing another site call this Silent Hill it’s 2009 “Wii Game of the Year”, I was intrigued.  Really?  Silent Hill? After Silent Hill 3, I kinda stopped caring about Silent Hill.  But since I had a Wii…

Here’s the deal.  It’s a reimagining of the first Silent Hill game and it does a great job using the Wii Remote and Wii gimmick to its fullest potential.  The game is generally broken down into two parts per level: an exploring/puzzle part and a chase part, where you are being chased by Silent Hill denizens and cannot defend yourself.  It’s always a nice touch on a horror game when you have a gaggle of unstoppable, invincible bad guys hot on your heels; that feeling of defenselessness really adds to the anxiety level of the game.

But if you’re playing this game, don’t play it for the gameplay, but the wildly interesting take on its premise and storyline.  I can’t say a damn thing about it without giving anything away, but a few notes if you plan on playing this game: definitely play this game in the dark with the volume turned up, and do NOT play this game in front of a spouse or significant other.   And no, not because of any giant titty demons or anything NSFW…well, I guess you’ll have to see it to understand.

Well, that’s all I’ve got.  All the gear is back at the electronics store with the liberal return policy, all the games are back at Gamefly, all the cash is back on my credit card, and I’ll start keeping my eyes out for 2010 releases for the Wii so I can do this little experiment again.

But if you’re wondering: no, there’s still not enough reason to own a Wii.