Wario Land: Shake It!

Also known as:  Wario Land Shake (Japan, South Korea), Wario Land: The Shake Dimension (Europe, Australia)

Developer: Good-Feel

When I bought Wario Land: Shake It!, it hadn't been out long, and yet it was still very, very cheap as a used game. That had me a little worried about the game's quality, but since it was a 2D platformer on a console long, long after 3D games took over the market, and since I generally prefer 2D platformers over 3D platformers, my curiosity got the better of me. After playing it, it's really not a bad game as much as various aspects of it just feel like a chore instead of something fun...Most notably, the shaking. I can imagine a young boy playing this game while covered in a blanket, his parents seeing it, and then making him pause the game so they can give him the talk about the birds and the bees, explaining that if he continues to shake that Wiimote, he may go blind. Yes, that was an adult joke. And no, he would probably never “Shake It” again after that traumatizing experience. Kinda like me playing this game for Every Game Played – I played it to get screenshots, and will likely never revisit it again. Most people seem to like this a lot more than I do…but I just see Wario Land: Shake It! as a so-so platformer with some awful motion controls tacked onto it that drag the whole experience down.

Review added: 09/24/2021

Wii Fit

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: Nintendo

I want to put Wii Fit at number one just because it let me see how clueless parents in this country were when they sued Nintendo because Wii Fit had the audacity to call their chubby children fat. Yes, sadly, that’s a true statement. That being said, Wii Fit isn't 100% accurate with its "fatty" claims, as the game is unable to determine muscle mass in their calculations, they simply look at height, weight, and age and determine where you stand on the average…But I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of those children weren't bodybuilders. And if they were, and they are that upset, it was probably from ‘roid rage and not this game. Steroids make you emotional on an irrational level, you know. Anyway, Wii Fit isn't a perfect game by any means, but it mostly does what it sets out to do, which is make the player perform exercises while motivating them to return the following day for more. Unlocking exercises helps prevent the game from feeling repetitive and also decreases the likelihood of the player getting bored from repetition. Thus, giving them a reason to come back for more the next day. If you're willing to be mildly active while you play a game, you may find Wii Fit to be a good game for you.

Review added: 08/24/2019

Wii Music

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: Nintendo

Wii Music has a nice concept to it and all - use the Wii Mote and motion controls to simulate playing various instruments and/or conduct an orchestra through a song. The problem is, unless you’re a music fanatic, there simply isn’t a lot here to keep you coming back for more…And I’ll even guess that even if you love music, there still isn’t much here for you. To make matters worse, you’re essentially hit with tutorial after tutorial as you play, which by the fifth one I was groaning and wishing that Sebastian Tute would go toot his own horn for knowing how this game works somewhere else and just leave me to my awful music making skills. If the tutorials don’t drive you to want to smash the air guitar that you’re playing, and you make it through them, your rewards are various songs…from video game themes to classical music, as well as some more modern songs and such. Since I’m not a big music person, most of these songs being unlocked didn’t really motivate me to play any more. And despite Tute’s suggestion that I try to get creative with when I play a song to make it my own, every time I attempted to change up a song even a smidge, it resulted in Tute telling me that I didn’t do very well. It happened enough where I wanted to stick the Wii Mote up Sebastian’s tute hole. Anyway, Wii Music isn’t awful by any means, but for me at least, it lacks any reason to keep coming back for more…unless you really like tutorials.

Review added: 12/26/2021

Wii Sports

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: Nintendo

Wii Sports came packaged with the Wii when the system launched, back in 2006, to show off how the Wii’s motion controls could be used...And while the game itself can be a lot of fun, especially when playing with friends or family, it also showed how inaccurate the motion controls could be right out of the gate. Wii Sports is good enough to be passable, and it's definitely fun in the right setting...But it's also got a lot of flaws and issues with it to prevent it from being a truly great game. Still, due to the massive success of the Wii, and since the Wii appealed to folks that normally would not play video games, Wii Sports may be one of the most-played video games of all time and as a result, even with its flaws, a lot of folks think back fondly to this game. I’ll be honest, too, I still get a kick out of playing a game of bowling on here every now and then.

Review added: 08/18/2019