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Matt Vs. Wii Third Party Games Part 1

Nintendo's Wii was the most successful console it ever released with over 100 million units sold dwarfing even the NES. However aside from Wii Sports, conventional wisdom stated that the Wii was all about waggle and had no games.  While the Wii was supported by Nintendo's first party franchises, its third party support lacked many key franchises that were on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The Gamecube also missed some titles but due to its similar capabilities to the other consoles of its generation, it had more cross platform titles due to easier portability. Given that the Wii was clearly the least graphically powerful console of its generation, this wasn't often the case. Games often skipped the console because a Wii version would most likely be an entirely different a new game. The Wii did receive a decent amount of third party support and two games that particularly held my interest were Ubisoft's Red Steel 2 and Suda51's No More Heroes. Many of theses games may have been critically lauded but financial success often proved elusive.

Red Steel 2 was the sequel to a game that launched with the Wii in 2006 that was developed by Ubisoft. The original Red Steel was a first-person shooter where you played  sword-wielding gangster fighting the Japanese triads. While it was a financial success, Red Steel was harshly criticized for iffy graphics and poor controls. In 2010, the sequel Red Steel 2 was released and proved to be a radically different beast than its predecessor. Aside from the concept of a swordwielding gunman, the setting, controls and artistic style were all radically changed. You play as a wandering swordsman who is trying to avenge his fallen clan set in the Wild West with futuristic and Asian influences. The controls were enhanced using Nintendo's Wii Motion plus add-on which greatly improved the Wii remotes accuracy and allowed it to better approximate 1-1 motion. The realistic graphics of Red Steel 1 were swapped for a cell shaded style which better played to the console's strengths. I followed this game for a while prior to its release and purchased the combo pack that came with a copy of the game along with Wii Motion Plus.

Overall Red Steel 2 was a good game. While the graphics were sharp and the motion controlled combat was thrilling, the game felt somewhat empty. Despite limited replayability Red Steel 2 is a strong example of the motions controlled gaming on the Wii.  The Wii's first party games such as Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime Trilogy, & Donkey Kong County Returns often overshadow its third party offerings and rightfully so. That being said there is a treasure trove of overlooked non-Nintendo released Wii games. Stay tuned for part two.

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