Nintendo Wii

Octomania is an unique puzzle style game for the Nintendo Wii.  I like the whole puzzle concept of the game, but as a Wii game it ends up being somewhat frustrating because of the pointing controls being too sensitive.  Basically you just get the number of octopuses of the same color noted in the middle of a grid and that starts a chain.  You can then continue the chain by connecting more of the same color.  The way you move then is by pressing a and pointing.  It moves them in a four square area and this is the part that gets hard and often frustrating.  The screen just does not have the area to move them around without constantly being redirected to the wrong area by accident.  Also, it can get frustrating to try to get the number of the same color to where there is a grid, which end up randomly appearing.

Overall I kind of liked this game, but after a while it just got more frustrating.  At first I did not know what I was doing and I still won in easy by randomly moving around the octopuses (or is it octopi?).  Once I knew what I had to do and not being able to get it to do it how I wanted the game just became too frustrating and I could not even get through the second difficulty level.  If you can get it to work well for you, then it might be fun, especially since this is a WiFi battle game, but personally I just got frustrated with it, as even with an hour of playing I could not get any better at managing the pointing, and mailed it back.

Cranium Kabooki in its original form is a board game.  I have never tried the board game version, so I cannot say if this is like it or not.  As a Wii game, though, I do have some thoughts on it.

Cranium Kabooki is purely a multi player game.  This outright frustrates me because I do most of my Wii gaming on my own and only play multiplayer games when the kid I babysit decides to or occassionally with my younger brother. Basically it is just too complicated to try and find someone to play a game with me, especially a game like Cranium Kabooki or Smarty Pants , which are the only two games I have found with the multiplayer issue.

That did not stop me from trying the game out before mailing it back, though.  I just selected 2 teams and played by myself.  I was kind of worried it would not work because I have only one Wii remote, but it only needs one to work.

In the game you spin the carousel by tapping A and flicking the Wii remote to the side.  You then do different things based on where it lands.  One activity is Cameo in which you use the Wii remote to act out what you see on the screen.  I like the idea of this, but became quickly frustrating with the lack of obvious directions of what motions you need to do and the actions not always registering as correct when they should be.

Another activity is Gliffiti.  In this game you guess the word by dragging the letter parts to spell the word.  This one is kind of hard, as the letters are in a weird font and it is a little odd how they go together, but at least the controls work for this one.

There are other activities, but I kind of gave up because of the lack of single player fun factor and the controls being not that great.

The goal of the game is to be the first team to earn enough tokens to win.  Overall I was disappointed by the game, but it mostly has to do with it being exclusively a multiplayer game.  I think this game has potential as a family game and as an unique way of playing the board game for those who like Cranium Kabooki.  Other than that it is not worth even trying.

I tried Jenga for the DS a few months ago and found the controls to be pretty horrible.  I did not plan on trying the Wii game after that experience, but my brother bought it and was saying it was way better.  Thus I decided to try it out and see if it ended up being almost as good as the classic tabletop Jenga game.

First off the Wii version does have controls that make sense and the movements work pretty realistically.  You tap the blocks with B to test if they could come out easy, you then grab with A and move the Wii Remote to pull the blocks out.  To place the block on top you move the Wii Remote to line up the block and then drop it with A.  In theory and in the tutorial the controls seem to work pretty well, but when you get into the actual modes they just do not work out too well.

Because of the annoyance of it not working as I feel it should, I decided this game is not as good as the classic Jenga game, but it is at least better than the DS version.  One thing it is worse at than the DS is that there are only 8 characters (shown in screenshot below) you can be and one of them is not the penguin you can be in the DS one.  Maybe, you can unlock the characters, but it is a pretty sad selection to start with.  Graphic and sound wise it is pretty good, but overall my recommendation is if you want to play Jenga you should just go buy the original version.

Mercury Meltdown Revolution is a single player puzzle game for the Nintendo Wii.  It has been out  in the United States since October of last year, but I only just recently got around to trying it out.  I had tried Kororinpa Marble Madness for the Wii, loved it, and was told that this is kind of similar.  I will give it that the object of rolling around the level is the same, but Mercury Meltdown Revolution is much more than just trying to roll through the level.  Thus it is not only more challenging than the marble game, but more fun.

In the game you hold the Wii Remote sideways and tilt it to control the tray that is the level.  The tilting makes the mercury blob move around the level.  As you move through the level there it is truly puzzle like in that you have to have a strategy to be able to make it through the different points and to the end.  Most of the strategy involves you becoming the right color to go through doors and/or to be accepted at the end point.

At first changing colors seems like an easy thing of just rolling under the paint stations, but you will soon discover that you have to split the mercury blob, go under two different paint stations, and then mix back together to form some of the necessary colors.  There is a color guide in the top right corner of the screen to make it a little easier by at least telling you what colors need to go together to make the needed color.

Overall I found this to be a fun game to play.  The graphics are normal Wii quality and nicely appealing in the colorfulness.  I noticed some reviews downgrade it for not being multiplayer, but personally I do not think it would be that good of a multiplayer game if that option was available.  For puzzle game lovers this is a must try Wii game.  If you do not like puzzle games, then this might not be a game for you.