The 5 Worst WiiWare Games

The Nintendo Wii gets a lot of flack for being a generation behind the other consoles of the same era. While not a powerhouse of a console (Nintendo consoles rarely are the most powerful of their day) a lot of great looking and playing games hit the little white box and the WiiWare service.

Family Go-Kart Racing is not one of those titles. WiiWare titles were smaller affairs because of the limitations placed upon the developers, but this game looks like it belongs on the Sega 32X and not the Nintendo Wii. And what's worse is that it's a clone of Mario Kart, a kart-racing series that is unmatched on the console, so this has no reason to exist.

What's really crazy is that the game was released by Arc System Works, the studio behind publishing the utterly gorgeous Guilty Gear series. Family Go-Kart Racing is not one of their best releases and I'm sure they don't like talking about it, or the whole "Family" series. Oh, and the game plays like trash in case you were wondering.

In fact, controls don't really work at all, or how they should. If you tilt the controller you will either slam into the wall or barely register a slight wiggle. Your brakes don't worker either is you were wondering, and the best power up is the one that lets the computer take over driving for you as that's the only way to actually get anywhere. At least with only 4 tracks you wont be playing that long.

I swear to you that people made some really pretty looking games for the Nintendo WiiWare service. Hell, there are actually lots of developers that made really great looking and playing games for the WiiWare service (Lost Winds, La-Mulana, Mega-Man 10 and tons more come to mind).

Copter Crisis on the other hand is a god damn crisis of a video game that would be bad even if created at a 24hr Game Jam event that nobody went too and not by an alleged "studio" of people. It's also another game that looks like it was a tech demo for the Sega 32X, not even good enough to make it on that crappy console add-on.

Usually the trailer for a game, even a crappy one, highlights the good and glosses over the bad, but this is Copter Crisis we are talking about here. The trailer is so terrible you'll wonder if this game was created as some tax dodge over a weekend. I'm not saying it was, but I'm not saying it wasn't either.

Gameplay is so basic it hurts. All you do is fly through a canyon by simply moving your Wii Remote around the screen. That's it. There are some things to collect and people to save and what have you, but you just sit there moving a low-poly helicopter, wondering what year you are living in and if video games are a dying fad.

WarMen Tactics should have been a hit from looking at screenshots and the idea of a tactical game on WiiWare, but it falls flat in more ways than I thought possible. First off is that this title isn't original; it's a port of an iPhone game that cost players 99c. Oh, and the inflated WiiWare price of 800 points doesn't bring with it any improvements other than a name change.

This is a straight port, so much so that the games original name "WarMen" is still on the title screen and not the new title for WiiWare. Gameplay consists of you hitting the A button to move to a new spot for cover and wait for enemies to walk down the street in a straight line. it also claims to represent "real warfare," but I'm pretty sure alien crab men aren't fighting over in Iraq.

The trailer, which is a god damn comedic masterpiece, shows off everything you can expect. Move from cover and shoot at slowly moving enemies as you save the future world of 2013. Reloading is horribly long and everything looks and feels clunky. Your anime(?) hero also looks really bad and oozes what passes for cool for a 12 year-old in Alabama in 1996 without internet access, and only a Hot Topic and Suncoast Video at the mall.

As an iPhone game on a small screen with only touch controls, this one might have been okay for $1, but on WiiWare it's nothing but a cash grab buy a small mobile studio probably looking to recoup losses to make something else that sucks (and boy did they ever, but that's for another list). Also, I'm pretty sure you play as the bad guy as you fight the resistance of former military and cops that don't agree to fall in line with the new "Department of Control".

I have a lovely girlfriend. She loves to ice skate and is always talking about getting to the rink for a date night. She'd probably leave me if I bought this game for her to play, and I wouldn't blame her. Girlfriends Forever: Magic Skate will end relationships with how bad it is.

The game consists of ice skating? Kinda, sorta. You pick a creepy looking girl ripped out of your worst nightmare and they dance around in a knockoff Pixar setting. Oh, and you can dress up your girls, because why the hell not create a monster doll girl.

You want to know how bad Girlfriends Forever: Magic Skate is? There isn't even a single video of the god damn game on YouTube, and there's Let's Play's of obscure Tiger Handheld games and games for consoles only released in countries that no longer exist anymore on their.

Since there are no videos I'll explain how the game works. Your forever girlfriend skates around and one of four icons move across the screen. You tap the correct button or do a motion and she does something. And instead of motions on screen you can just shake your Wii Remote and it registers all the same. I want to die.

Wii Bowling is included in Wii Sports and comes free with your Wii system. I repeat: Wii Bowling is free as part of owning your Wii video game machine box. Oh, and it's also bloody fantastic. So, why in the hell would anyone release a bowling game on WiiWare of all places is beyond me.

This Gameloft title is a port of the cellphone game, from back when cellphones were yet to evolve into smartphones, Midnight Bowling. On a cellphone with a number pad the games is just fine; it's fineeeeeee. But on the Wii it's a joke only there to make some money to be funneled into whatever Gameloft was making back then. Probably a clone of some better video games.

Oh, and the term Midnight Bowling would indicate some sexy, or at least nefarious sort of late night bowling action. There is none of that here. Hell, I'm not even sure if what we get is actually bowling considering this is a port from a cellphone game and the questionable controls.

Gameplay consists of you holding the A button and swinging your Wii Remote. Notice I didn't say you release the A button after you swing. The ball just sort of leaves your hand whenever it wants. And it also doesn't matter how you swing as the ball will almost never match where you throw.

The action actually happens after you "throw" the ball. As it rolls you then have some control over things like spin and motion via the Wii Remote, but these never feel like they work. I'm not actually sure how the game work, to be fair. Throw the ball and shaking your arm seems to work as well as following the directions.