Nintendo Wii Reviews

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10

Feel the drama of playing professional tournament golf like never before with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. For the first time in the history of Electronic Arts’ much lauded golf simulation franchise, players can take aim at capturing the US Open Championship on the ever-challenging Bethpage Black. Playing in front of huge galleries and hearing crowd reactions from nearby holes, take your game to the next level when it matters most as you try to hold off a charging Tiger Woods and other PGA Tour Pros. Whether you’re fighting the course, the crowd, dynamic weather conditions, or the field, feel the drama on every swing with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. Key Features: Wii Motion Plus Integration – Elevate your game with an enhanced, true-to-life golf swing that features precise draw-fade capabilities and authentic sports motion which mirrors your every move. Win the US Open Championship – For the first time ever, feel the drama of playing in the US Open, one of golf’s biggest—and toughest—tournaments of the year. Known for its extremely challenging playing conditions, Bethpage Black tests even the best golfers. Take the Tournament Challenge – Replay dramatic scenarios from past PGA Tour seasons as you’re placed on the course at the precise moment before history was made—only this time, you determine the outcome. Dynamic Weather Conditions – Powered by the Wii Forecast Channel and the Weather Channel, real-time weather now has a major effect on gameplay conditions. If it’s raining in Pontre Vedra Beach, Fl, then you too can face the challenge of a rain-soaked TPC Sawgrass. EA Sports Live Tournaments – Prove yourself against the best players online in unique tournament events. Play alongside actual PGA Tour Pros during real-world PGA tour events or swing away in daily and weekly tournaments as you fight to stay atop the leaderboard. All-New Disc Golf – Trade your clubs for discs in a fun, new game mode based on the family-fun sport of Disc Golf. Play from custom tee locations on all 27 courses in the game. Multiplayer Support – Online and local support of 2-4 players. Screenshots: Real weather conditions. View larger. Practice strokes. View larger. Tournament challenges. View larger. Disc mini-game. View larger.

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Lacks realism, especially with putting
I thoroughly enjoyed playing Wii Resorts Golf, but got a bit tired of playing the same 18 holes over and over. So, I went looking for a game with more variety. After reading the many rave reviews of TW PGA Tour Pro 10 for Wii, I spent my hard earned $[...]. According to many reviewers, this game accurately mirrors real life golf. Well, yes and no. Yes, because it incorporates the Wii controller technology allowing you to swing a virtual golf club, and no for reasons I’ll explain.

I started the game and selected some basic game options. Of the three play styles, I chose the middle one, which said for experienced golfers. Then, I was asked to select a putting style. One putter or three. THREE PUTTERS? The game then takes you through a set of short tutorials with a virtual Hank Haney. 90% of the time, I was able to complete each lesson with the first shot. The game then starts with you as Tiger Woods.

If you have never played real golf, you’ll find this easy to learn and play. If you ARE a golfer, you’ll immediately realize that good golf shots just don’t come this easy in real life. My first round in TW PGA Tour Pro 10 playing as Tiger was an impressive 4 under par 68, which included an eagle. In real life, my best round ever is an 86 and have never shot an eagle in all the years I have played. If, in real life, I could shoot sub-par golf right out of the box, I would either become a tour pro, or give up the game because of the lack of challenge, which I felt was likely to happen with the TW game. But, after creating my personal avatar, I quickly realized that my game didn’t even approach that of Tiger’s. This was my first disappointment. I played as Tiger and played exceptionally well. Then, played as myself and played considerably worse. Why? It was me swinging the controller in both cases. Here’s the reason. In the TW game, you can purchase power and accuracy with money you earn on the tour. That’s just not right if you are expecting realism from a golf game. In Wii Resorts Golf, your ability to hit good shots is entirely based on your skill with the Wii controller (your club) as it should be.

In my opinion, the Wii Resorts Golf game is a better interpretation of real golf. Here are some comparisons.

If you swing too hard in Resorts Golf, you get a bad shot. In the TW game, you can really muscle the shot and get good results; something that doesn’t work on the real golf course. Sure, the graphics are superior in the TW game, but not exceptional, and you pay the price for this by having to wait up to 8 seconds for the next hole to load. And, that’s not the only time I got impatient waiting for the game to either load or save data. EA Sports hasn’t made any real progess in the qualify of their graphics since I saw TW Pro Tour 05 for XBox 5 years ago.

Hitting draws and fades is possible, especially with the Motion Plus controller add-on. But, to achieve these spins, you open or close the club face by twisting controller, and you have to twist quite a bit; so much that if you did this in real life, you’d hit a really terrible shot.

In Wii Resorts Golf, you take practice swings by addressing the ball (pressing B), and taking as many consecutive practice swings as you like until it looks and feels right. In TW PGA Tour Pro 10, you have to press both A and B together and you get one practice swing. You have to wait for a short reset before you can take another practice swing, but by then you forgot the way the previous swing felt.

Once you’ve made your way to the green with some fairly realistic shots, you’re faced with putting that in no way resembles real golf, despite the claims EA makes. In Wii Resorts Golf, the putting is more realistic because you can actually see the terrain and visualize your putt. You can even get a view of the terrain from knee level, just like in real life. In TW PGA Tour Pro 10, the green always looks flat, but terrain is revealed as a grid with a confusing array of moving, colored dots representing flat, slight uphill, extreme uphill or slight downhill. You have to take your best guess. And, you have the practice swing issue again. The putting alone makes me sorry I bought this game.

One of the fun things about all the TW PGA Tour Pro versions is the ability to customize your avatar so that it looks almost like yourself, but be prepared to spend up to half an hour on this. You also have the ability to select, and pay for with virtual prize money, player animations.

In summary, if you’re a gamer looking for some sports variety, the TW Tour Pro game is a worthwhile purchase. It includes some other fun games, like disk golf and a mini-golf course, but I found the graphics to be too dark. Maybe it’s just my 50″ monitor. If you’re a real golfer looking for realism, the Wii Resort Golf game is a better choice, with the unfortunate limitation of only 18 holes to play, plus a special 3-hole game that is available after you prove yourself by shooting sub-par.

I’m hoping that the Wii people, or a third-party developer will come out with a multi-course golf game resembling Wii Resort Golf.

3 Stars Driving is good but putting is not realistic
Driving in advanced mode is relatively realisic. Getting out of sand traps is realisitc too — better than the Wii Sport Resort game. However putting is not. Even a relatively gentle motion makes the ball go too far on somewhat long puts. Also, instead of mapping out the green using mathmatics designed to do so, so you can see the actual contour of the greens, they have these moving lights. This makes the game less fun. The size ratio of the club and green to the hole is realistic however.

5 Stars tiger woods pga tour 10
I will never have to play golf again.Love it and it paid for it

self the first day in a/c.

5 Stars Tiger Woods is great!
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is an outstanding example of the computer sports genre. It’s easy to learn (the tutorials are a must) and it’s easy, but at times challenging, to make it through your career.

4 Stars too difficult to draw your own profile…
I like this game, it’s much more better than wii sports. But my only problem is that it is so difficult to draw yourself in your profile…they have hundreds of things you can change to make the person similar to you, but it is just so difficult to make the person looks natural and similar! All EA games have this kind of problem…

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Rune Factory Frontier

Play as Laguna, who’s starting life in a completely new land in Rune Factory: Frontier. Your goal is to build up your village by attracting new residents, and eventually earning the affections of some possible marriage targets. Featuring stunning graphics and takes full advantage of the Wii’s unique controls. Rune Factory: Frontier allows you to choose the type of game you wish to experience, whether it’s growing crops, expanding the town, fighting or befriending monsters, and even falling in love.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Best Harvest Moon
I am very happy with this game. There is so much to do, but you dont have to do anything before you are ready. The dungeons are great, because they break up the day. You are not just planting crops any more. I am addicted to it, and sometimes neglect other things in order to play it.

4 Stars Very entertaining
I love the game. The only thing I did not like is the farming, takes a lot of time and energy and gets boring after awhile

3 Stars It fills up some time
This game can be very fun at times, it just seems to be an issue of doing the same repetitive tasks over and over again. Unless you read a guide or know somebody who plays the game, figuring out certain things on your own can be very difficult. I’m not a big fan of RPG style games with a “timed” aspect, and this game is totally centered around time along with seasons and day of the week. Overall though if you can sit and play it for a couple of hours a day it can be enjoyable, just very time consuming and at times repetitive. Gameplay as a whole is very easy to figure out your controls, it has pretty grahpics, the fishing system takes a few tries to get it down but is not very complicated and the same for the battle system. It is an open play style RPG, so if you like structured quest style RPG’s this probably isn’t the game for you.

4 Stars This game is the bomb!!! Sim Farming is great!
This game is amazing. I have alway loved harvest moon. If you do not own this game go and out a copy now. I snagged a copy from magvideogames since they only ship priorty. They only had 2 left in stock. On the Wii when I harvest my crops I make it feel like a workout. I wonder how many chickens I will have to kill to save up to get Harvest moon for the SNES.

5 Stars great game
this game is great. so much to do. in the first 3 days ive owned this game, ive played for like 16 hours and there is sooo much i havent even come close to doing yet. this game will be good for at least 100 hours of gameplay. you definately want to buy this game.

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EA Sports Active More Workouts

More Workouts Wii

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Mario Party 8

The world’s most popular party videogame is getting a lot crazier in Mario Party 8 for Wii! Whether you’re shaking up cola cans or lassoing barrels, you and your friends will be drawn into the action like never before using the Wii Remote.

All-new ways to play:

• Play with motion control: Row your way through a river race, Punch a statue to pieces, Steer race cars, mopeds, and go-karts, Handle a balancing pole while walking a tightrope.
• Play using the Pointer: Shoot at Boos in a haunted house, Drag and drop toppings in a cake-decorating competition, Select the correct answers in game-show challenges.
• Play using the Wii Remote’s buttons: Jump and pummel your way through a football brawl, Hop and run across a field of spinning platforms.

All-new features/boards:

Mario Party 8 for Wii also includes dozens of new mini-games, six new party boards, and many new game modes. In a series first, players can transform their characters into many forms, such as player-smashing boulders and coin-sucking vampires. Mario Party 8 also includes “extra-large” mini-games like Star Carnival Bowling and Table Menace. One to four players can play Mario Party 8 for Wii, each with a Wii Remote.

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Fun game, but not one of the better Mario Parties
I am a HUGE fan of these Mario Party games.

I think i had more expectations for this game since the last gens Mario Parties are quite often fun, especially part 6 & 7. This Mario party was fine, but i would much rather play the older versions with a newer control scheme. Even playing the older ones with the older control scheme would be fine.

IF YOU CAN GET THIS CHEAP… knock yourself out.

3 Stars A Little Disappointed
I’ve only played two of the courses but neither were very fun. One was a one way path to the stars and the other you only earned stars as you “invested” in hotels. Some of the games were cute but I like past versions much better!

3 Stars The apple has fallen very far from the tree
I played this last night with a friend, and I went in with very high expectations based upon my previous experience with Mario Party 6 (which I consider the gold standard). What a disappointment. My friend hasn’t played the Mario Party series before so I was embarrassed after we finished a 10-round match, having spoken so highly of the game. It was probably my mistake to assume that MP 8 would be a worthy follow-up to its predecessors.

My thoughts, in bullet point form:

- The emcee is no longer the sun/moon character but this bizarro hat and duck (?) combo. Both of them have eyes and mouths and the two of them trade off when talking to the player. I don’t understand why the developer felt the need to insert this annoying new character–it’s not even drawn to look like a cute or clever Nintendo creation, just some mash-up of weird parts.

- The games are not creative or whimsical at all. There’s one where you drive go-karts around to pop balloons; a 1v3 minigame where you are seated in weird bird-shaped planes and you try to avoid having your 2 ballons from getting shot; a game where you just shake your controller as hard as possible to flag down a ship to rescue you from a deserted island. When you’re playing with a group of people, none of the minigames makes you and your friends want to shout in excitement or defeat after a close and challenging match–there’s just no feeling of thrill or satisfaction.

- To a previous reviewer’s point, the game only makes incidental use of the wiimote and its full capabilities. The majority of the games have you holding the controller old-school style, where your left hand controls up-down-left-right and the right hand hits the 1 or 2 buttons.

I hope the publisher comes up with some new ideas for the next installment in the series, where the wiimote’s full range of motions is incorporated into the minigames. I probably would have given MP 8 a worse rating, if it weren’t for the fact that I bought it used on Amazon for $[...], including shipping. For those considering a purchase, I recommend that you also buy it used.

4 Stars It’s Party Time!
I’ve owned this game for so long, and I still love it. It’s not like I’m addicted to it or anything like that, just it’s fun to play some party games once in a while. Mario Party 8 doesn’t fail to pick up the path that the previous Mario Party’s left for it. This time, you get to use the Wii-Mote! There are really only two down-sides to this game.

1) If you don’t have people to play with, think about picking this game up. Single player finishes quickly (although the Bowser place is really hard)and if you want to enjoy party games with three computers, then you might want to set them to different difficulties. Hard/Very Hard would be too easy, but Easy/Normal would be too hard. Try setting the opposing team with the same difficulty as your team.

2) I love the duel mini-games, but you only get to play them when you use Duelo Candy, and there’s a lot of them that I like (Lasso, Card, Construction, etc.). It sort of sucks that I have to use a candy and be near some one just to play those mini-games.

That’s all of the negatives I have. Try thinking about previous Mario Party’s, then think about using the Wii-Mote to interact in most of the mini-games. If you haven’t owned previous Mario Party’s and have people to play with, then go for it!

4 Stars my 5 year old grandson was estatic. He had been exposed by his friends. Now he has his own.
My grandson is 5-1/2 years old. He wanted this game for some time. I live in VA & he lives in CT. I had the game sent to him. He is very pleased that he has his very own now.

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We Cheer

Prepare to clap your hands, stomp your feet and bring it on!

Putting players at the center of a nationwide cheerleading competition, We Cheer utilizes two Wii Remotes* as virtual pom-poms to create an authentic cheerleading experience. Players must move the wireless Wii Remotes as directed by the on-screen indicators to choreographed routines, utilizing a full range of arm and body movements such as spins and twists.

Ready, and!

Character & squad customization. View larger.

Follow the prompts in singleplayer. View larger.

Bring it on against a friend. View larger.

Line up for four-player action. View larger.

As each routine is successfully performed, the player will be able to recruit new team members to their squad, adding new cheerleading abilities and choreographed routines. The first cheerleading video game to offer licensed music, We Cheer features 30 smash-hit master recordings for players to perform to, including tracks from Hilary Duff, Aly & AJ, The Plain White T’s and Natasha Bedingfield. Letting friends and family participate in the cheerleading fun, We Cheer features cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes for up to four players to determine who deserves to stand at the top of the pyramid. The game also features a workout mode that lets players keep track of approximately how many calories they have burned while cheering. Each character in the game is fully customizable, with a variety of uniforms, shoes and accessories to choose from for added personalization.

Key Game Features:

• Hit Songs – Dance and cheer to 30 smash hits from the hottest artists of the past, present and future. With an endless variety of music genres to choose from – rock, hip hop, dance or even disco, there is something for everyone to groove to.
• Endless Character Customization – Create your ultimate cheerleader by customizing her with the perfect competition outfit. Choose from a variety of tops, bottoms, shoes and more that will make your cheerleader look super cute and ready to perform her best on stage.
• Engaging Modes – Choose a mode that suits your mood. Burn some calories in Exercise Mode, compete for the Captain position in 2-player Campaign Mode, or play with up to 4 players in Party Mode and show everyone who is #1 on the team.
• Real, Active Gameplay – Get totally immersed in the competition, using your entire body. to spin, kick, jump and dance to various choreographed routines. Not only can you cheer and dance, you can also recruit new squad members, unlock new teammates, outfits, songs and more.

The Complete Tracklist:

* Gameplay requires each player top have two remotes each (not nunchucks), except in four-player where each player only uses one.

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Would be great if it actually taught the dances!
This game reminded me of nightmares I had as a high school cheerleader: I show up for a performance and everyone knows the dance but me. I bought this game half for cheer nostalgia and half for exercise. Because the game has no teaching portion for the routines, you have to fumble along through difficult dances. I felt more likely to hurt myself trying to keep up and plan to resell this game. Kudos to all of you who can pick up a complicated dance the first time, but I need a little more to make this game worth my while.

4 Stars Fun game overall but challenging
You are in for heck of a work out for your arms. A lot of fun but very tricky to complete a song. I have played this for 2 hours today and have yet to complete the first song. I am 35 years old, great game to add to your workout / dance collection. Not sure how 8 year olds pass this game but very fun just the same!

5 Stars Fun and good exercise
Love it. It’s fun and good exercise. And there’s a few good songs too. Make sure you have 2 wii-motes. I like that you can easily skip through all the needless chatter.

5 Stars My daughter loved it at first, but I don’t see her playing it now
This was cute, my daughter loved it at first, but now she never puts it in to play. I am not sure why. She says she needs me to do it with her. What she needs is a sibling. But she did like it.

5 Stars Most fun Wii game of them all!
This game is so much fun! it was easy enough to pick up the moves but challenging enough to not beat every song on the first try-and after you beat them on the normal mode, try again on the hard mode, same song-it just adds more moves. It really makes you get up and dance, even tho you do not have to move your feet, I found myself trying to really mimick all the foot movements as well..I was looking for a game that made me move/exercise but was still fun..I’m in my 30’s-had songs I remember from high school plus songs my 10 year old daughter knew as well..

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