Nintendo Wii Reviews

Rock Band 2 Triple Cymbal Expansion Kit

The Officially Licensed Rock Band 3 Cymbal Expansion Kit from Mad Catz lets you drum like the pros do. With the easy-to-install mounting bracket, you have total control and can setup your drum kit in any configuration you see fit. The color-coded wing nuts let you mount and configure to any available cymbal you wish to use: yellow for Hi-Hat, green for Crash, and blue for Ride. Simply attach the velocity-sensitive cymbal and corresponding wing nut to match your connection then attack your song library with new vigor to achieve the next step in drumming perfection.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars A more immersive experience
The Cymbals add a surprising amount the realism and immersion to Rock Band 2, not to mention they’re just plain cool. Their sensitivity has never been an issue and durability seems great so far. I can’t speak for the the 1 and 2 cymbal product, but the 3 seems the way to go. Being able to actually hit Crash to initiate star power never gets old.

Finally, you can feel a bit more like Ringo Starr with these babies.

5 Stars RB2 cymbal pack works GREAT with BEATLES ROCK BAND!
Although the RB2 cymbal pack clearly states in the product description that it is “FOR ROCK BAND 2 ONLY”, That statement was made BEFORE BEATLES ROCK BAND was even conceived, and only means that it will not work with the ROCK BAND “1″ drum kit. It plugs right into and works perfectly with the BEATLES ROCK BAND drum kit. I own this cymbal pack, and it looks quite nice installed on the kit, and works really well! MAD CATZ licensed the ROCK BAND name, and it is molded right into the cymbals, making them look as if they came with the kit. (they should have)

If you have BEATLES ROCK BAND, don’t hesitate to buy these at this great AMAZON price! These look and work great!

HINT FOR USE: leave the color-coded cymbal nuts a little loose. This allows more realistic cymbal action, and eliminates the problem of double hits being registered when you hit the cymbal only once. This can happen with all rock music games that have drum kits when the cymbals are tightened down too tight)

3 Stars A buzzkill because they’re too loud.
I was anxiously waiting for the Beatles Rock Band package to come out, and I was also excited to get the 3-cymbal expansion pack for the upgraded wireless drums. That way, I surmised, it would be a good substitute for a wireless drumset, right? I had been using the an RB1 set that a friend wasn’t using, so I was well aware of how loud the original was. When I finally got the Beatles RB set, I was blown away at how much quieter they were-you could actually hear the song! So to complete my set, I ordered up the cymbals right away. I haven’t had any of the sensitivity issues or other problems that so many other people complain about, but I was immediately bummed when I discovered how loud they were when you strike them with a drumstick. I’m going to say that they’re actually louder than the RB1 drums. Lame. If I had known I how much louder they were than the actual drum pads, I probably wouldn’t have bought them.

It’s still turns your kit into an impressive-looking setup, and it definitely makes playing more fun and a more accurate simulation to playing the real drums. However, if I fool myself too much into thinking that it’s a real drumset, I start PLAYING it like a real drumset, which goes against the whole RockBand goal: you’re not playing an instrument, you’re trying to achieve a score. So when I get myself too worked up and into playing, my score winds up being worse.

Furthermore, this is NOT a replacement for an electronic drumset. Aside from the distracting “SMACK!” every time you hit a note, the cymbals and the drums don’t register anything faster than a 16th note, there’s no hi-hat pedal, you have to turn the volume all the way up to be able to only hear the sound of the drums, etc, etc, etc. I’m a guy who enjoys playing real music with real instruments AND getting together with friends to have a simulated rock-out, but the line separating the two hasn’t been blurred enough just yet.

1 Star WARNING – Does not work in Lefty Mode!
I was very excited when I bought these, as I thought they would make the RB2 drumming experience more realistic by reserving the drum pads for tom sounds only. But when I set them up, I found that in Lefty Mode, they simply mirror the sounds of the respective pad correspoinding to the port they’re plugged into (so either snare, hihat, or mid-tom), while the drum pads still made their old sounds. And yes, I checked in non-Lefty Mode and they work exactly as advertised.

Nowhere on MadCatz’ or Harmonix’ websites is this mentioned, and when I called EA/Harmonix support, they told me to contact Mad Catz, as it was a hardware issue. I really don’t see how Mad Catz can solve this, since the ports are controlled by the drum set.

Very disappointed, and awaiting response from Mad Catz. I’ll most likely be returning these.

3 Stars Great concept, poor execution
The cymbals work great and would be a fantastic addition to rock band if only they weren’t so crowded. The pole attachments place them right over your drum pads and even the best drummers in my circle get frustrated with them.

Buy/More Info

Hasbro Family Game Night

Join your host, Mr. Potato Head, as you and your family play classic Hasbro games, as well as exciting new versions of old favorites created for the Nintendo Wii. Hasbro Family Game Night features family favorites such as Connect Four, Battleship, Yahtzee, Boggle, SORRY! and the all new, SORRY! Sliders.

Key Game Features: Classic Games – Play the classic games that you know and love. Play like Never Before – Exciting new ways to play every game – like Connect Four Power Chips, Boggle Portal Cubes, Reverse Yahtzee and Battleship Barrage. Deck Out Your Very Own Game Room Choose the game room theme that’s right for you. Earn new game themed trophies, furniture and decorations to customize your game room Host a Game Party – Quickly build a custom Party Game by choosing your favorite games, number of players, and time you want to play.

Screenshots:

Boggle. View larger.

Connect Four. View larger.

Game room customization. View larger.

Battleship. View larger.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Fun for the family
This is a great game for the whole family. Younger children may need assitance but overall it is easy. Good for 8 and up.

2 Stars Seroius Interface Issues Interfer with Fun
My husband gave this to me as a gift so we could play together. There are several interface problems that really interfered with the fun we know we can have with these games. First, difficult switching between players to see our “rooms” and “awards” — you have to add and remove people. Second, over sensitivity and under sensitivity both with the controller so that what you point at changes or your actions are difficult to control. Third, Mr. Potato Head gets repetitive quickly and his controlling the viewpoint is annoying. Finally we are very annoyed that we can’t choose our own color of pawns for games — we have established colors we use on these sorts of things offline and it would be nice to use the same on the game.

Now there are good things, too,though I must mix them with more criticisms to be honest. The “Battleship” graphics are fun though frankly they could be zoomed in more. We like the shaking of the dice for “Yahtzee” but again we wish it had a “triple” option since that is the version we like best. The timer and word list for Boggle is a good touch, frees us from a timer and dictionary but we wish it could zoom in more and we noticed the words are censored — perfectly good words are not allowed sometimes simply because they may have a “vulgar” connotation. Please have a child safe option but we are adults playing this.

2 Stars Family Game Night Frustrations
We love these board games and so it was the first game we bought for our new Wii. Perhaps a mistake.

The dice are so small in Yahtzee that you can hardly see them. Picking them isn’t intuitive and scoring is hard. I often end up taking a zero for something because I can’t figure out how to get my score in the right box.

Sorry doesn’t play by normal board rules so that took some getting used to. Why wouldn’t you use the same rules? You don’t get five cards in Sorry, you pick one per turn. Having five cards and trying to figure out what you can do with them on the board is frustrating.

2 Stars not worth the money!
This looked really fun for the whole family when I bought it. My 8yr old is the only one still playing it. The games are very slow and it takes so long to get anywhere with the game. Big waste of money! I will be selling mine

3 Stars Fun overall with a little trouble
I have a couple Hasbro games for the Wii and it seems that with both I have to do a workaround to get more than one remote to work. I have to put in a Mario game (or non hasbro) link the second remote and then put in the Hasbro game to get it to read that other remote. Otherwise you have to share which is a pain. Otherwise overall the games are fun and there are varieties of each so you don’t get bored.

Buy/More Info

No More Heroes

You are Travis Touchdown, a normal guy (with an otaku geek streak) who wins a Beam Katana through an online auction and uses the weapon to start a new career as a professional killer. One day, an assassin named Helter Skelter appears before Travis and the two face off in a battle. Travis emerges victorious and finds himself in the presence of Silvia Christel, a mysterious French woman who claims to be an agent with the UAA. Silvia gives Travis official rank of 11 in the organization. Now, it’s up to you to become #1. No More Heroes takes place in the city of Santa Destroy, and you are free to explore the town to your liking, taking on missions large and small to collect money and purchase new weapons as you work up towards the 10 main killing contracts. Gameplay is all about using your Beam Katana (via Wii remote) to defeat enemies.

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star sorry garbage
repetitive, uninteresting, unchallenging gameplay. you will be bored almost INSTANTLY.

even at $10 (used), i feel ripped off. “No More Heroes” is the gaming equivalent of muzak, or beer dregs.

4 Stars Awsome.
If you like games where you slice the hell out of people in an insane over the top kind of way, or if you like collecting luchador masks or snarky t-shirts, then this is the game for you! I had a great time with this game. It’s a little on the short side, but if you try to find all of the hidden items, it stretches out the game a few more hours. Some people say that this game get repetitive and boring after a while. Well, I disagree. I found it very entertaining throughout the entire game.

5 Stars Over the top Fun
Short and sweet: Best game on the Wii. Nothing but over the top action. Yeah, the overworld stuff kinda blows, but that should be remedied in the sequel. Can’t wait!

Best boss fights in a game ever!

3 Stars Interesting to say the least
Good – Interesting story line, good and bloody, and one of the few Mature rated games out there. Game play is smooth and has good use of controllers. If you just want to kill kill kill then this games for you, not a whole lot of thinking or strategy needed. Fun mini games to earn money.

Bad – Interesting use of graphics, but hard to see whats happening in some modes. Once you figure out how to fight a couple of the bosses you can use the same tactic on all other bosses. Not high replay value and gets kinda boring after a while as not a lot of new challenges and no real AI in enemies. Made for the testosterone crowd.

Recommendation – Nice bit of fun for the price, but not a must have for the Wii library.

5 Stars Kick Ass game!!
Great game!! violent Ass hell, also very funny, and a bit long. But it can get a bit repetitive

Buy/More Info

Game Party 2

Game Party 2 is the ultimate Wii party game for players of all ages and skill levels. It features new games like Bean Bag Toss and Horseshoes, as well as classics like Shuffleboard and Hoop Shoot. Every game has exciting new features like four player mode, customizable characters and tournament play.

11 Games In All – Bean Bags, Horseshoes, Lawn Darts, Puck Bowling, Quarterback Challenge, Trivia, Hoop Shoot, Ping Cup, Shuffleboard, Skillball, Darts

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars A Good Variety of Games
I got this because I was looking for something that had all your typical amusement games, or, what I call bar games. It has darts, shuffleboard, skiball, lawn darts and more. It is a great little collection of games for the price. It does take a few times to understand the rules and scoring (how I learned to play was different that in the game). The only down side is that you can’t use your own Miis and the characters in the game have annoyingly repetitive movements. Otherwise, this is a great game for a small gathering.

3 Stars Fussy to set up but a good variety of games
After playing the original games the Wii came with, this was a little fussier to set up. We also had to break some habits and develop new skills. There are enough games to not get bored quickly, and they are different from the original CD. Overall, it’s a good game with which to whet the electronic gaming appetite.

3 Stars Fun, But Really Repetitive
This game should be banned by the AMA due to causing the proliferation of carpal tunnel. Although fun, every single one of the games has almost the identical hand movement – whether underhand or overhand, you are always moving the Wii remote with the same motion. After playing with my son for about 30 min, I had to take a break and my wrist still aches tonight.

The games are pretty good – although some of them are pretty finicky with a fine line between throwing too hard and too soft. Lawn darts (and I assume horse shoes, which we haven’t tried yet) is hard to judge as the dart goes up off the screen and then hits – you just have to guess how hard to throw until you get it right. Skiball seems almost too easy – I just threw the ball as often as I could with a nice, straight motion and I could regularly score above 1000 (which I can’t do in real life). The football, toss on the other hand, was almost impossible – at least the first time around.

So for $20, this is probably a good value. Lots of different games, multi-player tournament mode, and the ability to play for tickets to buy more characterization tools are all bonuses. Just be careful how much you play. In my opinion, no matter how touchey the controls or how difficult the game at the onset, it isn’t anything that you can’t improve on to the point that the game can be quite enjoyable. Just know going into it that you aren’t getting some polished $49.99 game and you won’t be disappointed.

3 Stars Fairly good set of games
Throwing horse shoes with this game is nothing like the real thing, unlike many of the other Wii games. It’s hard to get the horse shoes to go or land where you think they will land. You can’t “spin” the horse shoe. You can’t look down from above, to see how the horse shoe landed, just look from your end, which doesn’t tell you anything. Many look like “leaners”, but when scored, you find out they aren’t. Give me the real thing every time, compared to this game. But, the other games aren’t too bad.

1 Star The worst wii game I have played.
The method of play is repetitive in that you play every game exactly the same with the exception of slight arm variation. The games themselves are far more boring than wii play and certainly wii resort or like-minded party games. On top of this, the game has glitches that prevents players from consistent play on timed games. Overall, just really subpar.

Buy/More Info

Wii

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Great Inexpensive Game for EVERYONE!
I bought this for my daughter last year for Christmas and we all love it. I enjoy being able to go on the internet and shop. and I like all the games that even I can play with her and how it can have parental controls and time limits and how long she spends on each game. We don’t have that many though. I personally love Wii Fit. i think it is fun and I am really getting a workout. the console is small and fits almost ANYWHERE in our TV stand. Sooo easy to set up and use. The controllers are very accurate on the screen. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

PROS

-No freezing (for me)

-Accurate Controllers

-Fun Features and Accessories

-Rechargable Battery Option

CONS

-Controller Batteries need to be changed a LOT

-Once you connect it to the internet, the little power light flashes brightly

OVERALL A GREAT DEVICE!

2 Stars One year of owning….and now it’s sold.
Let me start this off by saying I’ve always been a fan of Nintendo. I grew up playing the original NES, loved the SNES, had over 20 games for N64…and then Nintendo started to be a let down with the Gamecube. Yes the gamecube had some quality titles, but were the handful enough to justify owning the system? Not for me. When the Wii came out I was VERY skeptical and had a feeling I’d end of passing it up. Well after some more consideration I thought it might be something fun for me and my wife to play (before I sound too old here, note I’m in my 20’s). After weeks of searching hard to track down the Wii I finally managed to buy one.

The system started out fun, I enjoyed playing Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros, etc. Basically the system had those typical quality first part Nintendo titles. Flash forward and Mario Kart was released and was definitely interesting to play, though personally I preferred the control precision offered with an analog stick and not the wheel. After about 6 months more of the system sitting around collecting dust I kept searching and searching for quality Wii games…they were no where to be found. Yes the system has some great titles, but once again just a small handful like the gamecube did. It seems 96% of what’s released on the system are poorly thrown together mini games that score 4.0-6.0 ratings and just flat out suck. I can’t tell you how many times I stopped to look at the Wii games in Electronics only to be disappointed time after time with what’s available. Overall Nintendo is *STILL* lacking quality third party titles.

Graphics completely aside, all this time while the Wii was sitting I was getting tons of use out of the PS3 with many great titles. To me the Wii isn’t quite the bargain everyone makes it out to be. Just because the initial system purchase seems small does *NOT* mean the overall cost of ownership is. I spent just as much money on the Wii as I did my PS3 once you factor in grabbing a couple controllers / other shells needed for games. That is the whole point of the system right…to play with other people and have fun? Nintendo makes a KILLING on remotes for this thing. Sure..$199 for the system with the price drop, plus $40 for another WiiMote + 20 dollars for another Nunchuck…oh but wait now there’s “Wii motion plus” ok another 20 dollars for each controller you own. These costs add up very fast.

Nintendo also seems to enjoy crippling their own services. So they offer all those games via the Wii Shopping channel, the games that you can only put on a 512mb internal storage or 2gb SD card…are you kidding? In the day in age where you can get 8gb flash drives for $29, 4gb microsd cards the size of your pinky for $13…I think Nintendo could of offered a better means of giving us storage for the games. Personally to me, the Wii is NOT worth the $250 it was launched for and still isn’t worth the $199 it’s now selling for. When you look at what the console is capable of doing in comparison to it’s competition it’s nowhere even close and I don’t mean just graphically. Both the 360 and the PS3 offer tremendously more features. Yes the Wii has the motion sensing controller but it seems very few developers make good use of it and even the games that do make interesting use of it..you still lose precision more often than not over a standard (and much more comfortable to hold for long gaming sessions) controller.

It also really annoys me that other than the games running at a max of 480p resolution, Nintendo offers no means of improving what old titles look like. Both the 360 and PS3 offer smoothing effects and also use anti aliasing to clean up the older titles and make them a lot clearer / more vivid. It amazes me that even the most poorly written emulators on the PC (sorry not illegal when I own the old systems / games) offer screen smoothing, anti aliasing, etc to make the games look SO much better, yet Nintendo doesn’t do this!

I realize hardware isn’t everything, but it is nice to feel immersed in a game with gorgeous graphics and detailed sound. Yes the Wii is selling good, it seems quite popular among families, that’s great. For myself, I sold it and recently bought the Holiday Bundle Xbox 360 elite. It’s already got more playtime than my Wii had in a year of owning it…sorry Nintendo but this was my last let down system from you!

4 Stars NINTENDO WII
THIS CONSOLE IS VERY INTERACTIVE BUT THE GRAPHICS ARE TO SHORT FOR THIS GENERATION.YOU COULD GET MUCH FUN WITH SOME OF THE GAMES.

5 Stars The best gaming platform ever!
It took us a few years to get a Wii. When my son’s sixth birthday came around his grandma got him one, so we’re now getting exposed to the Wii experience.

I am amazed at how this game can get you off the couch (a much needed thing these days) and into action. Having only played Wii Sports so far, I find myself breaking more than a sweat after a few rounds of Boxing.

I cannot say enough good things about the Wii. Between the console and the Wii Fit Balance Board, we are looking at a brand new way to exercise and have a lot of fun at the same time.

5 Stars Just Plain Simple Fun For The Whole Family!
Whew! All the drawn out technically challenged reviews are not necessary.

Just know that this system, made by Nintendo holds up to it’s name. Your family from age 3 to 99 will certainly be entertained for many hours, days, & even nights to come. If you loved your GameCube, you’ll love this more. It plays all your gamecube games, and you can even use your old GC controllers as it has 4 ports for them.

The best thing of all is how we can just pop in our SD card from our digital camera and let the fun begin with slideshows and many unique editing features! Come on join the fun! Paint a mustache on Grama and add some sunglasses to your favorite pet! Add some great background music to your shows!

Even totally surf the interenet with your Wii!

It’s awesome!

Buy/More Info