Great Nintendo Wii Gift Ideas for Christmas or Anytime: This Year's Hottest Wii Games
Maybe that Wii gamer on your list already has every Wii accessory known to man or just isn’t interested in a giant plush Mario toy. Maybe the gamer you’re buying for is interested in one thing and one thing only, games.
Fortunately, we’ve got you covered there too. Check out our picks for some of the hottest Nintendo Wii games that would make great gifts for Christmas or any occasion.
Wii Sports Resort
Like Star Fox 64 and Wii Fit before it, Wii Sports Resort is the latest Nintendo game to launch with a sweet new peripheral packed in. The included Wii MotionPlus accessory adds a whole new dimension of motion control to your Nintendo Wii.
Now, your controllers can sense and respond with true 1-to-1 fidelity, enabling unprecedented levels of control and immersion in Wii Sports Resort’s many awesome mini games including archery, sword fighting, and basketball.
When you give Wii Sports Resort, you’re giving both a fantastic game and a sweet peripheral that will be useful in many other games (including Tiger Woods 2010), so you’re getting a great value for the price.
Wii Sports Resort is a great party game, and it really shines when everyone has their own Wii MotionPlus and can compete head to head. Some of the events are incredibly intuitive, basketball for example, and effectively simulate the real-life motions of the activity.
Judging by Nintendo’s history, the MotionPlus is going to become a pretty much essential accessory for future game releases. What better way to get it than as a free pack in with a great game?
Boom Blox: Bash Party
I’ve extolled the virtues of the Boom Blox series in several other articles here on the site, and with good reason. Boom Blox and the sequel Boom Blox: Bash Party are among my all-time favorite Wii games. I’ve always been a fan of games that find compelling ways to utilize the Wii’s unique controls, and Boom Blox: Bash Party is one of the Wii’s best.
Part puzzle game and part action game, Bash Party has literally hundreds of levels for players to work through. Some levels have you using the Wii Remote to destroy towering structures by tossing baseballs and bowling balls. Others have you defending the structures using cannons, explosive blocks, and a slingshot. Still other levels charge you with carefully dismantling structures by painstakingly removing certain blocks, Jenga-style, while hoping to avoid a colossal crash.
Bash Party is one of the few games I’ve ever played to the point of injury, and then continued on because I didn’t want to stop. It would make a great gift for any gamer on your list.
Check out page two for more great game gift picks, including the hottest music game of all time and a great way to get a fantastic workout with your Wii.
Beatles Rock Band
Do you have a music fan on your list? Is the gamer you’re buying for a fan of the huge music game genre? Beatles Rock Band would be a perfect choice for either. Featuring the first appearance of Beatles music in any video game, Beatles Rock Band is a unique journey through the career and achievements of the Beatles.
Play along with a huge selection of songs taken from throughout the band’s long history, utilizing any combination of instruments (two drums, four guitars, whatever you wish), singing both lead and harmony vocals in historic Beatles performance venues from the Cavern Club to the roof at Savile Row.
Several packages are available, depending on how into music games your intended recipient is. The game itself retails for around 60 dollars, but various packages exist including guitar pack-ins designed to emulate the actual instruments used by the Beatles and the full band kit including microphone and drum setup.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
For the more hardcore gamer on your list, the latest installment in the excellent Ultimate Alliance series is a great choice. Players are able to choose from a stable of 24 of Marvel’s most popular heroes, including Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and Wolverine, and work their way through an epic conflict based on the Civil War event from a few years back.
Basically, the Marvel universe is torn apart by a government initiative requiring superheroes to register and work as government agents. One group, led by Iron Man, supports the initiative while another, led by Captain America, refuses to comply. Players must choose a side and work through the crisis, and their choices will determine which heroes are available to use throughout the campaign.
The gameplay is a top-down, 3D beat-em-up style, with definite Gauntlet influences. The gameplay is fast and fun, with players routinely being asked to plow through countless hordes of bad guys on their way to an objective. The game also has light RPG elements, allowing players to customize their powers and choose which to upgrade as they go along.
For the comic book or action game fan on your list, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is a fantastic choice.
Wii Fit/Wii Fit Plus
By now, pretty much everyone has heard of the workout phenomenon that is Wii Fit. There are those, however, who have still not jumped on the bandwagon. Basically, Wii Fit is a fun way to get some exercise and track your progress, and it comes with the nifty Wii Balance Board peripheral.
Wii Fit teaches Yoga poses, has a bunch of fun balance games, and includes a good number of exercises that you can use to lose weight and build muscle.
The basic Wii Fit package comes with the Wii Fit game and the Balance Board. Later this year, Nintendo is releasing Wii Fit Plus, which will replace the game with a more advanced version that includes 15 new balance games, six new yoga poses and strength exercises, and the option to customize your workout by selecting certain yoga and strength exercises and the length of your workout.
Wii Fit Plus will be included in a new bundle when it releases in early October. The stand alone disk will also be available for those who already own Wii Fit and can be purchased for less than 20 bucks.
If you’re looking for a great game for that Wii owner on your list, any of these great choices is sure to please. If you’re looking for some great accessory or merchandise ideas, be sure to check out the other sections of the guide.
