It seems like most every time I pick up a Wii game these days I wind up getting slightly freaked out about the whole thing and trying desperately to pin down where the hell the logic is in these things any more.  I’ve seen them make some truly baffling games so far, and frankly, the weirdness only continues.

Today I venture into the depths of Kororinpa Marble Mania for the Nintendo Wii, a game that left me asking the question, is anything so simple and mundane that they WON’T translate it into a Wii game?  I’ve played Wii games around cooking and cleaning and washing things…it’s like there’s no activity so pedestrian that Nintendo or one of its many tentacles (Hudson, I’m looking RIGHT AT YOU) won’t convert it to a game.  I’m eagerly awaiting Super Mario Scratch Your Own Ass, or perhaps Donkey Kong’s Throw Your Feces At Passersby.

Kororinpa Marble Mania, for example, is a game that revolves around rolling a marble down a series of passageways until you manage to roll the ball into a hole marking the end of the course.  Along the way, you’ll be required to roll your marble over red crystals and challenged to roll your marble over green crystals, thus adding a bit of admittedly rather tedious and pointless challenge to your marble rolling agenda.  You’ll roll over a variety of different courses, including courses with walls, courses without walls, courses with slopes and steps and even some traps.  You don’t want to try rolling your marble through honey.  It’s just not pleasant.

I admit that, on certain levels, Kororinpa Marble Mania is actually a mildly fun sort of puzzle chill game that doesn’t require you to do a whole lot, nor does it ratchet your adrenaline levels through the roof.  The best word, for example, to describe the background music is “soothing”.  Indeed, when it’s just you and your marble and rails on the track, the game is downright relaxing.  Take off the rails, however, and things can get a little dicey.  This is really only a problem, of course, because the Wii controls are not well suited to this one.  See, rather than, for example, holding your Wiimote in the eight-bit-game format, or using the nunchuk’s joystick, you’re going to do your track manipulation by pointing your Wiimote straight at the screen, remote control style, and then twisting it from side to side.  Setting up the controls in this way requires you to twist your wrist left and right to twist the controls, and any kind of fine movement in that fashion is pretty much impossible.  This means that you’ll essentially be rolling your marble around by sheer brute force, which is all fine and well if rails are in place, otherwise, it’s an open invitation to repeated failure.

I admit that I liked the idea behind Kororinpa Marble Mania, and enjoyed the game to a certain extent.  However, some very serious flaws in execution kept this game from being all that it truly could have been.  A few minor tweaks would’ve served this one well, and hopefully, the next installment will learn from its mistakes.

Well, congratulate me, folks—I’ve finally managed to lay hands on a Wii, one of those devilishly hard to find little systems with the massive array of games.  And what do I manage to get for it first?  One of the newest games out for it, Boom Blox Bash Party.

I’m discovering right away that Wii games are significantly harder to discuss than, say, Xbox 360 games because Wii games don’t seem to like things like plot.  So I can’t really do a recap on that, and that’s the case with Boom Blox Bash Party.  In fact, for a game developed by Steven Spielberg, you’d think it’d have more of an actual plotline to it, but no.  Basically, in Boom Blox Bash Party, you throw things.  At other things.  And repeat until a whole bunch of things have been knocked down or blown up or you’ve run out of chances to throw things at other things.  Yeah, I know, simplistic doesn’t even begin to describe it.

But here’s where things get weird.  Inside this tiny little framework of a game (throw stuff at stuff, repeat until out of stuff one way or another), they’ve jam-packed it with things to do.  You’ll throw things to try and knock down a huge tower.  You’ll throw things to try and disassemble a fort made out of what looks like wood blocks.  You’ll throw things to destroy a robot or hunt sunken pirate treasure.  You’ll throw things to make certain kinds of blocks disappear or explode or spread a kind of virus to other blocks and make THEM disappear.  You’ll screw around with turning blocks colors and moving blocks and throwing stuff at blocks and even using a kind of slingshot to shoot other blocks at each other.  You’ll play with ramps and drops and chain reactions.  Gravity will be both your friend and your enemy.  At some points, you will get to work a cannon.

You will search for weak points and the best shot and any of a dozen other things that make me wish I’d taken better notes in my high school physics classes, and I got an A in high school physics!

I found myself absolutely baffled.  How is this simplistic little game managing to serve up this much variety and be this downright entertaining besides?   It’s utterly beyond my capacity to explain, but one thing was clear—I had a LOT of fun playing this game.  In fact, it was hard to stop playing this game long enough to write a review about it.  My elbow is still just a bit sore from all the throwing.

There’s a lot to like about this game, whether you want to explore everything it has to offer (completionists be forewarned—this game WILL consume your life if you let it) or you just want some quiet time spent throwing stuff at stuff without a lot of cleanup time or losing your damage deposit afterward.  Boom Blox Bash Party is great and unfettered fun, the kind of fun that gaming used to be.  It’s definitely not the kind of game you’re used to, and in this market, that’s a HUGE plus.

Have you ever considered the difficulties involved with trying to kill moths…with a cannon?

I know, that got me too the first time I heard about recent addition to the Xbox Live community MothBallz–a game that requires you to do as I just said–kill moths with a cannon.  You’ll set the angle and the power level, then fire into the open room trying to kill the moths swarming around the light bulbs in the room…and do so without breaking the light bulbs.

This sounds a lot easier than it actually is, especially when you start getting multiple light bulbs involved, but sometimes you’ll actually be required to kill the light bulbs along with the moths.  This isn’t the kind of thing you see very often–I haven’t played a good round of bug killing since Stephen King’s F13.  And even better, you can enjoy all this bug killing frenzy for a measly two hundred Microsoft points.  You can almost hit the dollar menu for that kind of value.

It’s a fun little game, really, and at that kind of price, there’s almost no reason to NOT get it.

You’d never think that jigsaw puzzles could make for good console gaming, but the sheer fact that Puzzle Arcade exists on Xbox Live Arcade is all the proof anyone could need.  And you too can experience this proof for eight hundred Microsoft points.

Basically, I’ve already given you the plot–you’ll have a series of jigsaw puzzles to assemble all on your TV screen using your Xbox 360 controller, a concept that I had thought would be boring but turns out to be at least somewhat entertaining.  Between that and the music, it’s one of those excellent kind of “chill games” that you can sit down to with a hot cup of tea after a long day and just unwind with, slapping puzzles together, and without having to keep a whole bunch of cardboard boxes in your hall closet and find some decent smooth jazz.

It’s a very niche title, and definitely not for everybody, but if you can appreciate a game that’ll calm you down just as much as it’ll pick you up, then you’ll definitely enjoy a round of Puzzle Arcade.

I’ve talked about a lot of Xbox Live Arcade titles, and I have to admit, out of all the titles I’ve tried so far, I’ve never met one that was so enthusiastic about you winning as Peggle.

A strange sort of action / puzzle hybrid, which, frankly, I love playing, Peggle features you shooting balls at pegs in an attempt to clear a board of orange-colored pegs.  You’ll be able to hit green colored pegs for powerups like guide lines and the ability to light up surrounding pegs, and purple pegs will give you a score bonus.

Completing a level will allow your ball to continue moving, and any other pegs it hits will add to a score multiplier before your ball falls into one of five holes with different value scores.  When your ball finally DOES come to a stop, a cascade of fireworks will burst into life.  All of this is done to the tune of “Ode to Joy”.

See what I mean?  It’s a really over the top victory celebration.  Not that I’m not glad for it, mind you–I had a lot of fun solving this action packed puzzler–but still, if you like your games understated and subtle you won’t like this at all.  Meanwhile, I loved it, and I’ll recommend it freely to anyone else who wants to try.

One of the best puzzle games I’ve had the pleasure of playing recently is Puzzle Quest: Galactrix.  A beautiful three-way hybrid of RPG, action and puzzle, it’s got a great storyline and the kind of gameplay that keeps me coming back.

You’ll play a pilot in the service of a megacorporation that helped redeem earth from catastrophe and expanded outward into the stars.  Along the way you’ll battle pirates, mine asteroids, redeem bases from the grips of their automated defense systems and plenty more besides.  The galaxy is a pretty big place, and so, there’s plenty to do.

I love how they combined so many elements that probably shouldn’t have anything to do with each other and brought them together into a massive, beautiful whole.  This game is hours of fun, and all for sixteen hundred Microsoft points.  Try this sucker out–you won’t be disappointed!

Have you ever played those games that come with some computers, where you’re looking for hidden objects in a frame, and you have to click on these to get anywhere?  That’s exactly what one of the newest games on Xbox Live Arcade will have you doing–it’s called Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos.

And for those of you out there who are thinking PROFESSOR Chaos, yes, I’m with you–every time I hear Dr. Chaos, all I can think is Butters in tinfoil.  Anyway, DOCTOR Chaos (not PROFESSOR Chaos despite how truly awesome that would be) has just been broken out of prison by his three associates, and it’s up to you to round the three of them up by traveling the world, locating various clues, and clicking on them.

I really don’t favor these kinds of games myself, because I hate looking for “a radio” when I have no idea what they mean by “a radio”.  Are we talking a handset?  A transistor radio?  A CLOCK radio?  What?  There are dozens of different kinds and configurations of radio, but here I am, trying to find the one THEY mean by “radio”.

And it really doesn’t help that so much of the gameplay is just hunt and click.  Yes, you get a limited number of hints, but still, all you’re basically doing is clicking on a picture looking for random stuff that you’re not even a hundred percent sure what it looks like.

But if you really liked those find-the-hidden-whatever games when you were a kid, or want to pass on the love to the next generation, then Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos will be just what you’re looking for.

If you would have told me, as little as a week ago, that there was a way to make a crossword puzzle into a serious action-packed battle royale, I would have thought you were on something.  Seriously–the very idea is just lunatic.  But then I downloaded Merv Griffin’s Crosswords from Xbox Live Arcade, and I discovered that even a crossword puzzle can be jacked up and run at horrific speeds.

At first, you’ll be playing against one opponent, computer controlled or with another person.  You’ll be filling in answers on a giant crossword puzzle, and trying to do so before your opponent can.  Yes, it’s like a timed crossword puzzle.  Things get REALLY wild when so-called “spoilers” are introduced who are vying for your place in the action.  See, each CONTESTANT doesn’t really win anything.  If you answer a thousand-dollar question, you personally don’t get that money–your PODIUM does.  Whoever’s in control of the winning podium at the end of the game wins whatever’s attached to that podium, and this is where the spoilers step in.  If they answer a question before you do, they can take control of your podium away, and carry on as if they’d been winning all along.

I don’t know how many times, my first play through, I lost and regained control of podiums.  I’ve lost count.  But what really got me was that I was having a blast playing a game made by the guy who made Wheel of Fortune.  It’s hard to believe, but no matter how strange it seems, there’s no denying that it’s just plain fun.

So I found a new game on Xbox Live Arcade and discovered that puzzle games can have action too.  What kind of game could yield such a combination, you wonder?  It’s called Meteos Wars, and it’s avaiable on Live Arcade for the relatively low price of eight hundred Microsoft points.

You play one of several different alien races, engaging in a war to end the world-destroying Meteos.  If they stack up too high, you see, they’ll destroy your planet.  But, if you arrange them in groups of three, vertically or horizontally, you’ll launch them directly upward and, hopefully, off your planet.  You’ll also pass the danger on to your neighboring planet, who will thusly become more likely to be destroyed by the meteos.

The result is a surprisingly fun and fast-paced puzzle game with plenty of action.  The gameplay is smooth and almost completely intuitive–I managed to play the game for one round without even reading the instruction manual.  We need more interesting, original games like this, and I’m glad they can even be found in the first place.

When you’ve been gaming for a few years, you start to get used to seeing the same thing done over and over again with varying levels of success.  One of these terribly familiar tropes is the game collection game, essentially where a studio takes a large quantity of its earlier releases and bundles them together into one larger collection.  Namco’s done this several times, as has Capcom, but quite possibly the most frequent repackager is Sega.

And now, Sega brings us Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection on both PS3 and Xbox 360.

When they say “Ultimate”, I’m relatively sure they mean it.  How can I tell?  Check out the list:   Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Alien Storm, Alien Syndrome, Altered Beast, Beyond Oasis, Bonanza Bros, Columns, Comix Zone, Congo Bongo, Decap Attack, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, Dynamite Headdy, ESWAT: City Under Siege, Ecco the Dolphin, Ecco: The Tides of Time, Fantasy Zone, Fatal Labyrinth, Flicky, Gain Ground, Golden Axe, Golden Axe II, Golden Axe III, Golden Axe Warrior,  Kid Chameleon, Phantasy Star, Phantasy Star II, Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom,  Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium, Ristar, Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force, Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing, Shinobi, Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Spinball, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Space Harrier, Streets of Rage, Streets of Rage 2, Streets of Rage 3,  Super Thunder Blade, Vectorman,  Vectorman 2 and  Zaxxon.

This constitutes the single biggest list of Sega games that I’ve seen in one place outside of an Electronics Boutique in 1995.  Seriously, there’s something here for everybody.  The down side, of course, is that many of these games are games you’ve already played on other “ultimate Sega collections”.  By the time we get to the next generation of gaming, there will likely be another “ultimate Sega collection”, and maybe, just maybe, it will finally have Splatterhouse.  But then, I’m looking forward to the remake too, so maybe that means I’m just weird.

You can tell from the list that there are plenty of opportunities for fun here, whether you just like a quick casual beat-em-up like Streets of Rage or Golden Axe, or if you like a deeper RPG, there’s plenty of those too, just not with all the amazing graphics that we’re all so used to since Square-Enix pretty much refused to release a game without them.  The sheer versatility of the disk makes it well worth it to spend a little time with it—you could probably go for a couple weeks straight just sampling all the games.  Plus, if you’re an old school gamer like myself, you’re probably already neck-deep in a reminisce about the first time you played some of this stuff, or the first time you took on your friends in two-player, or maybe the time you got your girlfriend hooked on Sonic.  Possibilities all, and possibilities well remembered.

As an aside, it’s also very interesting to see the differences in gaming technology and perception on an anthropological level–used to be, you’d save your money for weeks to buy Streets of Rage.  Now you can play similar games online for free; they’re called “casual” games now.  What a difference a decade makes, huh?

Leaving aside the fact that this game is probably a horrible buy, because you’ve already bought one or two “Ultimate Sega Collections”, there’s a lot of reason to like it, even if you only just rent it.  There’s just too many fun things to do with this disk to turn it down outright.