![]() As Mario circumnavigates tiny planets, orbits asteroids, and rockets through the stars, it becomes clear that the only thing holding him in place is the game’s superb physics engine. Unlike previous games in the Mario series, however, Super Mario Galaxy frees its hero from anything resembling terra firma. Set in outer space, Super Mario Galaxy finds Nintendo’s beloved mascot once again rescuing Princess Peach from Bowser’s clutches. Just over a decade later, Nintendo perfected the 3D platformer with Super Mario Galaxy. In 1996, Nintendo created the first great 3D platformer with Super Mario 64. A well-received sequel, Wii Sports Resort, expanded on every aspect of the game a few years later, but Wii Sports – the game that opened the floodgates for motion controls (on the Wii or otherwise) and made video games welcome at hospitals, nursing homes, physical therapy clinics, and everywhere else in the world – is the game that will undoubtedly go down in history as one of Nintendo’s greatest hits. The game was a smash hit, and it shattered the sales record set by Nintendo’s own Super Mario Bros. Finally, it implemented the Mii system, allowing players to integrate their virtual persona into the action. Moreover, the game contained baseball, bowling, boxing, golf, and tennis, resulting in a variety of casual games that gamers of all ages and experience levels could enjoy. The Wii Remote transformed physical actions like swinging and waving into a stroke of a golf club or a swing of a tennis racket. Wii Sports put responsive functionality behind these motions and made them the centerpiece of the action. This game was Wii Sports.Įven the most hardened veterans will admit to playing an intense game on an old machine and moving the controller in an attempt to match the physical movement of the controller with the action on-screen. Second, Nintendo included a pack-in game that initially served as a hardware demo, but ended up a fantastic title that to this day defines the Wii more than any other game. First, Nintendo priced the Wii well below its competition. Nintendo also took two other steps to get the Wii into a large number of homes. The reason? Nintendo’s revolutionary motion controls worked surprisingly well, and they drew casual gamers out of the woodwork and created countless more. On paper, the technology inside the Wii was little more than a glorified GameCube, and its technical specifications were vastly inferior to Sony and Microsoft’s behemoths. In a business where the best model was to one-up the competition in a graphical arms race, the Wii should have been laughed into obscurity. Thus, the Wii was born in 2006, drastically changing Nintendo’s direction and cementing it as a major player in the increasingly competitive video game hardware market. With the Xbox 360 in full swing and the PlayStation 3 on the horizon, Nintendo needed a game platform that would distinguish Nintendo from its competitors. Nintendo’s GameCube took another beating from Sony’s PlayStation hardware in the subsequent generation, and it even lost out to Microsoft’s first console, the Xbox. The Nintendo 64 had placed second in sales to that generation’s newcomer, the Sony PlayStation. In the mid-2000s, Nintendo was at a crossroads. Regardless, the Nintendo Wii had relatively strong library of rather unique games Wii Sports ![]() ![]() ![]() Despite the system’s distinctive control scheme, not all of these “defining” games relied on motion controls (and some made use of motion-sensing even though it may not have been ideal). Despite the large number of releases – and the existence of dozens of “hidden gems” – not as many games actually “defined” the console compared to previous Nintendo consoles. ![]() The Wii and its revolutionary control scheme were a roaring success, and this success, in turn, resulted in hundreds of first- and third-party releases on Nintendo’s console. By: Prfsnl_gmr, Omerta, Flake, and RacketboyĬheck out the full lineup in the Defining Games Seriesįor better or for worse, the Nintendo Wii introduced the world to motion controls in late 2006. ![]()
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