Wii Offers Fun, Fitness and Horror for 2009 Christmas Season

The Nintendo Wii remains the top family-friendly gaming console, and this season will continue that trend, while the system also looks to branch out a little into more adult fare.

When looking for gifts related to the Wii this holiday season, here's some items your game player, or players, likely will be hoping to find under the Christmas tree this year.

Fitness fun

This year, Wii Fit Plus is being released and promises more mini-games and more intense exercise options. Wii Fit Plus is a sequel to last year's Wii Fit, which, along with its balance board accessory, revolutionized gaming and created the video game fitness craze. If you already have the Wii balance board, the Wii Fit Plus alone is around $20, which makes it a very good deal for the amount of fun.

If you're looking for a more serious workout, EA Sports recently released EA Active, which comes with a stretch band for strength exercises and a neoprene thigh holster to hold theWii remote so it can track your movements. EA Active doesn't require you to go through a bunch of preliminary workouts to unlock others, doesn't need the Wii balance board (though it can utilized) and features a 30-day challenge option.

Other fitness options include Punchout!, which isn't technically a fitness game but when used with the Wii balance board gives quite a workout from all the ducking and dodging of punches, and Gold's Gym Cardio Workout, which concentrates on exercises related to kickboxing.

Young gamers

Bakugan has become as big a hit as Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Yoh and the Wii is hoping to capitalize on that popularity this fall with Bakugan: Battle Brawlers. It's all ready been requested by our 7-year-old, who collects the Bakugan brawlers (alien creatures rolled into a ball until it's time to battle others) and now wants to see those fights on a TV screen, other than the cartoon for which the game is named. Produced by Activision, the developers seem to have taken their time to create a good game and not simply thrown together something to capitalize on the series' current popularity.

The New Super Mario Bros. Wii brings another installment of the loveable Italian plumbers making their way through a strange land. Based on the immensely popular Nintendo DS title of similar name, this game features up to four-players playing at once, with the ability to use your friends as weapons.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash Up is attempting to attract audiences used to the term smash up from Nintendo's Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Up to four players can play at once and the game is loaded with Turtles's characters from its 25-year history. Players can take on the roles of the Turtles or villains, each of whom have their own special moves and weapons. There is a story line to follow, or players can simply fight their friends in person or online in a variety of modes.

Oh, the horror

Nintendo Wii has not stepped to heavily into the horror genre, other than some Resident Evil titles and an adaptation of Chop Til you Drop, but that changes late into 2009.

First up is Ju-On: the Grudge, based on the Japanese horror films of the same name. This game isn't so much a horror survival game as it is a personal trip through a haunted house. There is no shooting or killing of monsters, but Ju-On offers a more psychologically chilling experience.

Dead Space Extraction is an on-rails shooter similar to House of the Dead, in which the gamer doesn't move characters around but scenes pass by the character as if riding on a train. Dead Space Extraction is a prequel to Dead Space and introduces new characters and weapons to the series.

Other horror survival games include a sequel to the Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles called Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles and another Silent Hill offering. Resident Evil has also gone the on-rails option, as well as returning to Raccoon City and two characters from the time of Resident Evil 2. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories continues the franchise's quality eerie settings and game play and has all ready won several awards from IGN Magazine.

Accessories

When gifting for the Nintendo Wii, one cannot forget the items that set the Wii apart from other gaming consoles, namely the controllers, or remotes. This year, Nintendo has issued a new Wii Motion Plus, which is an accessory designed to provide better control by more quickly and accurately reflecting movement in 3D space. In essence, it improves the accuracy of the Wii remote. It is currently being bundled with Wii Sports Resort, which in itself is a sort of sequel to Wii Sports which was bundled with the Nintendo Wii last year and introduced everyone to the Wii remote. Wii Sports Resort features new games, such as sword fighting, which would benefit greatly from more accurate motion detecting.

Other games being tied to the Wii Motion Plus are Grand Slam Tennis, Tiger Woods PGA 2010 and Virtua Tennis.

Nintendo is also releasing a new charger for the Wii remotes which will fit the Wii Motion Plus and the plastic covers that go over the remotes. The Wii Energizer Induction Charger allows Wii remotes to charge on rechargeable batteries while not in use, which can be a great savings if the games get played as much as they do at our house. We have one of the old chargers, and it's almost constantly in use.

Nintendo Wii is making sure this holiday season that gift givers have a variety of options to make Christmas just the start of a very busy season.

Sources:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/102/1026792p1.html

http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?Product%5FID=74704

http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?Product%5FID=74505