We all love a list, so every Tuesday we’re posting one, on a variety of retro-themed topics! Feel free to share your own favourites down below — and let us know what other lists you’d like to see on future Tuesdays!
Our rundown of 10 of the best cheap PS2 games seems to have gone down quite well, so we’re pleased and proud to present another fine list of games for a console that is very affordable to collect for these days: the Nintendo Wii.
The Nintendo Wii has, unfortunately, always been saddled with a bit of a reputation that its library is full of “shovelware”. This is at least partly down to the fact that the console was very successfully marketed as a family-friendly console that would appeal to even “non-gamers” — as such, among the library of cheap Wii games, there are a lot of dated licensed titles and attempts at party games that never quite match Nintendo’s efforts.
But there are also some real gems among the cheap Wii games out there — so let’s take a look at some of them that you can pick up for literal pocket change. As with our PS2 article, we’ll be using CEX as a guide to prices — but don’t forget to check eBay too, as you can occasionally bag a real bargain with a job lot.
Let’s get into it! All prices were correct at the time of writing (November 16, 2021), but may vary over time.
Mercury Meltdown Revolution
Mercury Meltdown Revolution is the sequel to a puzzle game by Archer “International Karate” Maclean. The Wii version is actually the third incarnation of the game; it initially released on PSP, then was ported to PlayStation 2 as Mercury Meltdown Remix and finally ported to Wii as Mercury Meltdown Revolution. The Wii version is arguably the definitive version, since it is expanded and tweaked from its two predecessors and features improved graphics.
In Mercury Meltdown Revolution, your goal is to tilt various stages in order to manoeuvre blobs of mercury to their destinations. Along the way, you’ll have to manipulate the state and colour of the mercury in order to bypass various obstacles. It’s a tricky but enjoyable puzzler — and certainly one of the more memorable cheap Wii games out there today.
Today’s price: 50p
Trauma Center: Second Opinion
Trauma Center: Second Opinion is the Wii remake of the classic frantic surgery game Trauma Center: Under the Knife, originally released for Nintendo DS. The Wii version features completely revamped graphics, excellent pointer-based controls and additional narrative content, and is a great way to enjoy the game.
Taking on the role of Dr. Derek Stiles as a mysterious new illness known as GUILT breaks out, it’s your job to work on patients under a series of increasingly challenging circumstances and get to the bottom of where this deadly threat has come from. Not just one of the best cheap Wii games, it’s one of the best Wii games, full stop — at this price you have no excuse not to give it a shot!
Today’s price: 50p
Boom Blox
This game, which made a big deal of the fact that Steven Spielberg was involved in development, is a great showcase of the Wii’s capabilities — as well as being an excellent physics puzzler in its own right. It also has some excellent multiplayer modes, making it a great game to play when you have friends over.
In Boom Blox, you’re presented with various puzzles that task you with either keeping structures made of blocks standing, or destroying them by throwing things at them. Spielberg’s aim for the game was to create a game that showed we can have fun by being creative and strategic as well as destructive — and he very much succeeded. Definitely one of the best cheap Wii games out there, and an essential part of any Wii library.
Today’s price: £1
Trauma Center: New Blood
It may be “cheating” to put two entries from the same series in this list, but Trauma Center: New Blood is worthy of consideration completely separately from Second Opinion because it’s an all-new original story rather than a remake of an existing title.
Featuring more polished visuals, full voice acting (English dub only, sadly) and more varied gameplay, Trauma Center: New Blood is, like its predecessor, not just one of the best cheap Wii games, but also one of the best Wii gams there is. Nab it now — and forever curse Atlus for not bringing the excellent follow-up Trauma Team to Europe.
Today’s price: £1
Battalion Wars 2
The follow-up to an oft-overlooked but beloved GameCube game, Battalion Wars 2, like its predecessor, is a spinoff to the Famicom/Advance Wars series. Rather than unfolding as a turn-based strategy game, Battalion Wars 2 is a “real-time tactics” game. You take direct control of units on the battlefield and order your comrades around as well as participating in combat yourself.
Battalion Wars 2 added a couple of major new features over and above its well regarded predecessor — most notably naval units, and base structures that could respawn downed units. It was well-regarded on its original release, and for the price you can nab it today it’s absolutely safe to call it one of the best cheap Wii games.
Today’s price: £1
Wii Music
Wii Music may have become something of a joke for many people on the Internet ever since its original release — but it’s actually built on some solid musical principles, and is an excellent “software toy” for exploring music and self-expression. Sure, there’s not much of a “game” here, but that was never what it was supposed to be about; it was always supposed to be an experimental title for simply exploring music, and it succeeds at that admirably.
I’d completely understand people being unwilling to take a chance on it at full price — but given what you can pick it up for today, it’s definitely worth spending some time with. And that makes it one of the best cheap Wii games there is!
Today’s price: £1
MadWorld
An oft-forgotten title from Bayonetta developer PlatinumGames, MadWorld should be part of every Wii owner’s library. It’s one of the most stylish games on the system, featuring a black, white and red aesthetic inspired by Frank Miller’s Sin City, and in true PlatinumGames tradition it features some immensely satisfying gameplay that combines elements of arcade games, beat ’em ups, hack-and-slash titles and modern character action games.
The game is extremely violent due to being designed primarily with a western audience in mind, but producer Inaba wanted to provide a humorous, slapstick element to the violence to make it more entertaining. To that end, he apparently played games like Manhunt 2 in order to specifically figure out what he wanted to avoid in MadWorld — and good job he did, ’cause MadWorld is one of the best cheap Wii games you can nab today.
Today’s price: £1.50
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure
One of Capcom’s most frequently forgotten games, Zack & Wiki is, like the Trauma Center series, not only one of the best cheap Wii games you can get today, but one of the best Wii games, full stop. It’s a point and click puzzle adventure in which you guide the eponymous Zack around various scenes attempting to retrieve treasure chests.
Unlike conventional point and click adventures, Zack & Wiki is split into discrete, self-contained levels, giving it a very distinctive feel. It was a complete commercial flop on its original release, but don’t let that dissuade you from picking it up for pocket change today — this really is a highlight of the Wii’s library.
Today’s price: £1.50
Eledees
An oft-forgotten title from Konami — are you spotting a pattern with these games yet? — and one of the most delightfully silly yet satisfying games on the platform. Eledees, also known as Elebits, is a first-person adventure in which you have to track down missing little electrical creatures that power things. In the process, you’ll completely tear a wide variety of physics-based environments apart, making for some of the most satisfying destruction in all of gaming.
Eledees is a great example of how the Wii’s unique control scheme can really work for first-person games like this — and given the price you can pick it up for today, it’s definitely one of the best cheap Wii games out there. An absolute delight.
Today’s price: £1.50
Geometry Wars: Galaxies
While Bizarre Creations’ excellent Geometry Wars is primarily known as a downloadable game, Wii version Geometry Wars: Galaxies had a full retail release. On top of the simple arcade-style gameplay of the original versions, Geometry Wars: Galaxies added a full single-player campaign mode called Galaxies mode, in which different stages challenge the player with distinctive mechanics or restrictions.
The game can be played either in its original twin-stick format using a Classic Controller, or using the Wii Remote’s pointer function to aim. It’s a great take on a genuine modern classic, and for the price it most certainly qualifies as one of the best cheap Wii games out there.
Today’s price: £1.50
So there you are. Ten great games for eleven quid, and not a single piece of “shovelware” in sight. Can’t argue with that sort of value, really, can you? And there’s plenty more great titles from the library of cheap Wii games that we’ve missed too — why not share some with us down in the comments?
