Set aside Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy, here comes a trio of mature Wii titles.

By TAN KIT HOONG

If you think the Nintendo Wii is all about party games and Wii Sports, then think again.

While the first wave of games for Nintendo’s console were mostly made for the casual gaming crowd, this year we’re starting to see a surge of mature titles for hardcore gamers.

Considering the phenomenal worldwide sales of the console, game companies have started to sit up and take notice, and since December, titles meant for hardcore gamers have already started to appear.

Before we go any further, however, be aware that these games feature tons of violence and/or swearing and as such are really meant for mature players only.

So, parents don’t go buying these games for your ten-year old.

GRAPHIC: Call of Duty: World at War is a very realistic game with spurting blood and flying body parts.

Call of Duty: World at War

The venerable Call of Duty series has always been a high water mark in first-person war titles and surprisingly, Call of Duty: World at War (CoD: WaW) shows that the franchise hasn’t lost any of its lustre.

While Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare saw the move to a contemporary setting, CoD: WaW goes back to the game’s World War II roots and shows that there’s still life in the setting yet.

Okay, so the game was technically launched in November last year, but bears inclusion here simply because it is one of the best first-person shooters currently available on the Wii.

Despite the inevitable lowering of graphics quality due to the console’s rather modest hardware specifications, the game developer has done a really good job of translating the entire game experience from the more powerful consoles to the Wii.

Not only do you get all the missions, but the overall look and feel is exactly the same as on the other platforms, even down to the multiplayer modes.

The only things missing — the online multiplayer mode are a little limited (only free-for-all and team deathmatch are available) and the fun zombie Nazi level that you get as a reward for completing the game on other consoles is missing here.

While I certainly lament the missing zombie level, what there is in the Wii version of CoD: WaW is pretty darned good.

I literally sat up for days playing it and after completing the game I immediately replayed a few of my favourite levels over again, risking repetitive stress injury.

The designers of CoD: WaW have come up with an interesting episodic game with each level alternating between you playing a Russian soldier in a campaign to push the Germans out of your homeland and an American soldier trying to drive the Japanese out of the Pacific islands.

NEVER BORING: The sheer variety of missions in CoD: WaW also keeps things interesting for the player.

The game’s diversity of environments and missions is what makes it stand out as a game — you get to battle deep into the jungle in one level, while another level you’ll be a sniper taking out key members of the German army.

On yet another level you get to drive a tank to take out various German bases.

Overall, the game is varied not only in gameplay but also gives you a variety of weapons such as a cool flamethrower where you can indulge in your pyromaniac fantasies.

Since it’s included in our mature gaming article here, it’s also worth mentioning that the game is brutal.

The horrors of war are certainly not glossed over for a more family-friendly title and the violence is conveyed in a fairly realistic manner.

However, what makes cool flamethrower a standout title on the Wii as compared with other consoles is the control scheme — there’s just nothing like the Nanchuk and Wiimote for giving you a real feeling of being involved in the game.

You can control movement with the Nanchuk’s analogue stick ,and of course aiming and shooting is done by pointing the Wiimote and pressing the B button.

The controls are well thought out and it won’t take you long to get used to the control scheme, which is a major plus point for the Wii version compared with other consoles.

Overall, Call of Duty: World at War is possibly the best first person shooter on the Wii and certainly worth buying if you’re looking for a game of this type.

ZOMBIE ALERT: The graphics in the House of the Dead: Overkill is easily one of the best available on the Wii.

House of the Dead: Overkill

Sega’s classic House of the Dead series started life in the arcade and then eventually moved on to the Wii, where with it’s Wiimote point-and-shoot controls, it found its natural home.

While the various House of the Dead games before this one were largely ports of the arcade versions, House of the Dead: Overkill makes its debut as an exclusive title for the Wii.

That’s not the only difference between Overkill and its predecessors , however while still essentially an on-rails shooter, the game has been extensively redesigned both in look and in tone.

The game goes all out to look like a cheesy B-movie, complete with scratches on the film and an over-the-top story featuring Agent G and the foul-mouthed Isaac Washington going after zombie (or rather “mutants” as the game insists on calling them) creator Papa Ceaser.

Coupled with an excellent 70’s style soundtrack, the game takes the tired old on-rails shooter and puts a shiny new veneer on it.

The result is an extremely fun (and funny) game that’s really worth checking out, even if you’ve never been a fan of on-rails shooters before.

Overkill is easily one of the best-looking games on the Wii and features some very nicely-rendered backgrounds and character models, from somersaulting zombie clowns to killer zombie nurses.

The game is very easy to complete but it’s a fun ride all the way, and the replayability factor is high as there are a lot of bonuses to collect in each level that you might have missed the first time through.

Completing the game will unlock a Director’s Cut mode of the game which offers slightly different levels and more zombies.

If that’s not enough, there are also various timed challenges you can get into, such as surviving an ever-increasing zombie horde, or saving civilians from being killed by zombies.

The one problem with the game is that in particularly busy and intense sequences you get frame drops and delays which is a drag but not serious enough to be a deal breaker.

DYNAMIC DUO: Agent G and the foul-mouthed Isaac Washington are the unlikely duo tasked with taking down zombies.

What makes the game a real winner is the voice acting and over-the-top script — more often than not, you’ll laugh your head off listening to the conversation between Agent G and Isaac Washington.

What makes this a mature title is not so much the gore, which it has in spades, but that the character of Isaac Washington is based on some of the more, shall we say, “colourful” Samuel L. Jackson characters, and drops the F-word liberally in almost all his sentences.

If you’re a mature Wii gamer, you’ve got to add this game to your collection.

SEEING RED: The only colour in MadWorld is the splash of red from blood.

MadWorld

If you thought Overkill was violent, then you haven’t seen MadWorld.

Just released on the market by Sega and developed by Platinum Games, MadWorld is an extremely stylish game for the Wii which takes cartoon violence to another level.

Designed to look like a black-and-white graphic novel (think Frank Miller’s Sin City) with the only colour being the red of blood and yellow for certain objects.

COMIC BOOK LOOK: Each end of level boss in MadWorld is drawn with the same attention to detail and over-the-top costumes as most comics.

MadWorld puts you into the shoes of Jack — a new entrant into the Death Watch game in Varrigan City.

Much like the movie Death Race, Death Watch is a reality game show thought up by some evil genius in Varrigan City who has blocked the city out from the rest of the world and automatically enrolled every citizen in a game of death.

The object of the game is to kill or be killed — and this is where the fun comes in. As the beefy Jack (who looks a lot like Hellboy), you can fire up the chainsaw attached to your right arm to take out your opponents or make use a variety of objects you find along the way.

While the chainsaw is fine, MadWorld’s main hook is that it allows you to utilise a lot of objects you find, such as signposts, rubbish bins and rubber tyres to perform a variety of takedowns on your opponents. In fact, the more combinations of these methods that you utilise, the more points you earn.

For example, you can jam a rubber tyre on your opponent, then stab him with a street sign and finally throw him into a spiked wall called the “Rose Bush.”

The purpose of collecting points is to earn enough to be able to join the boss battle.

Along the way, you also get a so-called “Bloodbath challenge” which are mini-games within the level for you to earn extra points.

These bloodbath challenges are actually quite entertaining — some of the milder ones include playing darts, with your opponents taking on the role of the darts!

As you can see, MadWorld is possibly one of the most violent games on the Wii, but the cartoonish look the developers have given it make it a lot more palatable than if the gore had all been lovingly rendered in full-colour 3D.

This look really works on the Wii’s limited graphics capabilities and looks phenomenal, although it is sometimes difficult to distinguish some collectible objects since they don’t really stand out in the background.

Nevertheless, MadWorld is a mature title worth getting — if the violence weren’t enough, there’s also a lot of naughty humour from the two commentators which give a constant, often hilarious running commentary of the action on-screen.

While it’s essentially a beat-em up game, what surprised me the most is that there is actually more story than I would have imagined.

The plot involves a virus and you’ll find out the real reason for Jack joining the Death Watch game which is more interesting than it needs to be in a game like this.

If there’s one criticism of the game it’s that it’s rather short.

You can complete it in about five hours or so but that’s five hours of visceral, over-the-top entertainment, which is probably better than most games which play long but leave you dissatisfied.