WiiWare Games Launch on Nintendo Wii

Nintendo launched the first six Wiiware games on the Wii today and reviews are starting to appear for each title as Wii owners get a chance to download them and play with them for a bit.

Each games costs between 500 and 1500 Wii points (100 pts = 1 US Dollar). Wii points can be purchased either with a Wii points card (usually can be bought at videogame stores) or directly through the Wii Shop with your credit card.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King - FFCC is 1500 points ($15) and is the most expensive game you can buy through WiiWare right now, but it sounds like it is probably worth it. I think the best description is probably that it is similiar to a SimCity type game -- you build your own kingdom. You can spend more points buying additional items for your construction projects in your kingdom.

LostWinds - this is a platformer that costs 1000 points ($10). You use the Wii Remote to control the wind and fly your character around on the breeze. Looks very cute and graphically it's very pretty.

Defend Your Castle is based upon the flash game of the same name. You defend your castle from hordes of stick figures during the day and at night you use your points to fortify the castle and make it stronger. Looks like a fun timekiller for about $5, but that's about it. The graphics are entertaining.

Pop - This is another timekiller type game. You basically point your Wiimote at the bubbles and press A to pop them. You can create chains of bubbles of the same color to get more points. This one is 700 points ($7), but I think it would be better priced at 500 points since it seems pretty light.

V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack is a 3-d Casino Blackjack game. Umm yeah, doesn't seem to be much else to say about that, does there? It's 700 points or $7 dollars.

TV Show King is a trivia quiz game and is the party title on this list. It comes with 2000 trivia questions and four players can play at once. It also uses the Miis for the game, which could be fun. TV Show King will set you pack 1000 points (10 bucks).

Right now, I'm waiting to see reviews and videos of all the games before I decide which ones I'm going to buy, but I'm strongly favoring Lost Winds, Pop and maybe the Final Fantasy game based upon what I've read so far.

I had downloaded Pacman when I first got the Wii, but that will probably get deleted to make room for some of the new Wiiware titles as they look a lot more interesting and I really like being able to use my Wiimote like a Wiimote rather than pretending it's a classic controller *g*

I'll link to reviews here as I find them, but if you download the Nintendo Channel on your Wii, you can see some previews of the games there.

You can also read more about the WiiWare games at Nintendo's WiiWare website. Nintendo will be releasing new WiiWare games every Monday for the foreseeable future.

I think you'll find that most Wii fans will be looking out for Dr. Mario, but there's a ton of other games coming out that look very interesting as well. WiiWare is going to be a great opportunity for smaller videogame designers to get their work out to the public.