One of the Wii’s main selling points for many people has been it’s broad range of accessibility, and especially the ready availability of family friendly games. What they don’t tell you is that many of the “family friendly” games out there are, quite frankly, trash. So many of them are half-baked and the result of a rushed development process, all because they know if they can just get it out there thousands of parents will be willing to buy and not know the better. Don’t get the wrong idea, there are more good family-friendly games on the Wii than for any other console, it’s just that the good ones are the minority much of time. So, for your consideration, I have listed three particularly well-made games that were created specifically for families. These games are:
MySims Kingdom: is a spinoff of the very highly successful Sims franchise. The original, MySims, was simultaneously released on both the Wii and DS in 2007. While The Sims games have always been about creating your own story, in MySims Kingdom your job is to engage in a series of ministories and help those in the kingdom who are in need. Once those are completed, your control of the game’s world broadens out more and more. While not quite on par with past Sims iterations, it’s a good game(critics do agree) that was specifically designed for kids to play.
De Blob: is a critically acclaimed action platformer with a specific puzzle twist. Based on the original downloadable indie game titled “The Blob”, it places players in the role of the last hope for a sadly monochromatic society. In other words, a metropolis-like world drained of color. The main character, De Blob, is literally a blob of goo who begins reviving the world by dipping himself into buckets of globs of paint and splashing it and oozing it everywhere. De Blob is an interesting and bizarre character that’s not hard to fall in love and empathize with as he works to restore color to the world. The sensation behind bringing color to the lifeless painting that is the environment in the game De Blob is a satisfying one, and one that should appeal to kids most of all.
World Of Goo: is a downloadable WiiWare title that has been rated a perfect “10 out of 10” by several noteworthy critics. It’s also just a great puzzle game. It has been compared to the classic Lemmings, only instead of guiding suicidal rodents across a level, you move small globs of living goo, which can be used to construct bridges over obstacles, that the remaining globs will climb across to freedom, as they are sucked up into a pipe(the exit to the level). It’s really a rather hard game to describe, but know this: World Of Goo has won awards for it’s undeniable wit and charm, so if you are at all interested in these types of family-friendly puzzlers, be sure to check it out.
