Metacritic Says 4 of the 20 Best Wii Games are on WiiWare

[griffinA]

rajendra82 said:

griffinA said:

rajendra82 said:
The reason so many WiiWare games show up the top 20 is because of relative lack of good games worth a full retail price on the system.

There's plenty of games on the Wii worth buying that fall outside of the top 20. Or are you the type of person who only buys what metacritic tells you to?

That's not what I am saying at all.  A retail game has to provide more value, because it costs three times as much.  Retail games that don't bank on nostalgia have to provide value by having an involved singleplayer campaign, amazing multiplayer modes, or a highly cinematic experience, or they will necessarily suffer in the scores department.  These same factors are generally much more irrelevant for a downloadable game which can get away with being short and simple.  Wii retail games typically have lacked the elements that give them a high value when compared to the downloadable games on WiiWare.  I am not saying that lower scores means not worth buying.  What I am saying is that getting less for your money means lower scores.  If you still want to buy the retail game knowing this, go ahead.

But theres some problems with this theory that good score = good value. Madworld, a six hour single-player only game, is one of the highest scored games.  Then, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, a very long game with multiple endings, is well outside the top 20. So then I would argue your getting "less for your money" of you bought Madworld over Muramasa. Trying to sum up what ALL reviewers are looking for is a fruitless task as all reviewers enjoy different things.

 

Also, I disagree that games need any of those three criteria you mentioned (especially a "highly cinematic experience") to be good.