All of what Duster said with the exception of mario party.

Add Mario Superstar Baseball and Metroid from Kurrpts list

Luigi's Mansion
Double Dash
Mario Sunshine

and given some time I could think of many others.

Smash Brothers, if you are into that, could easily be a justified purchase...

Eternal Darkness
Super Mario Sunshine
Mario Kart: DD
Super Smash Bros Melee
Star Wars Rogue Leader and it's sequel (name escaping me)
Metroid Prime 1 and 2
Pikmin 1 & 2
Soul Calibur 2 (multiplatform but has Link as exclusive character)
Resident Evil Remake & RE 0
Any of the Mario Sports titles IF you play multiplayer

Thanks for the replies.

This all started when my wife when out to shop for a used game for my 6yr old son, whose fave games on the N64 are Super Mario World and Mario Kart. So she was looking for Mario games and came home with Mario Golf, used, for $20.

And I said "waitaminute - I can get NEW games with instruction booklets and everything that will play on the new system for $20!"

For my own purposes, you have to remember that my kids are very young (6 and 9) so I'm looking at kids games. Mario, Super Monkey Ball, Animal Crossing . . . looks like there are plenty for my age range.

And the Wii games (so far) don't seem to have received gangbuster reviews . . .

The Rayman Wii game is awesome for kids.

So is the Monkey Ball Banana one. Add in Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and you now have three Wii games that would keep the young ones happy for a while. All these received good marks from reviews AND players alike.

Not to mention with Metal Slug and Elebits coming right around the corner. Metal Slug having SEVEN games on one disc! I honestly don't have the money for all these AND GC games and accessories.

Is the Wii suitable for a smart 5-year old boy? I was planning on giving my cousin's son a Wii, but I'm wondering if the Wii might not be a good Christmas/Birthday gift this time around due to normal coordination issues of being 5 years old, etc.

im sure he could play some of the driving games, like excite truck, or 4X4 monster truck racing.

Then again, I've seriously seen a 2.5 yr old play Grand Theft Auto Vice City, who knew how to find his home base, reverse a car if it got stuck, run to the roof and collect all the power ups, as well as fly a helicopter.

Obviously, he couldn't drive it as well as an older kid, but that's beside the point

A 2.5 year old playing Vice City. That's some great parenting right there.

My 6 and 2.5 year old daughters have no problem with it. And since we all know boys are smarter than girls, a 5 year old boy should have no problems either.

BTW, I wish you were my parent's cousin

I would think so, the Wii is supposed to be more accessible than the other consoles, many of the games are supposed to have more intuitive controls without the complicated button pressing that would confuse a younger child.

There is a video on youtube of a 5 year old playing the Wii, the guy from Kotaku's son:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwIIVSJENGQ&eurl=

Nice linked review from that 5 year old! Haha!

honestly, at the time, i thought the guy was joking. His child continued to whine and whine, and after about an hour, he says "you guys mind he gets a chance"

Obviously, I assumed the small child would just walk into walls, or get stuck somewhere, and his dad would grab the controller and take over. Not at all

The little kid was smart enough to find his "hideout" every time, regardless of where he spawned. He was smart enough to go on top of the roof, grab the body armor and all the guns.

If he started driving, sure, he would crash and be a bit out of control, but EVERY time he would get stuck, he was right there to throw it in reverse.

I was SO impressed, we wound up watching for about 40 minutes straight.



It's not something I would choose for my child, if I had one, but it's not exactly my place to step into his business

I have a 6 and a 9 year old too. The 9 year old plays pretty much whatever GC games he can get his hands on and has for the past 3 years. "Kiddy" stuff like Mario and more teen fare like the 007 games. My 6 year old is nuts for Super Smash Brothers, SSx Tricky (a snowboarding game), and the Hulk game.

Despite the fact that the Wii can do GC games, I think I'll just leave the GC plugged in and continue using it. No sense in wearing out my Wii (yes, I managed to get one) any sooner than I have too.

As for you, I'd say just start picking up GC games as you see ones that interest you. Unless you're buying a bunch at a time, just grow your library whenever the chance and budget allows.

Just curious. How accessible is the pornography, liquor, tobacco products and firearms in this residence?

Oh yeah - I totally forgot the Super Monkey Ball games! Those really are fun for kids (and adults).

I don't think the guy owns any firearms...


but i would assume the tobacco, "other things" aren't exactly kept under lock and key

I have a question...

I was planning on getting Paper Mario for my Wii, but I was wondering if I needed the GC controller for it? I didn't think so but someone mentioned buying a GC controller for GC games earlier in the thread.

Or do you mean I can use the Wii-mote for GC games but it would be very uncomfortable?

You have to have a GC controller AND a GC memory card to play and save GC games on the Wii.

That sucks for me. Between the Wii and the DS (which is still the system I do most of my gaming on), I can't afford another controller and memory card!

I was really looking forward to playing Paper Mario too. I hope it comes to the Wii or something.

Heh I spent more on GC Accessories (2 Wavebirds & Memory Card) than I did on Wii Accessories.

With CC running a 2 for $30 sale on all $19.99 games in a week, is there a good place to see what games retail for that? Some kind of master reference?

Wal-Mart has the Platinum Wavebird controllers for $20 and a 3rd party memory card for $10.

Really, spend the extra few dollars on a 1st party memory card. When the 3rd party craps out on you, you'd have no one to blame but yourself.

Is this really a problem with these gaming memory cards?

I bought a used Nintendo branded memory card for myself (did get the Wavebird there), just pointing out a moneysaving option since he seemed concerened about spending a lot of $$$ on GC accesories.

I too, wonder if 3rd party memory cards are that bad. I had 3rd part memory cards (or VMu's rather) for my Dreamcast, never had a problem.