Well it’s time to start talking about the home console exclusive games. And, well, the Wii was basically the easiest to choose the winners for, the winners were just completely clear. There’s only 1 game that I could have put instead of any of the winners, but it wasn’t up to the standards of everything else in the list.

If something you think deserved to be a winner and didn’t… well it’s probably because it sucked (Sonic Colors and Epic Mickey), or because we haven’t played it. Still, you can tell us about it, and, as long as you don’t troll or flame, we will explain why certain games weren’t chosen.

So read on! Here are our winners for the best Wii exclusives of 2010!

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Holy shit, this is so much better than I expected, and I was super hyped for this too. I loved the Donkey Kong Country series before, but this is so great. The visuals are incredible and the gameplay is just superb. The platforming is very solid and does require some precision, and most levels have some really cool gimmicks to them, or mix up multiple gimmicks from previous levels. And the game also offers a very healthy challenge, which I find very balanced. You get a HUGE amount of lives, picking up Diddy makes any jump really easy since you get a jetpack and a bit of trial and error will get you through any level. Oh, and the mine cart levels are badass. Donkey Kong Country Returns is a fantastic game, Retro Studios did something really great with this… Nintendo needs to continue giving their franchises to them, those guys know what they’re doing (well, other than having you do the roll move by shaking the controller, that’s just stupid).

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Super Mario Galaxy was a really good game. It took Super Mario 64 but added a bunch of interesting gimmicks, but, more importantly, the addition of some really cool and fun gravity physics. Super Mario Galaxy 2 took the first game and made it 10 times better. You get Yoshi who is really interesting to use, lots of really cool level designs that are much better than what we saw in SMG1 and even an awesome Super Mario 64 level remade which was really cool. To put it simply, while Super Mario Galaxy was a great game, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is better in every way.

Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars

The “vs Capcom” series of fighting games is all sorts of fun. You know what’s even more fun? Pitting the Capcom characters against characters no one knows! Sure, it had the people from Battle of the Planets and Casshern which some people might know about, and I knew about Yatterman… But, really, very few American people know about Tatsunoko and I think it’s really awesome that they released this game here. It enables people to learn about new really cool characters (possibly getting them to watch their anime), and the game itself is really good. The controls are slightly simplified, with only 3 attack buttons (and a partner button), but it worked really well and most of the characters were really fun to learn and play as. While I know that it’s pretty much looked down upon in the “pro” fighting game community, I still think it was a great fighting game that deserves more love.

Metroid: Other M

I talked about how people complained for stupid reasons about Final Fantasy 13, but it’s not even close to the amount of stupid complaints Other M got. Ignoring the parts people complained about, Metroid: Other M is a terrific game. The controls are incredibly solid, fighting enemies is fun, the visuals are really nice, you have the same powerup mechanic as in other Metroid games (except some guy tells you that you could use a power-up rather than you finding the item, very superficial difference really), and MB was probably the most interesting vilain in the Metroid universe (though, sadly, the story is cut short and gives no time to MB to be developed as a character). The game wasn’t without its flaws. It was ultimately a bit too short and a bit too easy (though hard mode fixes that), and the story stop just when it starts becoming interesting. The complaints for this game are really weird, I just don’t get them (check out the Game Overthinker‘s episode about this, it’s interesting). Anyways, Metroid: Other M has very fun gameplay and is well worth playing for that. If you don’t like the story/Samus’ constant monologuing, just skip it, the gameplay is still great and that’s what matters most in any game.

jobocan Console, Game of the Year, Games, Games of the Year, wii