[Wii Send-Off] The Ten Best First-Party Wii Games

10. Metroid: Other M

My goodness you guys are a bit bi-polar when it comes to what games you like! Despite the fact that Metroid: Other M made it onto our list of “biggest disappointments”, here we see it sitting pretty as the tenth best first-party Wii game. Coming after Retro Studios’ critically acclaimed Metroid Prime: Corruption, Other M also enlisted the help of an out-of-office studio: Team Ninja. While many people questioned the move on Nintendo’s part, the game came out and it turned out that at the end of the day they hadn’t made a terrible game! It may not have been perfect, but it was good enough to make this list.

9. Mario Kart Wii

When Mario Kart first made its SNES debut in 1992, it was an instant hit mostly due to the ability to play split-screen with a friend. 2008’s Mario Kart Wii continued the chaotic kart tradition by introducing new items, new courses, a myriad of control schemes, new characters, motorcycles, and a slew of other features that made it the premier Mario Kart game at the time. The online play even worked without a hitch, which at the time was quite extraordinary for a Wii title.

8. Xenoblade: Chronicles

I’m not sure if you’ve read our list of “Best Third Party Games” (I wrote that one before this one), but this one is on there as well. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to have the same game on both lists– it is, in fact, somewhat contradictory– but given the quality of the game and the fact that you guys picked it, I’ll let it slide. Monolith Soft’s Xenoblade Chronicles came out right at the end of the Wii’s lifespan, and breathed one last, hurried breath into the console before letting it die away as suddenly as it seemed to have come.

Goodnight, my dear Wii.

7. Donkey Kong Country: Returns

One of the crowning achievements of the Super Nintendo was none other than the Donkey Kong Country series. Produced by Rare and first released in 1994, the trilogy lived and died on the Super Nintendo, and we didn’t hear the name uttered once until the announcement of 2010’s Donkey Kong Country Returns. The resurrection of the series was made by Metroid Prime developer Retro Studios, and while it wasn’t quite as revolutionary as what they did with Samus, DKCR certainly brought smiles to faces and high scores to the keyboards of reviewers.