Trivial Pursuit

The Trivial Pursuit video game from EA builds on the original gameplay with stunning visual presentation, new categories of questions, all-new never before seen questions, and the innovative Facts & Friends game mode. The quick-playing Facts & Friends mode adds a whole new social dynamic to the game that keeps everyone involved by encouraging players to guess whether their opponents will answer their questions correctly. The result is a new take on a tried and true classic that has found a home on the Wii.

Key Game Features:

What do you know? – Challenge your friends with the original Trivial Pursuit game.
Who do you know? – Earn extra points by guessing whether your friends know the answer in Facts & Friends mode.
Do you know yourself? – Track your best categories over time with your custom Trivial Pursuit profile.

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection . Emulating pinball in the world of video games has never been an easy thing, but somehow, someway; all of the games included in Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, are emulated nearly perfectly, and perfectly capture the feel and enjoyment of the classic game. Featuring tables including Taxi, Gorgar, Black Knight, Funhouse, and Pinbot among others; Pinball Hall of Fame also features a variety of modes, unlockables, and goals to achieve to hold your interest. The pinball physics are dead-on as well, and the game’s overall presentation is a pleasent surprise as well. The only real flaws with Pinball Hall of Fame is that more games weren’t included on the disc. It just feels like more tables should have been included here, or at least something else. Other than that, the Wii motion controls work very well here, although one may wonder if that is reason enough to justify the price tag of the Wii version of the game being doubled. All that aside, Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection is a sheer blast, and for Wii owning pinball fans, you can’t go wrong here at all.

Game Party 2

Game Party 2 is the ultimate Wii party game for players of all ages and skill levels. Game Party 2 features new games like Bean Bag Toss and Horseshoes, as well as classics like Shuffleboard and Hoop Shoot. Every game has exciting new features like four player mode, customizable characters and tournament play, making Game Party 2 the family favorite party game.

* Four-player action on all games Get together with friends and family to see who can rank #1 in all 11games, whether it’s one player at a time, or simultaneously with 4 player split-screen mode.
* Tournaments If the party gets too big set up tournaments for up to sixteen players. Individual profiles Players can now create a profile to track their progress and skill level as they play.
* Create your own characters Utilize the new Create-a-Player system to design unique characters to fit your individual style.
* Discover extended content Earn tickets that enable players to unlock new game modes a variety of playing surfaces and equipment as well as unlock additional create-a-player assets.
* 11 Games In All: Bean Bags, Horseshoes, Lawn Darts, Puck Bowling, Quarterback Challenge, Trivia, Hoop Shoot, Ping Cup, Shuffleboard, Skillball, Darts

Monopoly

Monopoly . EA’s Monopoly game – part of a multi-game partnership with Hasbro – will feature a special fast-paced family mode full of mini-games when it comes out later this year on PC (Pogo.com), PS2, Wii and Xbox 360.

According to Newsweek, “The Richest” will reduce the popular board game to bursts of 20-30 minutes where up to four players play at once. Sorry, enhance! Enhance the popular board game. Probably.

Each round will begin with a multiplayer mini-game based on a Chance or Community Chest card, after which the game will roll one die for each player, with the winner of the mini-game getting to pick whichever number they want out of the results.

The game will then give them ownership of that number of random squares. Any vacant properties will come under their control, but any occupied squares will mean having to hand over some property as a payment to the previous owner. Presumably the winner will be the person who has the most property at the end.

Mini-games detailed so far include one about breaking out of prison, and another where you race around train tracks trying not to overshoot the stations, as Newsweek puts it, and there will be unlockable themed boards for dedicated players.

Hopefully you will also get to play the original Monopoly! Although you could always go round your Nan’s to do that instead. Or play Halo.

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree

The concept of Big Brain Academy is a good one. Perform a set of exercises to stimulate your brain and improve its abilities. This game first came out on the Nintendo DS, after the success of Brain Age.

The way you do the exercises is with a set of colorful mini-games. The game groups its 15 mini-games into 3 games in each of 5 categories: Analyze, Compute, Memorize, Identify and Visualize. The faster you complete each mini game, and the more answers you get right, the higher your score.

By yourself, you can do two events: Test or Practice. In Test, you perform a series of the mini-games for about a minute in each category. Your score in each category is added up, and the Professor presents an overall score. You get a grade, from C– to A++ based on your score. In addition, based on which categories you did well, you get a “profession”.

In Practice, you choose a mini-game category and perform that category for a minute. You can get awarded medals — bronze, silver, gold or platinum, based on how well you did. Your results in solo practice are saved in your “Student Record” which you can send to others via Connect24 or view in the game’s Office.

For the Wii, the biggest change is how Nintendo revamped the game to allow more multiplayer options. There are 3 multiplayer modes—Mind Sprint, Mental Marathon and Brain Quiz.

Mind Sprint is the most competitive — choose a difficulty level and race against someone else to complete the mini-games first (a mistake means you do the game over).

Mental Marathon is a cooperative game. One player starts, then performs a fixed number of mini-games. Then, the player hands off to a different player, who continues. When a player makes a mistake, the game is over.

Finally, Brain Quiz is competitive but has a game show feel. Players pick one of 15 panels. Each panel has a random mini-game category and difficulty. The highest overall score wins. In this mode there is an extra mini-game that appears sometimes where you listen to orders and must select what the person ordered.

The biggest downside to the game is that there are only 15 mini-games. After playing this for a few weeks, the game can feel repetitive.

It’s a lot of fun for family and friends, and it definitely helps you improve your brain but it doesn’t have huge replay value because of the small number of mini-games. If there were 30 mini-games, this would have much more replay value.

Mercury Meltdown: Revolution

Mercury Meltdown: Revolution is one of those games in which you sit down thinking, “I’m going to play for fifteen minutes”, and then two hours later you are still playing and thinking i just need to beat one more level it will only take thirty seconds more.

It reminds me of some of the old school puzzles games that have a simple concept but are lots of fun (IE Tetris, Dr. Mario Chu Chu Rocket). It is an easy to learn, hard to master kind of game with great replay value the only down side is that none of the party games are as good as the main game.

Carnival Games

Step right up! All the fun and excitement of your favorite Carnival Games is coming to Wii this summer. It’s the perfect multi-player game for moms, dads and kids of all ages. Are you ready to rack up the points in a game of classic Alley Ball? Got the muscle to ring the bell in Test of Strength? Been practicing your accuracy for the famed Milk Bottle Throw? Ready to get wet in the Dunk Tank? If yes, then join the action as your Wii remote transforms from a sledgehammer to a frog flinger. Master all the classic carnival games and the ultimate prize could be yours – the virtual goldfish in a bag!