Most Played Wii Games According to the Nintendo Channel - Games 30-21

It's time once again to delve into the Nintendo Channel to find out what games I'm playing the most. This time we're checking out games 30-21. This will be the final installment of our three part series, so I hope you cherish these last few moments we have together! All kidding aside, here's where you can check out past installments:

Most Played Wii Games According to the Nintendo Channel
Most Played Wii Games According to the Nintendo Channel - Games 20-11

And with that, let's begin with number thirty!

30) Zack & Wiki: Quest For Barbaros' Treasure - 15 Hrs. 54 Min.

What an infuriating game this turned out to be. Combine a cute aesthetic with bone-crushing hard puzzles and you get a game that definitely is for a limited group of players. The later stages were just frustrating as all get out due to lackluster motion controls. This is a game that would have greatly benefited from Wii MotionPlus. Alas, Zack and Wiki, may you get that sequel that you so graciously deserve.


29) Metroid Prime Trilogy - 15 Hrs. 57 Min.

Three times the Prime, but you can tell with the amount of time I put into this title that I didn't plow through all three games like I planned. Instead, I played through the entirety of the original Metroid Prime, played a little of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and completely skirted on playing the third. I had just played that one a couple years back. The new Wii motion controls worked wonderfully with these games, and I can't imagine going back to a more traditional controller to play them.


28) No More Heroes - 17 Hrs. 9 Min.

Travis Touchdown's first bloody battles in Santa Destroy were a blast to play. The game's caveats were the bland world map and sometimes uneven difficulty. Waggle was kept to a minimum only used to recharge Travis' katana. Meanwhile, motion controls used for finishing moves gave the game an extra oomph to combat. While the game was far from perfect, No More Heroes was a fun diversion until the next big Wii title came along.


27) Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles - 17 Hrs. 16 Min.

Armed with a new chapter to the Resident Evil franchise in Operation: Javier, The Darkside Chronicles was close to surpassing the House of the Dead: Overkill as my favorite on-rails shooter. It had everything from intense bosses to upgradable weaponry to mission rankings and bestiary info. It was a Resident Evil fanboy's wet dream. It had so much content that a fan could sit there for hours playing until the only thing he could utter was "Brraaaaaaaains." Definitely pick this one up if you're a fan of the genre and can handle the sometimes erratic camera.


26) The House of the Dead: Overkill - 17 Hrs. 28 Min.

Even though the main game is only six levels long, it still beat out the Darkside Chronicles by twelve minutes. I must have played through these half-dozen levels ad nauseum, upgrading my weapons, blowing the skulls off of the undead, and partaking in a particularly disturbing adventure with more F-bombs than an Eddie Murphy stand-up special. Am I dating myself with that reference? Regardless, Overkill remains my top pick for best Wii rail-shooter, and lord are there a lot of them.


25) Super Swing Golf: Season 2 - 17 Hrs. 30 Min.

My first Wii golf love, Super Swing Golf: Season 2 is just two minutes ahead of the House of the Dead: Overkill in playtime. How about that? Nonetheless, the game had you playing fantasy golf with a likable cast of customizable characters. You could outfit them with purchased and earned costumes as you saw fit. The story mode took place on a Super Mario Bros. 3-like game map with you taking on challenges to advance. Better played with buttons than motion controls, Super Swing Golf: Season Two will give you more pang for your buck (pang is the currency of SSG, get it?).


24) Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity - 18 Hrs. 13 Min.

Now this is one of my guilty pleasures. Before Sonic opted to match Mario in go-karts, he raced on air boards. The gimmick here was that Sonic, Tails, Eggman, and the rest of the crew could call upon the power of gravity to make sharp turns. The game got exceeding difficult the further you played through it, but everything from the course design, unlockable characters, and soundtrack kept me playing more and more.


23) The Conduit - 18 Hrs. 17 Min.

I'm just trying to understand how I played this game for over eighteen hours. I couldn't have played online that long since it was full of hackers and cheaters, and the story mode campaign was quite linear and not too worthwhile. So where did these eighteen hours come from? Did I sit idly on the title screen for all that time? Who knows. Regardless, The Conduit was a remarkable first effort by High Voltage Software at crafting their own IP. It may have been rough around the edges, but it was a fun and enjoyable game if you kept your expectations in check.


22) MySims Kingdom - 18 Hrs. 54 Min.

The MySims franchise branched out into the adventure genre with MySims Kingdom. The same building and socializing aspects the previous game touched upon were there, but new challenges and puzzles were thrown in. Your cast of heroes sailed from island to island fixing problems the various MySims characters had. Throw in some hilarious dialogue, and you have one game that sucked up a lot of my time.


21) Super Metroid - 19 Hrs. 27 Min.

The only Virtual Console game on this list period, Super Metroid is a Super Nintendo classic now playable on Wii. My older brother and I each had our own save files and completed the game with 100% of the collectibles-- which without a guide-- was not an easy task. Powers like the space jump, the spin attack, and speed dash brought all-new levels of awesome to Samus' 16-bit debut. It wouldn't be until 2002's Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion would Samus Aran return to gamers near and far.


That does it for the Most Played trilogy. What about you? What games are you currently playing a lot of? Let me know in our lovely comments section!