The Nintendo Wii has become one of the most successful and quickly selling consoles ever produced. As it appeals to both casual and more serious gamers through it’s wide library, people who never considered buying a game before have purchased a Wii. Looking to capitalize on this casual crowd, many movie companies have commissioned games to go along with their movies, to provide their fans with even more to enjoy regarding their movies.
The most famous and popular movie games to come to the Wii are the Lego games produced by LucasArts. LucasArts, which is owned by the same company as the LucasFilm studio that produced the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. LucasArts teamed up with the famous Lego building toy company to produce series of games based around the movies. These games feature the Lego models and “minifigs” (the small human figures) and are fun and accessible. They allow movie fans to play through both trilogies using the Lego characters, exploring and building their way in and out of trouble and through Lego versions of the most famous movie sets. These Lego games are widely known to be of very high quality, and are as loved by hardcore gamers as they are for the casual crowd.
Many other movies have also been converted to games. Most of these wii games revolve around children’s animated movies such as Cars or Bee Movie. These games are generally targeted more towards fans as opposed to the general audience, and are not known for innovative gameplay. Still, pressure from gamers and game reviewers has driven up the quality of these games, and fans of the movies will find that they are generally quite good and enjoyable. Shows such as CSI have even had games released on the Wii, although these tend to be more based around the show as opposed to recreating actual episodes.
In an additional move to bring the Wii to the movies, Netflix has spoken of bringing their popular streaming service to the Wii. This service is already available to all Xbox 360 owners and people who use certain set-top boxes and Blu-Ray players. This would be done through the use of a special Netflix disc which would be placed in the Wii and would stream movies over the Wii’s wireless connection. This project is still in the design phases, though, and it’s completion is dependent on Nintendo’s decision. Nintendo has shown that it may be more interested in giving the Wii the ability to play DVDs, a feature which hackers have found it already has the hardware for.