Do WHAT with My Wii Remote? Trivia Quiz

Answer: "Island Cycling" in "Wii Fit Plus"

"Island Cycling" is one of the few games in "Wii Fit Plus" that used the remote and the Balance Board in - excuse the pun - tandem. The Wiimote acts like handlebars. The Balance Board acts like "pedals," and you can run in place faster or slower to change your speed. It may be the most involved of "Fit's" minigames, letting you freely roam Wuhu Island for up to thirty minutes.

Manta racing in "Super Mario Galaxy" was a minigame where you control the character Ray in a floating river race course. Similar to the slide from "Mario 64," you could earn stars, or try to beat your best time for brownie points. "Charge!" was a minigame in "Wii Play," the compilation designed to show off some of the Wii's capabilities. You tilt the Wiimote to steer your steer into lines of scarecrows for points. "Wakeboarding" was as it says on the tin - tilt and waggle the Wiimote to trick off a speedboat's wake and earn points.

Answer: A light saber

"No More Heroes", one of several blood-soaked, M-rated standouts in the Wii's library, was the brainchild of legendary director SUDA 51 (who also made "Killer7") .The dorky otaku Travis Touchdown gets embroiled in the dangerous world of ranked assassination - the game sees you controlling Travis in a series of elaborate boss fights against your higher-ranked rivals. Gameplay is hack-and-slash fare: you can cut through most of your adversaries like butter, but you've got to keep an eye on your battery life to keep the onslaught at bay. The visual of Travis charging his sword is... very much in line with the game's raunchy sense of humor. I leave further investigation to the reader.

Another gory Wii classic, "MadWorld", lets you control a character with a retractable chainsaw.

Answer: Wario Land

The Wiimote was designed to resemble an NES controller when you hold it sideways, which is how you play "Wario Land: Shake It!" As an extra input and a defining quirk, you can shake the Wiimote like crazy to execute an Earthshake Punch, or to literally shake down enemies for cash. Plenty of Wii games were criticized for exactly these kinds of motions. At the time, Gamespot's reviews for both "Donkey Kong Country Returns" and "Wario Land: Shake It!" were good games with an annoying and distracting control gimmick. Even "Saturday Night Live" mocked the Wii's constant waggling, in a sketch where Alec Baldwin plays "Wario Land".

As a big Wario fan, I have to shout out "Wario Ware: Smooth Moves" as well. Each "Wario Ware" game sees you played a series of rapid-fire "microgames" that last mere seconds, testing your reaction time. "Smooth Moves" had the player change the "pose" of the Wiimote every few rounds - upright, sideways, against your nose, out like handlebars, or setting it down completely.

Kirby had a few games on Wii: "Epic Yarn" and "Return to Dreamland". Donkey Kong also had a pair of platformers: "Donkey Kong Country Returns" and "Donkey Kong Jungle Beat", a port of a Gamecube game that you controlled with the DK Bongos. Yoshi didn't get a standalone game on Wii.

Answer: Red Steel 2

The first "Red Steel" was a launch game for the Wii that got considerable attention at trade shows. The Wii was always destined to lose some of the hardcore audience, who viewed waggle as an obnoxious, gimmicky encumbrance. "Red Steel", with its slick, katana-gunslinging gameplay, published by the hardcore-oriented Ubisoft, did pique the interest of many hardcores. The problem? "Red Steel" really didn't play any differently or better than a game with buttons and sticks. The swordplay simply was not precise enough to make the otherwise bog-standard FPS stand out.

Hence why "Red Steel 2" was seen as a redemption for the series. Unlike the swordplay in a game like "No More Heroes" or the first "Red Steel," the Wii Motion Plus allows "Red Steel 2" to track *where* you're holding your Wii "sword." This makes combat more unique and impossible to replicate without motion-sensing. If you loved the freeform, precise swordfighting in "Wii Sports" (and who doesn't?), "Red Steel 2" plays a lot like it - just without the hockey pads. Nintendo has de-emphasized motion controls since the Wii.

Answer: Helicopter Rescue

Jumpers and biplanes, but sorry, no helicopters in "Wii Sports". The first time you boot up "Wii Sports Resort," the game will play a little introductory version of the Skydiving minigame, celebrating your arrival. You can return to the full game mode later. You tilt the remote while in freefall to get your Mii to link up with other Miis. Dogfighting was a two-player only mode where players control a biplane, trying to shoot balloons tailed behind the opponent's plane. Island Flyover was, similar to "Wii Fit's" Island Cycling, a relaxing game that let you fully explore Wuhu Island in your biplane. You could duck under bridges, puddle-jump to the golf course islands, and fly into the island's giant volcano, collecting points of interest to earn a stamp (the "Wii Sports" version of achievements).

Answer: Metroid: Other M

"Metroid: Other M" was the first 3D "Metroid" game to deviate from the "first person adventure" formula of the "Prime" games (unless you count "Metroid Prime: Pinball"). Without even touching the widely panned changes to Samus's character, the actual gameplay was, in more ways than one, a mixed bag.

Some people really enjoyed the third-person, action-focused gameplay, designed by Team Ninja of the modern "Ninja Gaiden" games. But many reviewers and fans found the forced shifts to first-person pretty awkward, like they'd been shoehorned in to make the series feel cohesive. You have to completely turn the Wiimote, just to get into a tactically worse position where you can't move, only look and shoot. First-person was mostly reserved for shooting at creatures' weak points, point-and-click puzzles, etc. Both control orientations are mandatory at points, and both received criticism - IGN called the shift to first person "needlessly clunky," while Eurogamer called the Wii's tiny D-pad "arthritic."

Answer: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

The first three "Ace Attorney" games were released on Wiiware with enhanced finger-pointing capabilities. You play as fledgling attorney Phoenix Wright as he solves mysteries to acquit his clients, very much in the style of Perry Mason or Matlock. Phoenix calls the real perpetrators to the stand and pokes holes in their alibis with a righteous "OBJECTION!" Localized from the Japan-only GBA originals, the games came to America on the DS, where you could shout "OBJECTION!" into the game's microphone to present evidence. To recreate this fun little option, the Wii port let you thrust the Wiimote out like your index finger... or you could just push a button, if you're no fun.

(The Wii did actually have an external microphone peripheral, called "Wii Speak", but only online multiplayer games used it. Either way, "Ace Attorney" didn't support it.)

Answer: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

All of the "Silent Hill" games are intense psychological horror games, but "Shattered Memories" is particularly twisted. Although none of the games are combat-oriented, "Shattered Memories" makes you totally helpless. All you've got are a flashlight and a cell phone to explore the empty, dismal town of Silent Hill, getting calls from another dimension, occasionally being chased down by ice monsters. You also use your cell phone to take snapshots of ghosts, a la "Fatal Frame." Another mind-bending trick is that the game opens with a somewhat detailed psychological questionnaire. "Fallout: New Vegas" this is not: the results don't change your stats, they change which scares the game presents you with.

Answer: An empty box

"Let's Tap" was the first project by Prope, a studio headed by Yuji Naka of Sonic Team fame. The game required you to set the Wiimote on a box, about the size of a tissue box. You then tapped the box, and the controller would detect the vibrations. Despite Naka's backing, the game received middling-at-best reviews and was part of the glut of bargain bin third-party games during the Wii's lifetime. It later re-released for the iPhone using the same gimmick.

In spite of what I think is a genuinely creative idea, the game didn't do a great job of capitalizing on it. Most of the games seem like they could be controlled almost identically with, for example, buttons. Nintendo's own "Donkey Konga" rhythm games, played with the DK Bongo controller, tried a similar idea to the rhythm mode in "Let's Tap", just with a better soundtrack and a more charismatic controller.

Answer: Theremin

A theremin (pronounced THAIR-uh-min) is an electronic instrument that is played without touching the instrument. A traditional theremin is played using two antennae that track the position of your hand (or, I suppose, whatever you decide to play it with), and modulates the sound accordingly.

ThereWII is a plug-in for the suite of music tools, Ableton, which allows you to use a Wiimote as the input for a customizable and comfortable theremin. Your cursor appears on an on-screen grid, analogous to the grid made by a theremin's antennae. You can even hook up several Wiimotes at the same time. Makes "Wii Music" look like amateur hour!