Welcome to another installment of Wiikly WiiWare Wiiview. The games this week are Triple Shot Sports and Rage of the Gladiator. Another week with a modest number of releases. But this week, we get to see some of the worst of WiiWare, as well as some of the best…

Triple Shot Sports
Sometimes, there are games that I absolutely dread talking about. Triple Shot Sports is one such game. Anyone who follows me each week is well aware that I have played a lot of bad games in my time, but this is among some of the worst. I am amazed that somebody thought it would be okay to sell this game to poor unsuspecting gamers for 500 points. Even paying a dollar for the original iPhone version seems like a bit of a rip-off to me, but I digress. If you ever had any intention of purchasing this game, then I urge to read on. Don’t worry, this won’t take long.

Triple Shot Sports is a competitive shooting game of sorts, although you don’t actually compete with anyone. I mean, you can compete with friends in the multiplayer mode, but in the singleplayer mode, you merely face up against various arbitrary scores that have no meaning whatsoever. But hey, that’s not such a big deal as long as the game is fun, right? And I haven’t had this much fun since I ran a screwdriver through my hand two weeks ago (true story). I am still trying to decide which experience was more painful. I’m leaning towards the game.

Once you select your difficulty, you get to choose between three different gameplay modes: Archery, Rapid Fire Pistol, and Running Target. Regardless of which mode you choose, you will be faced with some of the worst controls I have ever seen. The Archery game requires you to first shake your nunchuk to remove a bow from your quiver and then shake it again to draw the bow. You must then aim with the Wii remote, hold down A and B simultaneously, and then let go when you’re ready to send your arrow flying towards the general vicinity of the target. This may not sound so bad, but it is incredibly tedious and boring.

The nunchuk is completely pointless and the motion sensor is horrible. If you aren’t sitting/standing directly in front of the sensor bar, then you won’t be able to move your bow around. And they fail to mention in the minute-long series of instructions (which display every time you play and can’t be skipped) that you can’t simply point where you want to shoot; you have to actually move your arm around keeping the remote aimed straight at the sensor bar. It is a complete mess during the first play-through, but once you figure out how the game works, you’ll master it by the time you get through the five rounds. The key here is that, regardless of how hard the wind is blowing (indicated by a blue bar), just at the far side—in the white lines—opposite of where the compass is pointing. For instance, if the wind is blowing to the right, just aim at the left edge of the target and you should hit the inner circle every time. And don’t worry, the wind won’t change course during the game, so you can keep aiming for the same spot over and over.

Rapid Fire Pistol takes slightly more skill because it likes to foul you whenever possible. In this mode, you have a set of targets that must shoot in succession. When the timer starts, you must hold the A button to raise your gun, then aim and press B to shoot. Use the nunchuk analog stick to move on to the next target and continue until you get to the end. If you raise your gun too quickly, it’s a foul and you get disqualified. If you forget to let go of A before time runs out, it’s also a foul. Of course, the game isn’t nice enough to actually mention this before you start playing, but at least it gives you eight rounds of the exact same thing to figure it out.

Running Target is another mode in which you use a gun to shoot targets, so obviously, it’s a very similar concept. That’s why it is rather confusing when the controls are completely different. This time, A doesn’t do anything at all. The game says it steadies your gun, but really, it does nothing. B is still to shoot, but now the nunchuk is used to reload—by holding down Z and shaking it—which you need to do after every shot. And really, that’s all you need to know. A target goes by, you shoot it, reload, and wait for it to go by again. Ladies and gentlemen, I have just given you a complete walkthrough for the entire game. But what about multiplayer? Well, just imagine everything I have described, but with another person…and voilà! You now have the full experience.

With all of the shovelware I have seen over the past year or so, it amazes me that somebody can still come up with something worse. It also amazes me that it took nearly 15 people to create the abomination. And it depresses me that writing this review took far longer than actually playing the game, which took about 30 minutes to complete on all three identical difficulty settings. Of course, given how awful the game is, that felt entirely too long. Aside from the music that isn’t completely awful, I can find no redeeming qualities about Triple Shot Sports, and even winning all gold medals doesn’t providing any feeling of satisfaction. I just feel…empty.

Score: 1/10

Rage of the Gladiator
With so many games trying to reinvent how we use the Wii remote, we often end up with some really wonky controls that aren’t nearly as fun as the developers would have us believe. Ghostfire Games took a step back from that and opted for a more basic control scheme that reminds me of why I fell in love with the Wii in the first place. They do it quite well, I might add, and it takes me back to the days when I would just pop in Wii Sports for an hour while I flailed my arms about wildly without a care in the world. And hey, there’s even a pretty decent game attached to this.

Playing somewhat like a fantasy medieval Punch-Out!! with a hammer, Rage of the Gladiator pits you up against a series of mythical foes as you use everything you’ve got to beat the snot out of every single one of them. As the story goes, you play as Gracius, the prince of the kingdom of Avalance. For reasons not revealed until later in the game as the story unfolds through occasional cutscenes, Gracius must fight for his life in an arena against many varied foes such as a minotaur, a ninja, and far more.

As I alluded to earlier, the controls are the highlight of this game and they make an average concept more enjoyable than you might anticipate. Right off the bat, you are given the choice of three control scheme options: holding the remote sideways, motion controls (with the nunchuk), and MotionPlus controls (also with the nunchuk). Unlike other games, such as GhostSlayer, choosing one control scheme over another doesn’t limit you in any way. In fact, they are all quite a bit of fun and they each come with different challenges and benefits.

Opting for motion controls—with or without MotionPlus—will provide a familiar feeling for those who enjoy Wii boxing games. Swinging your left and right arms, as you expect, will make Gracius do the same. Holding down Z or B will cause the corresponding controller to translate your movements into kicking motions. C will bring up your shield, but as you will eventually see, it is often in your best interest to simply use the analog stick for dodging and jumping. The tutorial is highly recommended to get yourself acquainted with the controls because swinging your arms while simultaneously pressing specific buttons may be a little confusing at first. But before long, it starts to feel very natural and smooth. Adding on the MotionPlus provides the same sort of gameplay, but the movements of course match your own much more closely, which adds a bit of realism and requires more accuracy.

If your arms get tired, or if you simply don’t want to flail around in front of the TV, fret not because using the sideways controls is surprisingly fun as well. After using motion controls for a good while, I was concerned that playing this way would feel stiff and tedious, but I actually found myself enjoying it more at times. While it doesn’t require as much energy on your part, you do need to be fairly quick with your fingers; after all, everything is being handled by only one controller now. Playing this way is fast-paced and feels a lot like playing the old Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! for NES. But regardless of how you play, the controls are very responsive and easy to use.

Surprisingly, for me at least, the game itself is actually rather entertaining. It takes on a serious tone at times, but the game is also silly and it is fully aware of that. This is established early on with the first battle in which you take on a drunken orc who can barely stand on his own for much of the battle. After pummeling him for a bit, he calls out to his god for help, but it is to no avail. Frustrated, he damns the god, who then strikes him down with lightning. The humbled orc pleads for forgiveness and is finally granted extra power. Not all battles are as humorous as this, but they are all fairly cinematic and very fun to watch. You must go through three rounds to finally defeat your opponent and the brief sequences between rounds are usually quite entertaining.

After each battle, you are ranked on your performance and given a corresponding number skill points that you can use to upgrade your armor and weapons, as well as learn magic spells and new combos. The game gives you a fair number of ways to develop Gracius, which provides a good amount of replayability. During your initial playthrough, you may want to focus on physical traits and then make a wizard of sorts the next time you play. It certainly isn’t as deep as standard RPG’s, but it adds quite a bit to the gameplay and keeps it from getting stale. The only issue I have is that the game doesn’t support use of the pointer in menus, so navigating through the skill tree can be a bit of a chore at times.

Completing the main storyline, will unlock the Challenge Mode, which is basically the same thing over again, but the opponents are far more difficult and have new abilities. With a bit of patience and strategy, you can certainly overcome the challenges, but it will be no easy task. Even fighting opponents who were once pushovers will be surprisingly difficult. It will take a long time and it will frustrate you to know end, but you will keep coming back. Even at its hardest, the game is simply too entertaining to pass up. The voice acting could use a bit of work, but it is still some of the best we have heard on a WiiWare title. And given the amount of content, the developers managed to make the game look quite nice while still—just barely—staying within Nintendo’s file size limitations.

Rage of the Gladiator is easily one of the better games to be released for the WiiWare service. It certainly won’t be a game for everyone, but whether this appeals to you or not, there is no denying the amount of detail that went into making this. The controls and the content mesh together to create a ridiculously fun experience that you can play multiple times without getting bored, and the fantastic musical score will add further to the excitement of each battle. Even during a hot streak of wins, the music will help keep you on your toes and feeling like you could very well be fighting your last battle. The game could have used a bit more depth to opponents and the storyline to make it more compelling, but really, there are very few flaws to be seen.

Score: 9/10

Triple Shot Sports was developed and published by The Code Monkeys Ltd.

Rage of the Gladiator was developed and published by Ghostfire Games.

Both titles were released for WiiWare in North America on 3/15/2010.