The Wii Games Drought - A Good Time for Retro

The annual summer games drought is fast approaching and as the selection of quality releases dries up I was asking myself if the drought has come early to the Nintendo Wii. I've so far only purchased 3 games for the Wii, Red Steel, Wii Play, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Wii play was only really bought because it came bundled with the extra remote, not for the games on offer (although some are quite enjoyable with family and friends). Red Steel was purchased soon after release to provide an alternative to the epic questing involved with Zelda but it didn't really captivate me for too long.

Since finishing Zelda the Wii has been gathering dust, occasionally it's used to browse the web when I can't be bothered to boot up my laptop. I was hoping that Super Paper Mario would fill the void during the summer, but for us European PAL users no firm release date has been scheduled. As far as I can see that leaves a distinct lack of games that interest me until the latter half of the year when we'll (hopefully) see the release of Metroid Prime 3 and Super Mario Galaxy.

This is therefore the perfect opportunity for me to try out some of the virtual console games as I missed out on the NES, SNES and Mega Drive etc. during my youth (I was firmly in the Commodore Amiga camp). I've so far downloaded Castlevania IV, Gunstar Heroes, R-Type, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is next on the list. Don't get me wrong, I certainly wouldn't advocate buying a Wii just to play retro games. I would prefer to have an original game running on the system, but at least the virtual console provides a small ray of light in the bleak months ahead in the Wii games portfolio.