Minigame Collections - Games That Need Improving

Too long has the gaming world suffered a little thorn in its side known as bad minigame collections. True, you might say there are some good ones out there (Wario SmoothMoves on Wii, and Wii Sports and it’s sequel) but there’s still a whole bunch of them out there, wasting away.

So why am I just complaining to you? Well, it’s because I just played one last night. It was … horrible. So I’ve decided; minigame collections need improving.

Here are some things I’ve picked up about minigame collections:

·         A quarter of the minigames suck. Really bad too.

·         There isn’t enough satisfying minigames.

·         Some of them don’t even work properly.

·         There just isn’t enough replay value because most of them are pretty tedious.

·         There’s nothing to do but look at the menu and go “what else is there to do in this dumb game?”

Just saying, not all minigame collections are like this.

Here’s a little comparison. It’s like this:

Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 vs Wii Sport Resort

Just saying, Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 or DOAX2, had you either watching sickeningly bouncy boob physics and looking at skimpy outfits in naughty cutscenes. Either that, or you were playing tedious/boring/difficult/pointless minigames to buy more skimpy outfits. Controls that … don’t really exist, a blindingly bright selection of colours, nice graphics (but with the weird hair mechanics…), and bland bland music.

You think this is skimpy? Clearly you haven't seen the rest of the game.

And Wii Sport Resort was one of the best sports and minigame collection games on Wii, with motion gaming put to its limits and shown to its maximum. Fantastic controls, a relaxing and cool colour scheme, Wii-like graphics (it’s actually a good thing) and some very nice tunes in there that are just pleasant to hear.

And so, because of all of these terrible (but sometimes good) minigame collections, I’ve made a little list of some things minigame collections should pick up:

·         Draft a whole ton of ideas. Even the ones that sound really wacky. Then, try to stick most of them into the game, so there’s a good variety and then the gamer can pick out the good and the bad. Now, I know they probably already do this, but re-drafting is always good. And asking others, and doing it some more is good too.

·         Look at well made minigame collections – and follow their example. After all, if every minigame collection followed Mario Party, then they’d actually be worth it.

·         Create a general hub (which should be interesting), where you can access the minigames. It might also be good to make it explorable, but that depends more on the game itself.

·         Add the ability to make in-game avatars or use the console’s own avatars (like the Miis from the Wii or the avatars from Xbox). And besides, it just feels good playing as yourself.

·         Add some sort of compelling goals – Go Vacation (a pretty good Wii minigame collection) had you clearing the activities on all difficulties so you could get Keys to unlock stuff for your own in-game villa. Something like that.

·         Include special challenges to overcome – finish an activity with exactly 77 points, or do something incredible.

·         Use controls that don’t involve spamming a single input, or something that’s really dumb.

·         Make something fun.

Although most of these are just my opinion, I sorta wish some of these would start happening – minigame collections just might start making a comeback. But before that, I guess they need quite a bit of improving….