19 Best Wii Motion Control Games

Kororinpa came out in Japan as a Wii launch title, then reached North America in March 2007. It is built on the old wooden Labyrinth toy, but there are no knobs to turn. You rotate the Wii Remote as if you were holding the maze itself, and the marble rolls wherever gravity sends it. Some mazes ask you to tilt so far that a wall becomes the floor, which is where your wrist learns some humility. Hudson Soft set out to make a Wii exclusive and settled on the motion controls after studying what the console could do.

Critics found it short and grumbled about the camera. A sequel, Marble Saga: Kororinpa, came out in 2009 with extra stages for the Balance Board. Kororinpa sits at the bottom of this list, but nothing here is a purer tilt game.

Red Steel was the Wii's first big try at a katana and a gun in the same game. You aim the pistol by pointing the Wii Remote, and the Nunchuk gets jobs of its own. You throw grenades underhand or overhand by moving the Nunchuk as if it were the real thing, and shaking it reloads. Win a sword fight and the enemy drops to his knees, and you decide whether to finish him or show mercy. Under the hood it runs on a modified Unreal Engine 2.5.

Critics liked the graphics and the soundtrack but went after the controls and the sword fights. A sequel arrived in 2010 with a new look and far better swordplay, and players rank it much higher than this one. The first game is still worth a go if you want to see where the Wii's big sword idea started.

Mario Super Sluggers is the sequel to Mario Superstar Baseball on the GameCube, and it reached North America in August 2008. The big change is the controls. The Wii Remote works much like the baseball game in Wii Sports, so you swing it like a bat. There are three control methods in all, including the Wii Remote held sideways if your arm needs a rest. The roster is huge, and team chemistry is a real thing here: putting characters who get along on the same team raises your odds of winning.

Reviews were mixed. Critics liked the large roster and the multiplayer, but the controls drew complaints, and the missing online play came up in nearly every review. On a couch with a few friends and a stack of remotes, that last part hardly matters.

Wii Play: Motion came out in North America in June 2011 as the sequel to Wii Play, and it was sold as a bundle with a Wii Remote Plus. All of its twelve minigames need MotionPlus, which reads the remote's movement with much greater accuracy. In Cone Zone you balance an ice cream cone as the scoops pile up. In another, ghosts hide in your actual living room, and you find them by listening to the remote's speaker before reeling them back into the TV. Nintendo asked studios like Good-Feel and Chunsoft to build prototypes for the add-on, and the finished game is a collection of their ideas.

Reviews were mixed, though critics generally rated it above the first Wii Play. It was also the final game in the Wii series released on the Wii, a quiet goodbye to the whole idea.

Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games puts the two old rivals and 18 more characters from both series into events based on the modern Olympics. The venues are modelled on the official ones from the London games, so you get a tour of the city between races. Nintendo published it in Japan and South Korea, and Sega handled it everywhere else. It is also the only Wii game that came in a yellow case, which makes it very easy to spot on a shelf.

Reviews were mostly mixed, and one critic called its lack of MotionPlus support a missed chance for the series. It sold well all the same, and a winter follow-up came out on the Wii U in 2013. As a game for a crowd of kids who love both mascots, it does its job.

Wii Music came out in October 2008, and it treats music the way Wii Sports treats tennis. You mime an instrument with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, and the band on screen plays along. There is no meter of any kind telling you how well you are doing. You can stick close to the melody or improvise your own arrangement, then overdub yourself on another instrument until you play every part of the band. Shigeru Miyamoto performed the Zelda overworld theme with it on stage at E3 2006, where it was the first Wii game Nintendo ever demonstrated.

Reviews were mixed, and it sold less than most of the Wii series. Players are split on it. Some call it underrated and cleverer than its reputation, while others skip it when they recommend Nintendo's Wii games.

Excitebots: Trick Racing came out on April 20, 2009 as the sequel to Excite Truck, and it shares most of the older game's mechanics, controls and engine included. Most of the tracks are based on real places. The exception is Crystal Nebula, on a made-up planet, and it is also the hardest course in the game. After each race you can save replays and ghosts and send them to other Wii consoles as challenges for your friends. IGN called it pure fun and gave it 8.4 out of 10.

Despite good reviews, Excitebots was never sold in stores outside North America, so a lot of the world missed it completely. Players usually recommend the two Excite games as a pair, and anyone who liked tilting a truck through the air will feel at home here within a lap.

Go Vacation started out as an entry in the We Ski series and grew into a whole island of holidays. It came out in North America in October 2011 after two and a half years of development, and you explore open resorts, picking up activities as you go. Some minigames call for MotionPlus, while others use the Wii Zapper, the Balance Board or the Wii Wheel, so it doubles as a museum of every Wii add-on in your cupboard.

Critics praised the multiplayer and the creativity but not the controls, and one reviewer hated plugging and unplugging Nunchuks between games. Players remember it as a family game anyway, often one they played as kids. It holds up best the way they remember it, with a sibling on the other remote. A Switch port followed in 2018.

Rayman Raving Rabbids began as Rayman 4, a regular platformer. After Nintendo revealed the Wii, people at Ubisoft worried that a conventional 3D platformer would hurt sales, and development started over. What came out in 2006 is a pile of minigames, most of them about using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in a frantic manner to hit the score you need. A few break the pattern: the dancing games have you press the triggers instead of shaking. There are also bunny hunts, first-person stages where Rayman shoots Rabbids with plungers.

Critics praised the frantic play and the humour, and they liked how it used the Wii's features more than they liked the versions on other consoles. It is still the loudest game on this list, and that is meant as a compliment.

Excite Truck was released in the US on November 19, 2006, alongside the Wii itself. It is the third main game in the Excite series, following 1984's Excitebike and 2000's Excitebike 64, and the first one without motorbikes. It is controlled entirely with the Wii Remote: you steer by tilting it, and the Nunchuk stays in the drawer. The ground reshapes itself under you, and crossing the line first is only one more way to earn stars. Your stars decide a letter grade, with S at the top. It was also the first Wii game that let you play your own MP3s from an SD card.

Players love it as a pure arcade racer. One summed it up as a game that "Looks like shovelware but is actually a really amazing racing game", which is a fair warning about the box.

Just Dance grew out of a minigame in Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party. You hold the Wii Remote in your right hand and follow the dancer on screen, and the game judges your moves from that one controller. The team built it around the Wii Remote alone on purpose, and they felt the Nunchuk's short cord limited how it could be used in routines. Some moves are shake moves, where you shake the remote as fast as you can for bonus points.

Reviews were rough. Critics went after the simple play and the poor motion detection, though they agreed it got more fun as a party game. Players recommend it alongside other party games for the Wii, and it was a huge hit: over 4.3 million copies, and the start of a series that has sold over 90 million units.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves reached North America in January 2007, and it fires microgames at you in rapid succession. Before each one, it tells you how to hold the Wii Remote, starting with the plain grip you would use on a TV remote and getting stranger from there. Director Goro Abe came up with the idea when the Wii Remote was first shown to him. The team felt that holding it only one way would limit the fun, so they invented new positions and motions for it.

It was the fourth best-selling game in the US in its first month. Players tend to put it on the same short list as Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, and it earns the spot at parties: once you clear the single-player stages, up to 12 players can share one Wii Remote.

Skyward Sword took around five years to make and was delayed to November 2011 to refine and expand it. It is the first game in the Zelda timeline, and it tells the origin of the Triforce and the Master Sword. Your sword arm is the remote, with Wii MotionPlus reading your swings. Getting that working caused the team so many problems that MotionPlus was nearly dropped. It was also the first Zelda with a live orchestra playing most of its music.

It received perfect scores from several critics, but its motion controls were one of the main complaints, along with its linear design. Players who recommend Wii games usually pair it with Twilight Princess, the other big Zelda on the console. A Switch remaster came out in July 2021 for anyone who would rather use buttons.

Boom Blox was developed by EA Los Angeles and directed by Steven Spielberg, who said he wanted a video game he could play with his kids. It is a set of physics puzzles: knock towers of blocks down, or keep them standing. The game measures how fast you throw and recognises four distinct speeds, so a lazy flick and a full arm make different messes. You also get bowling balls and laser guns, and in the Jenga-style stages you grab blocks and pull them out without toppling the tower.

EA said it sold over 450,000 copies in its first fiscal quarter, and a sequel, Boom Blox Bash Party, followed in 2009. Players almost always recommend the two games together, and they are right to. Few Wii games are easier to hand to someone who has never held a remote.

Wii Play started as a compilation of prototype games shown off at E3 2006 and was made alongside Wii Sports. It reached North America in February 2007. Its nine minigames each show off a different trick of the Wii Remote. Shooting Range is a homage to Duck Hunt, and in billiards you use the remote like a cue stick, hitting the ball at different angles to add spin. It also came with a spare Wii Remote, which is a big reason it sold 28.02 million copies.

Critics called it repetitive. Players kept it anyway, and they usually recommend it with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort as the basic Wii starter set. The Tanks game alone has eaten more evenings than anyone will admit.

Punch-Out!! was developed by Next Level Games and came out in North America on May 18, 2009. Little Mac climbs the three circuits of the World Video Boxing Association, then has to defend his title against the same fighters with new techniques, like King Hippo protecting his stomach with a manhole cover. You can box with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk together, and you can even duck and dodge on the Balance Board. If that sounds tiring, the Wii Remote can be used by itself and held sideways in a traditional two-button control scheme.

Every opponent is a pattern to learn, and landing a punch at the right moment earns a star for a harder hit. Players often name it in the same breath as Wii Sports Resort, and it is probably the toughest game on this list.

Red Steel 2 came out in March 2010 with a vastly different art style from the first game. It is a first-person game where you switch between shooting and sword fighting, set in a make-believe Wild West carved up by warrior clans who use both samurai and cowboy weapons. It was the first game besides Wii Sports Resort to use Wii MotionPlus, and that is the whole point. With the add-on reading your wrist, the sword finally goes where your arm goes.

Critics liked it far more than the original, and one reviewer called it the best motion controlled first person shooter they ever played. Players usually recommend it next to No More Heroes when someone wants the Wii's more grown-up action games. If you only buy one MotionPlus game besides Resort, make it this one.

Wii Sports Resort came out in Japan in June 2009 and almost everywhere else the following month. It was the first game to require Wii MotionPlus, and the add-on was bundled with it. The plain remote only picked up straight-arm movement, and MotionPlus changes that. Twelve sports are set on Wuhu Island, and Table Tennis, once a pointer game in Wii Play, is now played with your arm. In Air Sports you can fly around the island freely and spot details the other events never show you. The only games back from the original are Bowling and Golf.

It sold 33.14 million copies, making it the third best-selling game on the Wii. When someone buys a Wii today, players tell them to get a Wii Remote Plus or a MotionPlus adapter first.

Wii Sports launched with the Wii in North America on 19 November 2006, and it was a pack-in game with the console in all territories except Japan and Korea. It is five sports built to show off the motion sensing of the Wii Remote. You swing it like a golf club or a tennis racket and roll it like a bowling ball, and Boxing puts the Nunchuk in your other hand. Golf and Bowling can be played with just one Wii Remote passed around the room, and your Miis show up in the crowd while you bowl.

It won the Game Critics Award for Best Sports Game, and it was followed by Wii Sports Club on the Wii U and Nintendo Switch Sports. Players recommend it more than any other Wii motion game, and they talk about it as the game to play with family, grandparents included.