Buzzin Games

Everyone calls the Wii a ‘kiddie console’, and you can kind of see their point with a whole heap of ludicrously colourful shovelware titles sitting alongside Nintendo’s typically cartoony first party titles. But recently a number of exclusives have come along that are looking to challenge this reputation.

First out of the blocks we had Manhunt 2, which was left in limbo for over a year due to it being banned outright by the BBFC. When it finally emerged, we were required to recreate grizzly executions with the Wii remote and nunchuck. The result was a bit of a mess, losing the social commentary that made the first one notable in favour of average gameplay and shock tactics.

Then we’ve got MadWorld coming out very soon, which has also caused a few eyebrows to be raised at its very stylised violence. Now Joystiq reports that House of the Dead: Overkill, which also carries an 18 certificate, has set a world record for the most swearing in a video game.

How’s it managed this? Gleefully is the way I’d put it. There are 189 uses of the f-word in total across a meagre 3 hours of dialogue. To put that another way, it means you’re averaging one instance per minute and the word represents 3% of the total used in the game. That’s a pretty limited vocabulary right there.

I’m yet to play House of the Dead, but it does seem to me that this is the adult usage of horror and language as opposed to the mature version. Using the f-word that many times doesn’t make me look at the Wii as any more of an adult console; in fact quite the reverse. It makes me see it as talk of the playground, with the ‘adult games’ being the controversial conversation topics of the rebels who’ve somehow managed to break past our distinctly leaky licensing laws to get a copy.

What do you think? Are these new ‘mature’ games the sign that the Wii is rivalling the demographics of the PS3 and 360, or do they come across as a childish idea of the kind of things adults enjoy? As ever, drop us a comment.