Review - Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Tresure

Zack and Wiki is a fun pirate themed adventure game. Zack a budding pirate sets out to search to the many components of a cursed skeleton, supposedly in exchange for a nice pirating ship. Of course things go wrong, and the day must be saved.

If you’ve ever played Monkey Island or King’s Quest, you know what type of game Zack and Wiki is. You roam around areas, finding items and using them in creative ways to overcome obstacles. Zack and Wiki separates everything into areas with obvious goals and challenges. This separation makes it so that you always know what you are suppose to be doing, very much unlike those other games I mentioned. But the challenges are still just as hard to figure out, and the puzzles often reveal themselves in humorous and clever ways.

One of the most interesting features, is that when you interact with objects in the game, you make the motions with the Wiimote that you would in real life. It starts off very simple (sawing and turning keys), but later becomes quite clever and creates a puzzle in and of itself.

Critically, I think the game was quite fun. The starting was slow, too talky and quite boring. Plus they over explain everything. I almost gave up before it got interesting. Once I was through the begining (which could use some voice acting in my opinion, like the rest of the game), it picked up nicely. You can buy hints in game which help keep you from being completely stuck (yes I’m looking at you Lucas Arts), without giving everything away. The characters could use a little more development, they were flat and I didn’t really pin a personality to any of them, but hey, it is a game not a novel. Cleverness was overflowing through the entire game design. All in all, Zack and Wiki was really fun and comes very close to a must buy.

Several critics have been appalled by the poor sales of what they consider one of the best games for the Wii. Because of this, a Buy Zack and Wiki campaign has popped up, with many critics trying to drive the point home that you should buy the game. The game has definitely picked up in sales since then, but it is still somewhat lower than the quality should put it. At the moment is has about 300 thousand copies sold. If you have a big collection, and don’t have Zack and Wiki yet, what is wrong with you. If you are looking for a game and like the adventure genre, then Zack and Wiki is a must have. If on the other hand, you want another boring collection of minigames, well then don’t get Zack and Wiki.

Zack and Wiki is appropriate for all ages, but doesn’t really make for group fun. To much content, not enough minigames. This makes Zack and Wiki a little less ‘casual’ then other Wii games, which in my opinion is a good thing. We need more variety to Wii life. So, with that said, Zack and WIki gets a 9 out of 10 from me.

Tags: wii cost, super mario brothers, new nintendo game, nintendo wii game, new releases