Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure

While a few parts seem arbitrary, as is bound to happen in any puzzle game, on the whole Zack & Wiki provides a delightful challenge. Many of the game's levels are just plain cool - figuring out the grand puzzle unveils an awesome event to reveal your prize. It's always figure-outable, even the parts that are really, really brain-bending, which I like.

Something I don't like is the shaky motion controls. Most in-game items / actions are controlled by Wii remote movement, and while many of them work very well, many others do not. I've never had so much difficulty tossing a spinning lasso or dropping an object. Just the same, most of the remote's uses are good, and some are really clever.

There's a ton of extras in the game; I would say too many. Collecting them is only a reward in and of itself, with the exception of some endgame hidden treasures, which promise that there is something in it for me once I Catch 'Em All. Anyway, the superfluous hidden items don't detract from the game, and add a nice little feature for the obsessive completionists.

Zack & Wiki is a really fun, really smart game. Some people may not be smart enough for it; so even for them, there are buyable Hints and Revives (I have to admit that I used a few of the latter). So if you enjoy being mentally challenged, regardless of your skill level, this is a must-play.

Progress: Beat game, tooling around