Top 10 Wii games you may have missed

The Conduit (Sega) An alien race known as the Drudge has invaded Earth, using a device named the Conduit to spawn all over the planet. Your role in this dark futuristic shooter, is to blast them back to wherever they came from. Criticised by reviewers for its generic gameplay and lacklustre story, it’s a solid, visually impressive blaster and well worth a look – especially if you’re not going to compare it (unrealistically) to the likes of Halo and Killzone Photograph: PR

Blastworks: Build, Fuse, Destroy (Majesco) Based on cult Japanese PC title Tumiki Fighters, this is a sideways scrolling shooter that lets you augment your spacecraft with bits and pieces from downed enemy ships. But the real draw is the exhaustive, yet accessible, editor that lets you create your own levels, vehicles and objects – like LittleBigPlanet with laser guns. And it’s £12 at Amazon.co.uk at the moment Photograph: PR

Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Nintendo/Capcom) Capcom’s vast pirate adventure may look like a kiddie’s cartoon game, but it’s actually an extremely challenging puzzler, inspired by LucasArts’ "point-and-click" classic, The Secret of Monkey Island. Great controls and deep, cerebral level designs combine to provide days of entertainment on the high seas Photograph: PR

Boom Blox (EA) An award-winning physics puzzler, based around knocking down, or sometimes building up, towers of blocks, which all react accurately to the speed, size and weight of the projectiles you lob at them. Designed in conjunction with Steven Spielberg, it’s a complex, satisfying challenge – and if you ever beat the 300 levels (and tire of the brilliant multiplayer modes), there’s a sequel available too. You could buy them both online and have changed from 30 quid Photograph: PR

Mad World (Sega) Absolutely insane futuristic sport sim in which competitors chainsaw each other to pieces and fling bodies into mincing machines as spectators goad them on. It’s massively stylised, owing much to Frank Miller’s Sin City comics, and also horrifically entertaining. A must for those sick of Wii’s more cutesy fare. The cheapest we’ve seen it is £12 at Computer Games Exchange Photograph: PR

Anno: Create a New World (Ubisoft) Wonderfully absorbing Civilization-style strategy sim, designed specifically with the Wii controls in mind. It’s the 15th century and your aim is to sail off across the globe discovering new territories in which to establish your fledgling kingdom. Managing city growth and establishing trade routes sounds like the stuff of po-faced PC gaming, but you’ll soon be lost in this colourful, intricately realised universe Photograph: PR

De Blob (THQ) In this exquisitely realised platformer you control a bouncing ball that squirts paint all over an alien city that’s been drained of life by a monochromatic dictatorship. There are missions to complete and puzzles to solve, but the urban environment is open to paint as you see fit, making for a liberating, creative experience. Lovely – and a tenner at Play.com Photograph: PR

Little King’s Story (Rising Star Games) Created by a sort of all-star super team of legendary designers (boasting the likes of Harvest Moon, No More Heroes and Final Fantasy XII in their CVs), this enchanting adventure follows a shy boy who becomes king of a small village and must oversee its expansion and development. Sort of an RPG and a town-building game mixed together and placed in a fairytale world. Absolutely magical Photograph: PR

Okami (Capcom) An astonishingly lovely adventure, designed to resemble an animated Japanese ink drawing. You control the sun goddess Amaterasu who’s on Earth in the form of a wolf to battle evil demons. The controls can be fiddly in combat, but this is an absolute original and if there were any justice in the world it would have sold like hot cakes covered in free diamonds Photograph: PR

Wii Music (Nintendo) Criticised by a few gamers for being rather staid and unfocused, this is, in fact, a really fun musical tool, which should really be seen as a toy rather than a Nintendo version of Guitar Hero. Pick from 60 different instruments and jam along to 50 tracks, including pop and classical hits. One for those rainy days stuck inside with noisy children Photograph: PR