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Wii Suck @ Video Games - Episode 23 - Ultimate Board Game Collection

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·May 15, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

Ultimate Board Game Collection review: clunky, freezing Wii port rated 2/10, avoid.

Summary

Two video game enthusiasts review "Ultimate Board Game Collection" for the Nintendo Wii, a 2006 board game compilation that severely disappointed them. The game froze their Wii U multiple times, featured clunky controls, odd visual aesthetics reminiscent of early internet design, and poor implementation of basic board games like Mahjong. Both hosts gave it 2-2.5/10 ratings and recommended avoiding it entirely.

Key Claims

  • Ultimate Board Game Collection was released July 5, 2006, before the Wii was live, suggesting it was a launch day title ported from PS2/PSP

    high confidence · Hosts discuss release date and confirm it was available at Wii launch

  • The game froze the Wii U twice, including once with a loud screeching sound, and could not be turned off normally

    high confidence · Direct user experience during gameplay session

  • The game has poor Wii remote pointer accuracy, requiring clicks to work correctly and making gameplay tedious

    high confidence · Hosts describe control issues during Mahjong gameplay

  • The Mahjong implementation is flawed—does not allow shuffles or re-deals when no moves remain, unlike versions on Super Nintendo

    high confidence · Hosts compare to Shanghai on Super Nintendo and note lack of shuffle/re-deck options

  • IGN gave the game a 3.5/10 on Metacritic, criticizing odd music, poor visuals, and flawed game implementations

    high confidence · Hosts read IGN review from Metacritic

Notable Quotes

  • “it froze the Wii U so hard we had to unplug it couldn't turn it off had to unplug it”

    Host (Mao or Chris) @ mid-episode — Describes critical technical failure demonstrating game instability

  • “There wasn't anything redeeming about it... there's DOS versions of these games... there's no excuse to not have smooth animation and have it work correctly”

    Host @ review conclusion — Expresses frustration at poor quality given that basic board games have existed for decades

  • “incompetent hot garbage”

    Host @ mid-review — Summary judgment of game quality

  • “the backgrounds reminded me, remember in the first years of the internet, how people would have like dancing babies and Jesus floating around... It was like we were playing Mahjong in the background. It looked like you were in front of an aquarium where there's like a diver swimming around”

    Host @ mid-review — Describes bizarre, dated visual design aesthetic that detracts from gameplay

  • “This is like a straight port. They didn't know what to do with the Wii motion control, but they did. They tried.”

    Host @ early analysis — Acknowledges developer attempted Wii remote integration but failed

Entities

Ultimate Board Game CollectiongameMere MortalscompanyValcon GamescompanyMaopersonChrispersonWe Suck at Video GamesorganizationPinball Junk DrawerorganizationIGNorganizationNintendocompanyNelly Furtadoperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Ultimate Board Game Collection experiences critical stability issues (freezing, screeching sounds) that require system hard reset via unplugging

    high · Direct user experience: 'froze the Wii U so hard we had to unplug it couldn't turn it off'

  • ?

    product_concern: Game has poor motion control implementation and inaccurate pointer tracking, making basic interactions tedious and unreliable

    high · Hosts describe control issues: 'it wasn't so accurate... If you clicked something that you were close to it, it wouldn't work'

  • ?

    product_concern: Mahjong game lacks shuffle/re-deck functionality, resulting in unwinnable game states with no recovery option

    high · Hosts compare to Super Nintendo Shanghai: 'there was no, like, back button or fix button'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Game appears to be a straight port from PS2/PSP with minimal Wii-specific adaptation, lacking proper motion control integration despite available technology

    high · Host analysis: 'This is like a straight port. They didn't know what to do with the Wii motion control, but they did. They tried.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Hosts use Metacritic and professional reviews (IGN 3.5/10) as reference point but express preference for user-generated reviews

    medium · Hosts note lack of user reviews on Metacritic and express disappointment about this

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.069

0:00
oh and we are back it's time for the one the only we suck at video games my name is mao and with me as always craft brew sally who is chewing on a lozenge or something that's that's not good radio It really isn't. Oh, my God. So, yeah, I'm trying to think of what has gone on in the last couple weeks. We haven't acquired any games. I sold a game. I put a couple sealed DS games up locally, and one sold, the Yo-Kai Watch, which I figured that would sell. A couple are sitting there, still sealed, and they're not moving, and I priced them pretty good. I'm going to have to put them out on the Facebook. Oh, God.
0:57
Because I'm part of those groups. So that's in the future. It sounds like you're looking forward to that a lot. Oh, well, yeah. Humans are awesome. So we did preface before the last, or sometime during our last show, we did preface that we were going to go out. It was the community-wide rummage sale. And we had off, we both had off that Friday, even though they start like Tuesday and Wednesday here in Wisconsin for some reason. Yeah, like today I was out and there was one. Today. Yeah. I'm like, it's Wednesday. Doesn't matter. Could be. It's a pop-up yard sale on Monday morning at 7. And you're like, why? But whatever. You do you, Wisconsin. I guess that's a lot of, I hear a lot of people saying that now. You do you or you be you. Yeah. That was an old phrase. It's a dumb phrase. But whatever. So, yeah. So, and nothing. We got absolutely zero. There was not a whole bunch of games at all. I couldn't believe it. Not even like. See, now we're down to the dregs where you're not even seeing the green Xbox games because those are virtually worthless. I'm sure there's some out there that are worth money. I've never seen them. Every game is literally everywhere. No one buys them. So did we see any? Oh, I did see some games. Oh, yeah. You found there was a Wii Fit or something. no there was that the lady had a stack of like kind of commons but there was like two or three I didn't have and I thought they were like a dollar or two each and then she was like five bucks each and I was like no no I'm not going to get deal or no deal for five bucks I thought there was Wii Fit there though and that's why I thought like five bucks for Wii Fit no that was the one it was Wii Fit was there and then there was another place that had a Wii bundle but it was pretty trashed and it was also like the Wii Fit board had the rotted batteries in there. I let it sit. I was like you know what, I'm not going to I'll keep my $25. Thanks. It was so weird. I'll put that towards some real Wii games. Yeah, I think it's going to be I do think this might be like, we're not going to see that stuff anymore in yard sales. I bet you those days are long gone. That's sad. Every now and then you might see some pop up, but you'll never see Nintendo or Super Nintendo, like those cartridges. No way. Guarantee. Everyone thinks they're made of gold now because the media has been like, oh my god, this game sold for $100,000. So now every grandmother, my kid had that, and then they bring it out, this is $100,000. You're like, no, it's not. It's really not. The people that are selling them are probably the ones that are putting a mark in place before the before their yard sale starts. Oh, of course. I mean, they'd have to. Right. No one wants to give away money. I don't fault anyone for that. It's just sad because I do miss the days of just finding stuff. Right. It's so cool. Right. Now you find nothing but sadness and regret. Yes.

market_signal: Ultimate Board Game Collection is overpriced in secondary market ($12-14) relative to quality and condition, suggesting artificial scarcity markup

medium · Host observation: 'For some reason, it wasn't like a dollar game either... Some for sale for like 12 and 14 bucks. I'm like, you're nuts.'

4:04
So nothing came up on the yard sale front. And then I was listening. There's starting more and more speculation coming in about the Switch 2. I think it's going to be called Electric Boogaloo. Oh, wow. Yes, Nintendo Electric Boogaloo. and I'm, man, I know there's no, they're not talking about it so much yet, but you're starting to see Nintendo cycling down. They always do the same thing at the end of their, like, as their consoles, like, getting close to being sunset, they first, they'll, like, kind of put out a whole bunch of, I don't want to say cash grabs, but stuff that they know is going to be a quick sell. What was that thing we got, the World Championship NES collection,
4:45
and it comes in, like, that NES Championship gold cartridge and crap. because suckers like me are going to buy it. Right. And then they put out the third Namco Museum. Did you get it? I got five.
4:59
And then probably right after Christmas, they'll get all they can for Christmas, and then right after they're going to clear the pipeline out by reducing price, and then they'll make a Switch Mini somehow that is the same size as a 3DS.
5:14
They'll just cycle down, cycle down, and then they'll be like, oh, look, here's the Switch 2. I sure hope it still accepts the physical cartridges, but, oh. I know. It's hard to say. I know. Everything is kind of going digital only. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. I'm not even going to bother saying I won't jump on board. Of course I'm going to get it. It doesn't matter. You're going to be getting it on release day. What are you talking about? It's possible. You don't know. No, no. It is You don know Oh I think I do I think you do too So what game did we choose for this Let get to the review People don't want to hear us talking about nonsense. I hope they do, because that's all I do. That's all I know how to do, man. So we played the Ultimate Board Game Collection. That sounds pretty exciting. It does. It sounds really exciting. So when did this release? this was um what day does he have the release date i have july 5 2006 yeah july 5 2006 now that is um that's before the switch or that's before the wii was live so that tells me that this was like a launch day title this is i know that it came out for the ps2 and the psp so they probably had those and then ported it over to be like a game that's available on launch huh yeah uh so you know you're like okay uh what was the let's set the mood we always like to set the mood what was the top song for july 5th 2006 do you have that i don't it was called a promiscuous from nelly frittato never heard of it i feel like i know that song i feel like when i hear nelly frittato i want to go order some stuff from a mexican restaurant i'd like a nelly frittato can you hold the onions i'm I'm not a big onion person. Maybe some extra hot sauce on that. When you said frittata, for some reason I thought about a funnel cake. I thought of frittato, frittato, whatever.
7:17
Now I want funnel cake. And I want Mexican food. Is there a Mexican place around here that has Nelly frittato with a side of funnel cake? Let's try to find it. We're off, everyone. Goodbye. So, all right. Do you have the top movie? I don't. Oh, you don't have any of this stuff, do you? it was Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest. Oh. Yes. There's a lot of those. I remember seeing all of them, and I remember thinking about two of them were good. I still watch. They're funny. People like to dogpile on hating on the Pirates of the Caribbean. What do you expect? I mean, it's literally just. It's mostly about rum. Let's watch Johnny Dog about rum and pretend he's Keith Richards for an hour and a half. Okay, perfect. And go. So now, do we have a student with us? an off year? July of 2006, we would not. Yeah, we wouldn't. This was in between I think it was in between Kiddo and Tao.
8:11
Wild stuff. That was a sad year. No student with us. No fun to note. There was no fun. There was never any fun. Before we get into it, I like to always read the back of the box to tell us what they think they're giving us. The ultimate collection of board games. Play against the computer or three of your closest friends. Either way, Ultimate Board Game Collection will keep you entertained for a long time. Play one, two, three, or four player versions of your favorite family games. Learn how to play games that are new to you with full tutorials included. Twelve fun-filled games including Chess, Checkers, Backgammon, Jigsaws, Sudoku, Mojang, and Chinese Checkers are all available on this disc! Exclamation point. No more lost pieces or broken game boards. I have a lot of questions. I bet you do. So, do we have any history with this game? No. No, we do not. None at all. Zero.
9:14
I'll get to it later. So, we don't really have any history with the game. What questions might you have as we delve into our... First question. It mentions on there about tutorials. Lies. Okay. excellent I think it also said fun what happened when we tried to put a second player on it froze the Wii and started screeching at us it froze the Wii U so hard we had to unplug it couldn't turn it off had to unplug it now this was something it froze up like bricked our Wii U twice and this is something I was kind of like maybe because it was so early it would work on the Wii. And not the Wii U. That's a possibility. I don't, I'll give it that. I'm not going to blame it for the freezes because old discs and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So whatever. I didn't even think about that. I always forget that we have the Wii U upstairs and not the Wii. So we had, it was published, or the developers were Mere Mortals. They're a British group. They were in business from 1999 to 2010. I didn't see really any games of note. They did some games, but I don't know, nothing that's jumped out at me. And then it was published by Valcon Games. So that's who was responsible for this. Let me say it that way, kind of tongue-in-cheek. So we never played it. And now we put it in. So it starts off, it has, there's three different modes or kinds of games. Yes. It's classic, strategy, and family. Right. And then what was the, no, like what were, did you remember what was in each of those? Or did, like classic was like checkers, chess, backgammon. Yeah. I don't know. And then I think strategy was like. Strategy would have been Sudoku and Mojang. And battles?
11:19
No, not battleship. It was called like Naval Fight or something like that. The first thing that made me laugh is like right at the bottom as it was loading as fast as it could go away it said please none of these are actually affiliated with any of these things meaning this isn Battleship So Milton Bradley or whoever makes that don sue us This is called Naval Fight. And Mo Zhang, whatever, don't, hey, China, don't. I think Mo Zhang is Mo Zhang in any, like, that's the kind of game. Well, except that's Shanghai. It's called Shanghai 2 on the Super Nintendo. Oh, okay. I don't know what that's about, but whatever. Actually, we played that a lot. Yeah, we did. I played it a lot of times. So, first it froze. Then it wasn't enjoyable and it was... Clunky? Yeah, clunky is the best way to describe it. These are... Now, after I found out that it was such an early release, I was kind of like, okay, well, maybe they were just... This is like a straight port. They didn't know what to do with the Wii motion control, but they did. They tried. Yeah. Like, none of it was, not a single thing. I didn't enjoy a single thing playing it. No. It was... So we played Mojang. Yeah. And I learned how to spell Mojang when we played it. From My Brilliant Tactics? Yes. Okay. And how do I spell Mojang? Mojang is spelled M-O-H.
12:49
Go ahead. Nine. Nine, yes. That checks out so far. Infinity sign. Yep. J. I think I said there's a J in there somewhere. Is that what I said? Possibly. Sorry. That made me laugh even harder this time.
13:04
So that's correct, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yep. It is. No, that's not. I have no idea how to spell Mojang. I can say it on the back of the boxes. M-A-H-J-O-N-J. Oh, M-A-H. M-A. Ma. Jong. Okay. M-A-H. Ma. Give me some jong. and you don't tell me and he gets hit with a shoe. Oh, that was Ma Zhang. She ain't going to give us that game. Aw, Ma, come on. So there was a J in there somewhere. Yeah, I knew there was a J in there. That was accurate. Just the nine and the infinity sign and all the other stuff wasn't quite up to snuff. Oh, my goodness.
13:42
I think the music in it was very, like, funky music. Like, I think they were trying to make it sound like some of the other games, but it was not. I don't know how games sound.
13:55
Games usually sound like drunken arguments. That's a game I play. Now, the music wasn't off-putting. No, but it was not. Goofy. It was goofy. And, like, the controls weren't horrible, but it was so much work to do anything. Right. Like, if you clicked something that you were close to it, it wouldn't work. Yeah, it wasn't so accurate. And then by that point, your little hand was somewhere else. So you had to like come out, like, yeah. You had to like click off of it. And then it was like, oh, my God. And then it starts, yeah. So like, and then those, what was with those backgrounds? Like, the backgrounds reminded me, remember like in the first years of the internet, how people would have like dancing babies and Jesus floating around and crap. That's what they took. They took like the flying toasters. I was waiting to see the flying toasters in the background, but without any kind of logos on it. It would just be like a nondescript piece of toast instead of it. It was like we were playing Mojang in the background. It looked like you were in front of an aquarium where there's like a diver swimming around and fish were going by. I think there was a shark and a dolphin. And then the one had like space stuff. So there's like an astronaut just floating around. now this might have been real knee slappingly funny in 2006 but in 2024 it's off-putting and odd it's just like what the hell am i looking at what is that can i turn that off no like yeah and then in the mojang like normally you can like shuffle yeah so like finish the super nintendo that you show like yeah no like sometimes some of them let you shuffle a couple times before the game's over Well, the object is to finish the game. The object isn't to, like, you know. Yeah. Oh, no more moves. And it counts down how many moves on the side. So you know you're done. So you know that you're not going to make it to the end. Damn you, Shanghai. I mean, Mojang. Come on, Mahjong.
15:58
Nah, shit. But there was no, like, back button or fix button or... Because, now, that Mojang game is, like, it's not a guaranteed winner every time. No. Like, no matter how good you are. I think you lose more than you win on that. Yeah. So you should have a shuffle or just a re-deck. Right. I remember the, what was it, did Shanghai, like, penalize you, like, points or something? I think so. But it wasn't. I think it took points away if you shuffled. Who cares? Right. You're just trying to play this game. It's just a fun, stupid game you're playing, you know. So it immediately, and I was afraid to, like, launch tutorials because, like, Like that squelching brick.
16:42
Yeah. That was crazy. That's never happened to me in the Wii U before. No. And I was like, oh, my, this is not stable. And then I did it the second time. It didn't screech at us that time. It just like froze and didn't let us do anything else. No. It was a real junker. Yeah. There wasn't anything. And that was the sad part. There wasn't anything redeeming about it. You know, these are very basic, just dumbass games. There's DOS versions of these games. You know, most of them. You can get Battle Chess on those floppy disks and it worked you know I don know if you have a computer that can run that crap but you can do it And so it like there no excuse to not have smooth animation and have it work correctly
17:26
Now, I can't speak to the levels of intricacies, like how stout the chess game is. It might be really good. I don't know how to play chess. I don't think this one would have it anyway. So what would you give this? I was on the fence between two and a three so I'm going more towards a two I'm going to go 2.5 I was going to give it a solid two I do give it credit it's one of the first titles that's challenging at best so I'm not going to totally thrash on this thing but we will check I always like to take a look and see what Metacritic has to say you did say that it was incompetent hot garbage incompetent hot garbage yes i don't i'll check if that's on the metacritic no it isn't okay so metacritic you know i'll tell you what the last couple have really disappointed me there hasn't been any user reviews and i was like come on those are the best ones those are the ones right just sheer madness and lunacy so it's only the only one that's in there is a 3.5 out of 10 from ign so you know it's not going to be funny it's just going to be scathing right so it says ultimate board collection is what it claims to be, except for its leading adjective. It's an average board game collection with odd music, poor visual presentation, basic implementation of the Wii remote pointer functionality, and a flawed interpretation of at least two of its twelve included games. So, there you have it. Metacritic's not a big fan. I'm hoping we can get it back on track and get some good user reviews. You know, those are the, that's where we really have the fun. So I guess we're going to say, avoid this if you could. For some reason, it wasn't like a dollar game either. I looked at like, sometimes I like to see what they're tracking at. Some for sale for like 12 and 14 bucks. I'm like, you're nuts. Like what, you know. Like that's somebody upstaging it. Like this is the ultimate collection. Oh yeah, maybe that's probably what it is. Because this is literally, if there was I would buy it for a buck if it had a Wii cart a Wii branded case so I could throw it in the garbage and keep the Wii case which is what you do a lot I don't throw them in the garbage I put them in a pile in hopes that I can sell them for a dollar each which I never will I'll just end up having a that's Tao's problem yeah all right so I guess we're both going to say avoid at all cost yeah this one's a mess folks sorry I mean unless you want to see that awesome background then buy it for a buck if you can buy it for a buck and then listen to some funky, not even, I don't know what kind of jazz fusion, I don't know what you would call it. I don't even know what that means. But I know it's a word. So just don't. Just take your dollar and be happier. I think it's time. Go get a scratch off. You can just get disappointed all in one shot. You don't have to have all the hassle of being disappointed as you stand up and put it in the Wii and you sit down and then your batteries are burned out. You have to plug your batteries in. And then your Wii starts screeching at you and you have to get up again. Just buy a scratch-off and get all your disappointment done in one shot. So it'll be easier for everyone. All right. I think it's time to pick our next week's game. Whose turn is it? It's mine. Oh, my God. Stay tuned, everyone.
20:56
All right. Lay it on us, Ma Xiong. Here we go. Monster 4x4 World Circuit. Oh, me. That sounds fantastic. It does. I wish it was Excite Truck. Those are the really good ones. Well, Monster Truck. Monster. What the hell is it? Monster 4x4 World Circuit. Wow. Okay, not even local. It's World Circuit. Right. I'm sure there's going to be many really well-represented countries.
21:29
Now, how can they reach us if they want to? They can reach us at pinballjunkdrawer at gmail.com. What about for this show? don't they should they write us into this show because that's a different show and just in case you're wondering everyone sugar do do do oh honey so what how we suck at video games at gmail.com that's better I'm gonna have the link in the show notes if you listen and you see the notes you can just click on it and write and then tell us that you wanted to write the other show but that isn't that show because I'm not even editing this out. I'm leaving it. The hell with it. Oh, man.
22:13
What are you going to do, folks? Anything else before we wrap up that crap for salad? I don't think so. Listen to some of our other shows. You'll be glad you did. We have the Pinball Junk drawer.
22:23
This show? We Suck at Video Games? If you're just listening now to the last minute of our show, this show is called We Suck at Video Games. Or you can glance at your phone and that'll tell you what it's called. We also do I have an older B-movie review show called SlowRobotagogo.wordpress.com. It's just called SlowRobotagogo. We're actually thinking about doing a revival on that one, but we'll talk more about that some other time. Right. And I think that's going to do it. Okay. Play the Wii and enjoy, folks. See you next time.
22:57
That's it, man. Game over, man. Game over.