Don't be fooled by the Gamespot Genre. Zack & Wiki is more puzzle than adventure.

User Rating: 8 | Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure WII
When I first heard about Zack & Wiki I started picturing the great adventure games of my youth. Games like King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and Gabriel Knight. But to my sorrow this was not the case with Z&W.

From the very start I felt the plot was weak and the characters were rather annoying. For an adventure game that's a big no no. As I continued to play through the levels it became very obvious that the plot wouldn't get much better (only slightly) and it was predictable to boot. It was like to bad Japanese anime for kids.

So you might be asking yourself why I gave the game a score of 8. Well, while Z&K fail at the elements of an adventure game it does a brilliant job of being a puzzle game. once I accepted that I wouldn't be getting what I had envisioned I was able to enjoy it for what it turned out to be, a puzzle game that uses the wiimote well and has very interesting, well designed and amusing stages. It's also the first puzzle game that has used the wii in all these different ways.

An interesting thing i noticed was that it seemed like it look many of the motions that were used in warioware but applied them in the context of something larger, which is a great step in the right direction. Now if they could only wrap this in a story with most depth we'd have a much more immersive experience.