I downloaded Lost Winds yesterday and completed it this afternoon. Lost Winds is an adventure platformer made by Frontier Developments for Nintendo’s WiiWare series. While the world and characters are in 3-D, the game controls in 2-D, with sideways movement mapped to the Nunchuk. Instead of a jump button, you use the motion control of the Wii Remote to create gusts of wind around the player character, lifting him from platform to platform. It’s this innovative control scheme, rather than the story and the graphics, that really blew me away.

It’s rare that I come across a game where it’s the very act of playing, of moving through the levels and enjoying the physics of the movement, that makes it memorable. As the game progressed, I levelled up my wind powers, and by the time I was near the end, all I wanted to do was experiment with the different ways I could alight on a grassy platform. I haven’t played a game with such satisfying physics since Exile on the Amiga. I do recommend it if you have a Wii.