There are some game concepts that are an obvious fit for the Wii and the balance board, resulting in many variations on a theme. The difficulty for any games developer is how to differentiate your offering from all the others on the market (which for EA generally involves putting the year in the title). So it is with boarding games on the Wii. How do you mark your boarding game out from the likes of Shaun White Snowboarding? Easy...

Add guns.

And bombs, and shields.

Snowboard Riot from Hudson Entertainment, now available from the WiiWare channel, does just that. It spices up the traditional snowboarding action with torpedoes, bombs and shields and allows you to battle against three friends over the internet, or one other "within arm smacking distance" as Hudson Entertainment puts it. You can use the balance board or the wiimote and nunchuck to control your board.

I'm amazed what they have managed to fit in WiiWare download, although we will have to see how many blocks it takes up. This may be well timed for Nintendo's planned addition of external storage for downloads.

This game also gives me hope that developers are finally getting over their obsession with the control system, and a starting to really look at making great games. Too many of the games currently on the Wii are of the "ooh look, you use the WiiMote to stroke a cat" variety. Like kids with a new toy, developers have been a little too obsessed with the controls. Now that the novelty has worn off, and people have a better idea of what works well, I think we will start to see more attention paid to the actual game concept.