That said, Vertigo isn't going to wow you with stellar graphics and epic audio, but its physics-based (and physics-busting) puzzle premise just might.
Assuming you like the idea of 54 levels of guiding a ball through futuristic, fantastical mazes, Vertigo delivers all that and some really dumb bowling as a bonus.
What's more, it does so without taxing the motion-sensitive Wii Remote Controller (Wii-mote) beyond its underdeveloped capacity. For the most part, you're guiding - driving? - your ball with gentle twists and gyrations of the Wii-mote to navigate the curves, dips, corners and humps of the space maze on screen, with only the occasional, circumstance specific flit or yank breaking the Zen-like flow.
Vertigo can also be played with the Wii Balance Board, a well-implemented interface save for the fact that only advanced yoga enthusiasts seem able to pull off the full body control that mere mortals invoke with just a Wii-mote and gyrating wrist action.
Then again, the Balance Board does free up the directional-pad on the Wii-mote to manipulate camera positioning, which isn't always ideal when left to its own devices. Otherwise, trying to move the camera while also Wii-mote-only rolling is sometimes awkward if not downright debilitating.
Adding Nunchuk support for camera control would have fixed this double-duty inaptness, but you can't (or shouldn't) complain when Vertigo only costs $20 to begin with - most everything else about it is straight up, honest and wholesome fun for up to four players at the same time.
There are way too many $30, $40, and $50 Wii games that offer no such straight-up, wholesome honesty, though they certainly promise as much like a bold-faced lie, naked and exposed in the $4.99 bargain-bin but a couple of weeks later.
By that token, Vertigo is much more game than its "value pricing" suggests.








