I'm not personally a big fan, but you might want to check out Gunstar Heroes. It's like a cartoony Contra, but more chaotic, and with a health bar (or health "number"). You can also combine weapons for different results. There's also Sin & Punishment, which might control a little weird (you move the cursor with the analog stock of the GCN or Classic controller, and use the other buttons on the controller to move your character left or right, jump, and fire; I think Type C controls on the Classic controller work well), but there's a Wii disc-based sequel coming in the next few months which should have more intuitive controls, thanks to IR.