January2016

December2015

  • Review Polarium Advance (Wii U eShop / GBA)

    Black + white = fun exercise for the old grey matter

    Draw a line. OK, you'll have to give it a bit more thought than that as you won't be passing through all the squares on screen, but Polarium Advance is a simple game to play. Each puzzle consists of white and black tiles and once you've picked a start point you must draw a single line, moving...

  • Review Animal Crossing: Wild World (Wii U eShop / DS)

    Why this world?

    The very idea of a portable version of Animal Crossing filled this reviewer with glee when he first read about it back in the days of magazines and routers without wi-fi as standard. Animal Crossing: Wild World has always been a very special game to fans as it expanded upon the original GameCube title (for this region at least) but...

  • Review Kirby Mass Attack (Wii U eShop / DS)

    Safety in numbers

    Known in Japan as Atsumete! Kirby, Kirby Mass Attack is the final title in the long-running HAL Laboratory series for the Nintendo DS. Originally released in 2011, Mass Attack moves away from traditional platform game design in preference of a completely touch-driven experience. Thankfully, unlike the original 2005 entry for DS –...

  • Review Kirby: Power Paintbrush (Wii U eShop / DS)

    Time has passed

    Kirby: Power Paintbrush – also known as Canvas Curse in North America – was originally released on the Nintendo DS in 2005. Following the trend of many other franchises during this new generation of handheld gaming, the HAL Laboratory-developed title moved away from traditional platform game conventions by utilising the defining...

  • Review Pokémon Picross (3DS eShop)

    Pika-p and play

    During the Nintendo Direct in November one of the surprise announcements was Pokémon Picross. It seemed like a bizarre idea, but crossing over the Pokémon franchise with the quirky Picross series is precisely what the somewhat stagnant puzzle series needed, adding a considerable amount of replayability and strategy onto the...

  • Review The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Wii U eShop / DS)

    An epic sail

    When thinking about the best games from the Legend of Zelda series, many automatically jump straight in at the deep end with the big, home console releases; games such as Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker always seem to make it to the top of peoples' lists. Games often overlooked are those that have appeared on Nintendo's portable...

November2015

  • Review Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)

    A Mira-culous discovery

    Monolith Soft has made plenty of bold claims about Xenoblade Chronicles X. It's talked up the size of the planet as being five times that of Xenoblade Chronicles, stated that any landscape you see is there to be explored, and promised that there are not only dozens of hours of legitimate gameplay, but hundreds. Often that...

  • Review Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Bros. (3DS)

    This Mario mashup is a real jam

    Though it came as a bit of a surprise, quietly tucked away into Nintendo's Digital Event during E3 earlier this year, fans of RPG silliness have been anticipating the crossover of a lifetime since the announcement of AlphaDream's latest adventure. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Bros. (known simply as Mario & Luigi:...

  • Review Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon (3DS)

    Gotta recruit 'em all

    Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is very much a rollercoaster ride, frequently oscillating between highs and lows. Just when you think you can't bear the tedium any longer something interesting happens that pulls you right back in. On the other hand, just when things are starting to get good it levels off and you're forced to...

  • Review Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival (Wii U)

    The sigh heard 'round the wild world

    Animal Crossing made its name as a quaint, cutesy, somewhat bizarre life simulator where something new to do, collect or modify is always around the corner. This year, two spin-off games hone in on separate areas of that Nintendo life: Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer on 3DS explores "work," and Animal...

  • Review Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash (Wii U)

    Into the net

    Mario's spin-off titles have been integral to Nintendo systems for multiple generations, typically designed to bring families and friends together for light-hearted fun. The tennis spin-off has often found a fascinating middle-ground between depth and accessibility, though the home console entries have often been focused on simple...

  • Review Nintendo Presents: New Style Boutique 2 - Fashion Forward (3DS)

    Back in style

    Like high-waisted shorts or the reemergence of leg warmers, some things just come out of nowhere. Syn Sophia's New Style Boutique was a similarly surprising success when it hit the 3DS runways in 2012, giving the fashion sim genre a real gem. After a few seasons off it's back for another appearance (in Europe at least) with this...

  • Review Yo-Kai Watch (3DS)

    Gotta friend 'em all

    There's no point beating around the bush: Yo-Kai Watch is a lot like Pokémon. But instead of straight up emulating one of Nintendo's biggest franchises, developer Level-5 has aspired to create something a bit stranger and fresher than Pokémon has done in years. The result is a welcoming RPG that has some highs and some lows,...

  • Review Wild Gunman (Wii U eShop / NES)

    You mean you have to use your hands?

    Just like Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley, Wild Gunman was one of the first games released to take full advantage of the NES Zapper, and can now be played on the Wii U by using the Wii Remote's pointer instead. Based on Nintendo's light gun arcade machine, you might even remember seeing it in the Cafe 80's in Back to...

  • Review Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II (Wii U eShop / NES)

    Time for Mike to make his return

    For banana fans and island hoppers alike, the original StarTropics stands to this day as an under-appreciated classic of the NES library. It's the kind of imperfect gem that sadly went a little under the radar at the time of its release, but has endured as a cult favourite thanks in large part to its distinctive...

  • Review Hogan's Alley (Wii U eShop / NES)

    Not exactly a bullseye

    One of the earliest NES games released, Hogan's Alley is also possibly the most well-known Zapper game after the classic Duck Hunt. But does it hold up as well as its lightgun game partner? The premise of Hogan's Alley is fairly simple. You are (seemingly) some sort of police officer or soldier doing shooting practice, with...

October2015

  • Review The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS)

    Tri-al and error

    The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes is a remarkably segmented and potentially divisive game from Nintendo. It attempts a similar trick to Four Swords Adventures but, with its totem mechanic and implementation, doesn't accommodate both solo and group players in canny ways; as a result this is a multiplayer game with single player...

  • Review Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water (Wii U)

    Focusing on fear

    Like the lashing of rain against a bedroom window, or the sound of a damp footstep outside your door - Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water is coming for you. Also known in North America as Fatal Frame, this latest entry in the cult horror franchise has set its sights on Western shores just in time for Halloween, and while some might...

  • Review Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash (3DS)

    Robots in plain sight

    If you want to be all reductive about it, you can say there are two types of Nintendo mascot games: Biggies and Smallies. Everyone knows the Biggies because they're the company pillars, the keystones keeping Nintendo in the money: your Marios, Pokemons, and so forth. They're polished, beautiful, and ultimately a little safe...

  • Review Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (Wii U eShop / DS)

    A toy story

    Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis is the Nintendo DS sequel to the original GBA classic and a new recruit to the ever-growing Wii U Virtual Console library. Rather than being more of the same platforming puzzle action, Nintendo chose to focus this entire game around what is but a small percentage of the previous game - the...

September2015

  • Review StarTropics (Wii U eShop / NES)

    Sun, sea, sand, and aliens

    Winter is slowly creeping up on us, so it's as good a time as ever to explore warmer climates and take your mind off of the bad weather. For some NES-filtered beams of sunshine, why not step into the shoes of young Mike Jones, an American kid who's headed for an alphabetic island on the tropical adventure of a lifetime?...

  • Review Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Wii U eShop / GBA)

    Prophesizing the amiiboom

    Mario vs. Donkey Kong is interesting in that it's the only game in the Mario vs DK franchise (to date) that actually allows the player to control Mario; indeed this was originally planned to be a sequel to 1994's Donkey Kong on Game Boy, so arguably those two have more in common than the other games in the series. Mario vs...