First Impressions

ATV racer goes 3D

When the original ATV Wild Ride was released on Nintendo DS last year, it was praised for its impressive play controls and solid track designs. Unfortunately the game's limited release made it difficult to find at retail outlets, thus keeping it from reaching a wider audience. Now developer Renegade Kid has decided to give the DS...

Small scale

Art of Balance on WiiWare is one of the service's best puzzlers — the second highest-rated puzzler on Wii, according to Metacritic — so an enhanced, portable version for 3DS sounds like a winner. Surprise! It is. Art of Balance TOUCH! follows the same format as previous Shin'en WiiWare-to-eShop transition

Nintendo serves up another winner

The mustachioed plumber’s handheld tennis and golf outings have an RPG history able to trigger warm and fuzzy feelings of nostalgia in all who earned hand cramps from them at one point or another. Those feelings won’t be triggered by Mario Tennis Open on 3DS as it eschews levelling up solo in favour of...

Shin'en star?

Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH! might lay it on a bit thick with its overly exclamatory title, but it does a decent job of summing up the first 3DS eShop game from long-time Nintendo supporter Shin'en Multimedia. It's worth saying right off the bat this isn't a portable version of WiiWare original Fun! Fun! Minigolf: while that was intended...

Bricking it

Upcoming 3DS eShop title Block Factory — from the makers of Pyramids — is trying to do something a little different with the puzzle genre. Instead of sticking resolutely to one kind of block-dropper, you can create your own take on the genre with its built-in creative tools. While the game comes with four preset games that ape famous...

Don't forget to flush!

Flipper was an engaging and imaginative DSiWare release: not only did it feature one of the more unique visual styles seen on the service, it had simple and addictive gameplay too. Rather than merely take that idea and run with it for the follow-up, developer Hugo Smits decided to mix things up and create a completely...

Shin'en knows shmups

Shin'en is certainly no stranger to the shoot 'em up genre, having already developed games in the Iridion and Nanostray series for Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS respectively, but after taking a few years to work on other projects, many shooter fans were beginning to wonder if the developer would ever get back to its shmup roots. Thankfully, fans were given the answer they..

Is there a catch?

Yuji Naka's Prope studio has been responsible for some interesting Wii titles over the past few years, including Ivy the Kiwi and the upcoming Rodea the Sky Soldier. So when the developer announced Fishing Resort, many gamers were left wondering just exactly how a game like this would turn out. And while its cute look and feel is...

The Mighty series just got a lot mightier

While Shantae will probably always be the series WayForward is best known for, it's also been quite successful on Nintendo's download services, especially with its two previous Mighty releases, Mighty Flip Champs and Mighty Milky Way. Now the developer is looking to continue that success with its first 3DS...

WiiWare gets weirder

QubicGames' Gnomz isn't much like other fighting games. There are no punches, no blocks and no health bars — instead it has gnomes, rainbow socks and reindeer with lights on. We recently grappled with a preview version of the game and came out (mostly) mentally unscathed. Played with the Wii Remote sideways, Gnomz is a single-screen platformer/fighting game that owes as much..

We take the game for a spin

Zen Studios has become quite well-known for its pinball simulations released across several gaming platforms in recent years, but now the company is looking to jump into the 3DS eShop pool with the upcoming Zen Pinball 3D. The folks at Zen Studios were kind enough to send over a preview build of the game, which we...

We take the Trials-style game for a quick spin

It's always tough to tell what you're going to get when developers decide to combine two separate genres into one new gaming experience. Sometimes it works and offers up something fresh and unique, whereas other times it can be a complete and utter disaster. With their upcoming WiiWare release MotoHeroz, RedLynx have combined gameplay aspects from not..

Piping hot

Nintendo could have gone in any number of directions with its first Mario outing on 3DS: an enhanced remake of a previous game a la Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, an extension of the Super Mario Galaxy series or a sequel to the mega-selling New Super Mario Bros.. It's done none of these, or possibly all of them at once. For a start, it's out with the coin-powered health system..

Kirby rides again!

The DS is nearing the end of its life now; there are very few big games planned as everybody's making the move to the 3DS. Still, Nintendo's got another title coming out in the form of Kirby: Mass Attack, which takes the traditional Kirby platforming and gives it another unique twist. We had a chance to sit down with a still completely untranslated demo version of the game. In a..

Back to his best?

Rayman Origins is the long awaited return to 2D platforming for Ubisoft's chopper-haired hero. While the version we played at a recent preview event was running on Xbox 360, we were told the team is aiming to make the Wii version as similar as possible. Running on Ubisoft's new UbiArt framework, the game is extremely beautiful — detailed, colourful and exceptionally animated,..

Making us blue

June was Sonic's 20th anniversary, and later this year Sega celebrates with Sonic Generations, a project that aims to combine the hedgehog's best and, admittedly, worst moments. 3DS owners get a very different version to PS3 and 360 fans, both for better and worse. Sonic Generations on 3DS joins traditional 16-bit style platforming with more modern Sonic Colours gameplay, with a..

To arms!

There haven't been many new franchises so far in 3DS's short life so far, but RPG masters Square Enix and handheld specialists n-Space are busy preparing a very promising new IP for release in 2012: Heroes of Ruin. We recently went hands-on with the game, and from our early impressions it's one that should hit your radar. From the off it's...

Snake returns to Nintendo

It's odd that, despite Hideo Kojima requesting Solid Snake to be put in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, there haven't exactly been many games from the Metal Gear series on Nintendo systems, and none since that crossover happened. Thankfully, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D is due to change that later this year. An enhanced port of the third Metal Gear Solid title, viewed by many..

Tapping never felt so good

At last week's Nintendo press event in the Netherlands, we played several games, but one which has oddly not seen much coverage around the web yet is the latest entry in the Rhythm Heaven series. Scheduled for release in Japan next week, the demo Nintendo had on offer was completely untouched by translators, and was thus completely in Japanese. However, this is Rhythm..

We go one-on-one with popcorn in one hand and a stylus in the other

In many cities across North America you can still find them: all-but-deserted video rental stores trying every special deal and coupon in their cap to reclaim business from the rampantly successful postal-based Netflix service. But for many, getting movies in the mail isn't its best feature – that goes instead to Netflix Instant,..

A return to survival horror

Although Capcom originally coined the term "survival horror" to describe the first Resident Evil, one can't say that the franchise has been very much about that as of late. Resident Evil 4 and its sequel were far more heavily focused on action rather than suspense, with almost no scares to be found. Of course, many would argue that Resident Evil 4 was one of,..

Kirby sucks once again

Although Kirby's Epic Yarn was a wonderful experience, there were a lot of diehard Kirby fans who we're a bit put off by its radically-different visual style and gameplay scheme. Now Nintendo is sending Kirby back to his roots and bringing back not only the familiar visual stylings fans have grown to love over the years, but also the classic gameplay system as well. From the..

Taking Nintendo's new console for a spin

After seeing the Wii U and its touchpad controller revealed at Nintendo's E3 Press Conference, it was difficult to get an idea of what the system would hold from a gaming perspective. Sure, the visual power looked good and the controller itself featured a wide array of control functionality, but getting a feel for what the system could do from a practical..

It'll make your head spin

There may not be the huge numbers of incoming WiiWare titles we've seen in the past, but we'll take quality over quantity any day. One of the more interesting titles coming to WiiWare is Object Vision's Aya and the Cubes of Light, a puzzle platformer that's quite unlike anything on the service so far. As you might expect, Aya's levels are cubic in nature, suspended in..