Retro News
September2010
Review Racers' Islands: Crazy Racers (WiiWare)
Crazy? More like lazy
It’s relatively easy to guess what a game titled Racers’ Islands: Crazy Racers might be about. If you said "a crazy racing game in which you race across some islands," you’d be correct – assuming that by "crazy" you meant "rubbish." The aim was obviously to capture the hearts of the...
Competition Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary Means Euro Club Nintendo Gets Updated
Share your love for Mario and enter Nintendo's video competition
Anniversaries are wonderful and joyous occasions to celebrate with loved ones. What makes them better is if you can win prizes in the process too, and that's exactly what you can look forward to as Nintendo celebrates one of the biggest NES titles continuing to entertain having...
News Super Mario Collection Special Pack Revealed
Game details, box art, promo video and more
We've been bringing you all the news regarding the enticing yet vague announcement of the Japan-exclusive Super Mario Collection Special Pack, including a posting from an online retailer somewhat obliquely detailing its contents. Now comes the definitive announc
Review Music On: Acoustic Guitar (DSiWare)
Good guitar or bad lyre?
Music On: Acoustic Guitar is like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree – its beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you know your way around a fret board, you may see it as a fun tool to mess with when you can't lug your giant six-string around with you. Gamers with no prior guitar knowledge, however, will see it as a useless,...
Review Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS)
Yet another engaging adventure
After the success of the first two Professor Layton releases on the DS, it should come as no surprise to see Nintendo localising the third. Its unique blend of mystery storytelling and brain-teasing puzzles somehow forms one of the most unique and engrossing gaming experiences available for the system and a style...
Sticking to the basics
Whilst many will think of 8-bit classics like Blaster Master when they hear the Sunsoft name, one of their biggest brands has been Shanghai, with new editions for every handheld and console over the past decade or so. Preceding Shanghai Wii by two years, the handheld and console titles have little in common beyond the same...
Review Where's Wally? Travel Pack 3 (DSiWare)
Go find something else
Over the last two weeks, Ludia has brought their video game adaptation of the highly successful Where's Wally? book series to DSiWare in Europe, cutting down their game Where's Waldo? The Fantastic Journey into three episodes. We didn't exactly think too highly of Where's Wally? Travel Pack 1 and Travel Pack 2, and,...
Features We Want Your NES Stories!
Tell us your 8-bit bits
October 18th marks the 25th birthday of the NES's North American debut, then only to a select number of cities, and we're celebrating by bringing you a veritable coin box of features and treats. And we want to make you, our beloved readership, a part of the celebration. We'll be running a feature that puts the spotlight on...
Review Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (Wii)
Four dimensions, one disc
Making a superhero game suddenly became a lot more of a challenge last year, thanks to Rocksteady’s excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum. Activities tangential to what these characters are, like flying through rings and grabbing lost balloons for dumb kids, just doesn’t cut it anymore after roaming the terrifying asylum...
Review Despicable Me: The Game (Wii)
When you wish upon a moon
Ever since George Bailey promised Mary in It's A Wonderful Life that if she said the word, he'd throw a lasso around the moon, people have plotted to steal that thing. Despicable Me: The Game tells the tale of one such dreamer, Gru, as he heists parts to build a combination rocketship/shrink ray. It's up to you to guide...
News Billy Mitchell Was Never the Donkey Kong Jr. Record Holder
Score was beaten before he started
Last month, Billy Mitchell beat Hank Chien's Donkey Kong score to reclaim his place at the top of the game's scoring girders. On the same day, he also felt like setting a new high score on Donkey Kong Jr., something we reported on last month. Now it transpires the latter record is not really a record at all,...
Review Batman: The Brave and the Bold (DS)
A bold bat platformer
Batman is certainly no stranger to the world of video games, seeing releases on just about every console imaginable over the years, so it's no real surprise to see yet another developer trying their hand at the caped crusader. Developer WayForward has created two brand new Batman titles, this as well as its Wii counterpart,...
Review Fenimore Fillmore "The Westerner" (WiiWare)
A cowpoke past his prime
Fenimore Fillmore lives by the gun, namely Chekhov's Gun – the assertion that if in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. In Fenimore Fillmore "The Westerner", this trope surely rings true, as most of the seemingly insignificant items you encounter...
News Nintendo Rolls Out Logo For Mario's 25th Anniversary
Most likely coming soon to a retro enthusiast near you
So Super Mario Bros. released on the NES in 1985. We ran out of fingers and toes trying to figure out how long ago that was, but our theory is 25 years. We feel pretty good about this theory in light of a recent trademark filing by Nintendo of this here image. It doesn't say "25"...
Review My Exotic Farm (DSiWare)
Cleaning up animal excrement just got a whole lot more exotic
If My Exotic Farm teaches us anything, it's that picking up animal poop isn't any more fun in Africa than it is in America. And yet, it isn't any less fun either. So while it may simply be My Farm with a new lick of paint, My Exotic Farm still may be worth a look for those who missed out...
Review Where's Wally? Travel Pack 2 (DSiWare)
Not a stripe has changed
Last week, we saw Ludia’s attempt at bringing the highly popular Where’s Wally series to DSiWare with Where’s Wally? Travel Pack 1 in Europe, a version of the full DS title Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey. While it proved to be fun at times, the game’s downloadable release has forced it to be cut down into...
Podcast Episode 19 - So Long, Farewell
Full of audio treats you simply will not believe
The Nintendo Life podcast is taking a break for a little while, but this final-for-a-while show is crammed full of quality items. Terrible accents, anonymous listeners pretending to host talk shows about genitals – yes, really – and the culmination of Sean Aaron's interview with Gaijin Games's...
Review GO Series: 10 Second Run (DSiWare)
More than ten seconds of fun
With the GO Series, Gamebridge is attempting to give once Japan-exclusive DSiWare a chance elsewhere in the world. Their first pick for release in Europe is 10 Second Run, a very simple little title which greatly resembles something one would expect to find online as Flash game. That's not a bad thing, though. The...
Review Gunblade NY and LA Machineguns Arcade Hits Pack (Wii)
Blasts from the past
Once upon a time, on-rails shooters ruled the arcades, and arguably no company did the genre better than Sega. Whether blasting criminals in Virtua Cop, gunning down zombies in House of the Dead or taking down dinosaurs, aliens or whatever else strays in front of your barrel, Sega brought a rich collection of shooters to arcade...
Review Samurai Shodown III (Virtual Console / Neo Geo)
A new spin on the popular fighting series
It's no secret that the Samurai Shodown series played a huge role in vaulting SNK up to the big boy fighting game table. And as popular as the original release was, it was the sequel that would set the standard by which all future titles of the franchise would be judged. Samurai Shodown III would mark the...
Review The Chessmaster (Game Boy)
Far less fiddly than magnetic travel chess
As all the cool kids know chess is a centuries-old strategic board game for two players, played on a eight-by-eight grid. You have 16 pieces that move in different ways, and you may have to plan several moves ahead if you are to successfully checkmate your opponent’s king. The Chessmaster offers fans a...
News iFixit Tears the Virtual Boy Down to Prevent Gamers from Tearing Their Hair Out
All you need to know should you attempt to fix one
Why call out a plumber when you can fix the problem yourself? Why buy a sandwich when you can make your own for less? Perhaps more annoying than blocked u-bends and fancy lunches where the bread costs more than the meat is when electrical goods breakdown. Machines are supposed to just work – and...
Fun in little need of fine tuning
Custom Robo won't ring a bell to a lot of Nintendo fans on this side of the world. Though the first title hit Japan in 1999 on the Nintendo 64, it wasn't until 2004's GameCube update, the fourth in the action-RPG series, that the franchise saw a western release. The games revolve around players creating their own...
News Rare Reveals Nintendo Wanted to Cancel GoldenEye
The Bond title nobody wanted but everybody loves
Ahh, GoldenEye 007: so many wasted hours, so many headshots, so many arguments over Oddjob. It all could have been so different had Rare acted on a letter sent by Nintendo that pulled the plug on the shooter. Speaking to British magazine EDGE, Studio Director Mark Betteridge revealed the team's...
Perhaps a bit too old-school for some
Shoot 'em ups have evolved quite a bit since their humble beginning in arcades back in the early 80's, taking on a much more maniacal pacing and intensity in recent years. While we've already seen Metal Torrent offer a more modern shooting experience on the DSiWare service, Cosmos X2 takes a slightly different...
Review Music On: Learning Piano (DSiWare)
Ode to Joy or odious toy?
If Music On: Learning Piano was the last source of piano-playing knowledge on Earth, the art wouldn't be lost forever. That said, it doesn't offer instruction in the traditional sense like Art Academy does. The game includes no nutty professor or girl next door to teach you how to read sheet music or enlighten you with...
Review Tales of Elastic Boy: Mission 1 (WiiWare)
Elastic fantastic?
While still creating a line of educational games on WiiWare, Lexis Numerique decided to work on a platforming series alongside it. Sticking with a similar graphical style clearly geared towards younger gamers, does this fare well against other games in the genre currently available? You play as Mooky, just one member of an entire...
August2010
Samus speaks up in her most explosive adventure yet
Metroid: Other M is a lot of things. It's the second translation of the series into 3D, one that ditches the first-person mould that the Metroid Prime trilogy used to cast such acclaimed titles in favour of a new hybrid of 2D and 3D gameplay. It's a game whose co-developer, Team Ninja, both...
News Twilight Princess with High Res Textures Looks Fantastic
Fan project shines the game up
Zelda: Twilight Princess is knocking on four years old now: a venerable granddaddy in the Zelda line, it's only natural it's starting to show its age. Talented chap AaronLite has injected the game with some virtual Botox in the form of high resolution textures that turn the blurry bridges, grass and rocks of Hyrule...
Review Where's Wally? Travel Pack 1 (DSiWare)
Find him at your own risk
Where's Wally, known in the United States as Where's Waldo, has quite a history. Originally released in 1987 as a seek-and-find activity book, it soon became an international hit, spawning many sequels, a comic strip, a TV series and a number of video games. Over a decade had passed between the last virtual excursion and...
News Show Your Love of Super Mario Bros. by Wearing It on Your Sleeve
Knitted tops officially licensed by Nintendo
T-shirts of things you like are ten a penny, but what about something a bit more warming? The Teami 2010 clothing catalogue has entered its first season and the range includes some retro-looking Mario sweaters; although the price-tag might having you tugging at your collar. Apart from being officially...
Review G.G Series: Ninja Karakuri Den (DSiWare)
A good time that will leave you wanting more
After quite a few Japanese DSiWare downloads and a retail cartridge, the inexpensive G.G Series finally leaves Japan with the release of G.G Series: Ninja Karakuri Den. The complete lack of a storyline may make this adventure seem odd, but it is a fun play nonetheless; reminiscent of old releases such as...
Encore? But we didn't hear anyone clapping...
We Sing Encore is a game about singing. It is not, however, a game about singing well. The game is a sequel to 2009's We Sing, and as the new title suggests, it is really just more of the same, meaning more competitive karaoke for up to four players with 40 new tracks. The game sees you singing along to...
Review Absolute Reversi (DSiWare)
A board game that won't make you a bored gamer
Handheld editions of classic board games are typically not anticipated with much excitement, in part because there's a certain coldness about playing them against a computer. Not all are completely contingent upon human interaction, but beating a faceless opponent is distinctly less satisfying than...
Review And Yet It Moves (WiiWare)
Vertigo has never felt so fun
It seems that the Wii’s unconventional controller and competitively underpowered specifications have made the console quite attractive to smaller PC developers looking to break into the console space. Cave Story jumped from freeware to WiiWare with a fresh coat of paint and new modes and jams, Pearl Harbor benefitted...
News Gunpei Yokoi Gets The Legacy Treatment
The father of handheld gaming gets remembered in a hands-on tribute
Gunpei Yokoi pretty much created the handheld gaming market. His line of Game & Watch systems eventually paved the way for Nintendo's full-fledged portable gaming system, the Game Boy, also created by Yokoi. Before making video games though, he created a slew of toys that helped...
Prize poultry or pig's ear?
Life is a long road, and My Farm knows it. It began as a PC game called My Farm Around the World and was then ported to the Nintendo DS. The European release in November 2008 was largely unnoticed by the media, but generated respectable sales, and it made its way to North America in May 2009. Now a slice of the original...
Podcast NLFM Episode 8: Have You Heard Captain Falcon's Theme Song?
If you haven't then you're in for a real treat
Some video game themes are so iconic that it's impossible to not recognize where they're from, even if you haven't touched the game in years. Tetris. Super Mario Bros. Captain Falcon? While we're not saying his theme song is up there in the annals of game music legend, after this episode of NLFM, we're...
Ivy the Ki-Wii
No matter how many video game titles Yuji Naka creates, he'll likely always be best remembered for his work during his days at Sega's Sonic Team. Even despite his new development company Prope's greater emphasis on creating video games with a much broader scope and appeal, there's obviously still a lot of desire among his fans to see...
Absolutely di-vine
After spending years helping Sega create some of its most popular console releases during the Mega Drive and Saturn eras, Yuji Naka decided it was time to form his own development studio. His main goal was to create gaming experiences that appealed to a much broader audience. No better title could sum up this goal more perfectly...
Review LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Wii)
The Order of the Fun-ix
Imagine that in just one day you found out that not only are you destined for greatness, but that magic is real, you can perform it, and that instead of ever having to go to regular school again, you get to live in a castle with John Cleese. These things – well, most of them, anyway – are what every child dreams of, and...
Review Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory (Virtual Console / Neo Geo)
Fatal Fury Extra Special
With the release of Fatal Fury Special, Neo Geo fighting fans were treated to a rather significant upgrade from the previous release of Fatal Fury 2. Not content to rest on its laurels, SNK decided to give the standard series one last hurrah with this fourth and final instalment. And while long-time fans will appreciate the...
Taking Mahjong to a whole new dimension
After countless versions on almost every gaming platform, the DSiWare service gets yet another reincarnation of the ancient Chinese tile matching game in 3D Mahjong. Fully equipped with a variety of play modes and 3D rendered game boards, this new title brings the classic game of Mahjong Solitaire to the...
Your only limit is your creativity
To DSi owners, Art Academy will be a familiar sight. Last year we saw Art Academy: First Semester and Second Semester, a set of artistic tools by Nintendo. While First Semester received positive reviews, Second Semester was criticized for being “less of the same”, resembling an overpriced expansion pack rather...
Review Divergent Shift (DSiWare)
Deterrent or gift?
We've already seen Chronos Twins present the dual-screen platforming experience on DSiWare, but Intrinsic Games now looks to put a slightly different spin on the idea. While their title's mechanics are similar in some ways, Divergent Shift tends to put a bit more emphasis on the actual platforming aspects of the game and less on...
Review A Monsteca Corral: Monsters vs. Robots (WiiWare)
Pikmin-like play that packs a punch
A Monsteca Corral: Monsters vs. Robots is refreshing, both in its quirky tone and its strategic demands. What starts off as a seemingly simplistic mechanic – guide a herd of creatures around to collect bubbles – eventually evolves into a surprisingly deep and thoroughly challenging affair. This is achieved by...
Review myNotebook: Carbon, Pearl and Tan (DSiWare)
Nnooo means yes
The popular myNotebook in Red, Green or Blue is a cheap and useful application that gives DSi owners another reason to carry the machine wherever they go. So how does the new myNotebook: Carbon, Pearl and Tan – reviewed here in Carbon – improve on the original? While the original versions had 32 pages, the new version has 128...
Space dreck
Calaris's last WiiWare game, WarMen Tactics, was allegedly “created to reflect the realities of urban warfare." Not only did it completely and utterly fail to accomplish its goal, it completely and utterly failed to function as a working and playable videogame. The operations guide of its latest outing, Space Trek, describes...
News Wanted: Your Memories of GoldenEye N64
Care to share your rose-tinted memories of the fabulous GoldenEye and become a video star?
Do you remember playing Goldeneye on the N64? Were you the sharpest shooter among your friends? Do you still think playing as Oddjob is cheating? Kream London is filming a new media project and is looking for outgoing groups of friends to talk about one of the...
News Fifteen Years On, Chrono Trigger Collectables Emerge from the Portal
They're called Formation Arts, apparently
While Square Enix's other main RPG series have received countless merchandise tie-ins over the years, Super Nintendo RPG Chrono Trigger has always been a little thin on the collectables front. Fans of Crono and friends can soon bolster their collection with a range of new figures on the way later this year...
Return to glory for team Star Fox
The Star Fox series is one which holds a special place in the hearts of many gamers. Featuring a colourful cast of anthropomorphic animals led by Fox McCloud across the Lylat system, it all began back in 1993 on the Super Nintendo with the original Star Fox. The game was a huge hit and has since seen four sequels...
News Super Mario Bros. Movie Re-released on DVD, Spot the Difference
Clue: it's not the quality of the film
Feel like your DVD collection is missing something, but you're not sure what? Here's the answer: the newly re-released Super Mario Bros. Movie, available once again in glorious DVD-o-vision. First released on DVD back in 2003, the disc contained no extra features so surely a re-release would sort that,...
Review Another World (Super Nintendo)
Simply out of this world
Poor old Lester Knight Chaykin (Les to his mates), an unwitting physicist, innocently went to put in some overtime in the lab during a thunderstorm one night. Who’d have thought that playing with a particle accelerator could magically teleport him to a strange alien planet when his lab gets struck by lightning? In the...
Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (Game Boy)
Heroes on your handheld
Turtles, turtles everywhere. By 1990, you could find the four reptile ninjas not only in comics but on TV, t-shirts, toy store shelves and in theatres. Like the majority of the available products, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan was based on the popular cartoon and sees you battle across five levels to...
Review Absolute Chess (DSiWare)
Absolutely Chess, but with annoying extras
It’s hard to imagine that there’s a wrong was to make a video game based on a board game that has been around for thousands of years, but Tasuke manages to find some ways to mess with the classic formula. While Absolute Chess is simply a video game in which you play chess, it also contains with a few...
News Developers Make Famicom Games from Unreal Famicom Cartridges
It'll make sense soon
You might remember a story back in May about a Japanese art project where artists created fictitious Famicom cartridges to display their work. Here we are, three months later, bringing you news that some enterprising developers took the cartridges as inspiration to create games. Taking in cat-touching adventure Neco Touch,...
Review Enjoy Your Massage! (WiiWare)
Rubbed the wrong way
Most of the time when you talk about hand-drawn 2D graphics in a game, it's a good thing. In the case of Enjoy Your Massage!, however, it's a hideous thing. The stock girl who you'll be rubbing down over and over again looks like she was whipped up in a minute with a Wacom drawing tablet, complete with a wobbly outline and one...
Review TURN: The Lost Artifact (DSiWare)
And twist, and twist
TURN: The Lost Artifact is a puzzle game in which you lead your characters through mazes by rotating the room 90 degrees. The heroes of the story are Kurt and Camilla, a treasure hunting duo whose latest mission is to find an ancient artifact of unspecified origin and powers. The setting is based on the legendary adventurers of...
Review Did It Myself ABC123 (DSiWare)
Baby boon
Toddlers: they're everywhere. Don't believe us? Next time you're on a busy street, just play a little game that we like to call "Spot the Toddler". Some estimate that about 130 million babies are born every year, making them more popular than iPods! But these trendy tots are more than just a fashion statement. They need food,...
Review Rhythm Core Alpha (DSiWare)
Catchy beat or sour note?
We've seen a wide variety of music creations applications released for computers over the years, ranging from simple point-and-click programs that anyone can use to high-end music creation tools for professional musicians. With the release of Rhythm Core Alpha, developer SoftEgg is aiming for somewhere in the middle of this...
Shooting star
Shoot 'em ups are a rare thing on the DS. Even with the rise of DSiWare last year, we have still seen little in the way of more traditional shooters for the console. Early release Nanostray was one of the first games to step up to the challenge and fortunately, it doesn't disappoint. Published back in 2005 by Majesco, the game is a...
Review My Aquarium 2 (WiiWare)
Go fish
When Hudson released the original My Aquarium on WiiWare two years ago, it not only quickly made it to the highest reaches of the WiiWare charts but managed to hang around the top three for well over a year. Now, Hudson is trying to capture lightning in a bottle again with the release of My Aquarium 2. While there are a few new additions to...
Fun but forgettable
Since time immemorial, man has sought to sort his symbols by shape and colour. While we may take for granted our efficacy at this essential task, things would be a lot more disorganised without the work of scientists like the moustachioed Professor Lexis. Now, for the first time, Digital Leisure gives us an inside look at his...
News Planet Earth, Meet Your First Classic Tetris World Champion
It's Jonas Neubauer, and he's good
They came, they saw, they rotated and dropped and rotated again. The first-ever Classic Tetris World Championships took place in Los Angeles over the weekend, and 29-year old Jonas Neubauer walked away with the crown, statue and novelty-sized cheque. Beating over 200 players under the watchful eye of former...
News Start Saving as Famicom Box Surfaces on eBay
Rare machine up for grabs
Back in 1980s Japan, Nintendo's Famicom was doing the business, but the company wanted to get more gamers to experience what it could offer. The answer was the FamicomBox, a machine used by retailers to allow customers to try out a selection of Famicom games, with some models even featuring a coin slot to allow gamers to...
F-Zero is the name of the game, but will it also be the score?
In 2003 Nintendo’s premier racing series returned in superb style on the GameCube: F-Zero GX came out of the gate lightning fast, brutally hard and, rather oddly, developed by Sega. Made by Sega studio Amusement Vision, it marked the company’s first collaboration with Nintendo after...
News Billy Mitchell Back on Top of Donkey Kong
And Donkey Kong Jr for fun, too
You may remember a recent article about former Donkey Kong world champion Steve Wiebe's induction into the International Video Game Hall of Fame, which took place yesterday. The event will likely be remembered for another reason though – the return of Billy Mitchell as the Donkey Kong world record holder. Setting a...
Review Parodius: Non-Sense Fantasy (Super Nintendo)
Oh, we laugh at this game! Gradius is fine but this is nicer!
A fiendish giant octopus by the name of Zeo and his intergalactic mutant penguin mates are up to no good, wreaking havoc on the inhabitants of the Parodius Zone. Thankfully, help is at hand as Vic Viper, Pentarou the penguin, Twinbee and a gun-toting octopus have come to save the day. As...
News Clean Yourself with Retro Nintendo Carts
Zombies Washed My Neighbors
Many of you likely have collections of old Nintendo cartridges lying about; boxy relics of gaming's yesteryears great for some nostalgic fun. Still, there has always been one core functionality that these old carts lack: they don't clean dirt off your body. Well, Etsy shop DigitalSoaps aims to change all that with its...
Review BlayzBloo: Super Melee Action Battle Royale (DSiWare)
A royale pain
Arc System Works' BlazBlue fighting games, with their unique anime-style visuals and enjoyable fighting engines, have become quite popular among fans of the genre. Of course, this makes it all the more confusing to see them take such a high-quality series and dumb it down for their DSiWare spinoff release BlayzBloo: Super Melee Action...
Review Aero the Acrobat 2 (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
Everything you could want out of a sequel
About the time mascot games began exploding on the Super Nintendo console, Sunsoft jumped on the bandwagon with the release of their original platformer Aero the Acrobat. While the game featured many of the classic platforming elements that were showing up in the games of the time period, it was criticized...
News NES-Style DJ Hero is Bleeping Cool
It will rock you
DJ Hero may not be quite as iconic as its guitar-toting stablemate, but consider how different things might have been if the title had originated on the NES. Well imagine no longer, as the talented Eric Ruth has put together Pixel Force: DJ Hero to show exactly what it would look and more importantly sound like. Wondering when you...
Review Petz Dogz Family (DSiWare)
Ruff!
Dogs are widely considered to be a great friend of man – in fact, some would go so far as to call the species man's best friend. Known for their obedience and constant attention, they make a perfect model for a virtual pet. It's no coincidence then that Petz Dogz Family is the best of the DSiWare series. Like its feline and rodent...
Oh deer
Deer Captor is a blast from the past, a lazy rehash of a genre over two decades old that lets you blast stuff. The game doesn't look or feel particularly bad upfront - it has decent graphics, clean presentation and well functioning motion controls - but playing it is simply a bore, like you've been sold some watered-down version of those...
Review Fantasy Slots: Adventure Slots and Games (WiiWare)
Eye roller
The Wii has sold brilliantly, more than even Mr. Iwata dreamt, due partly to its let's-get-up-and-have-fun image. Here comes Fantasy Slots: Adventure Slots and Games to prove that sitting down and pressing one button just isn't as much fun as it used to be. With eight variations of the slot machine on offer, each with a theme ranging from...
Review Mortal Kombat (Game Boy)
Krud
Back, back, B. That’s the command that you need to enter to perform Scorpion’s spear move – but you have to do it slowly. Forget the quick tapping that you’d expect for a beat ‘em up, this is something with which you must take your time. It’s the same for all the special moves in the game, an irritant that’s just one of the many...
Review Crystal Monsters (DSiWare)
You don't want these monsters in your pocket, but they're still fun to have around
It's usually clear within the first few minutes of playing a new Gameloft game which franchise it's been "inspired" by. Not breaking tradition, the same holds true here, with Gameloft's latest bearing a very strong resemblance to none other than the Pokémon...
Sigh borg
Playing Hints Hunter is a lot like browsing through a book of carpet samples: there may be a lot of them, but it won't take you very long before you've moved on from one to the next. Also, sometimes you come across a really difficult square right in the middle of some comparatively easy ones. Plus there are cartoon robots. Ok, maybe it's...
News Science Makes Another Huge Leap Through Super Mario Bros.
Control the plumber with only your eyes
We've had NES consoles controlled by peculiar pads in the past, one notable example being the Castlevania fan who used a dance mat, but what if you could play a similarly legendary, groundbreaking game without any controllers at all? No, we're not talking about Kinect, we're talking about Super Mario Bros. and...
News New World Record as Earthbound Completed in a PK Flash
6 hours, 38 minutes and 16 seconds, to be precise
Earthbound is highly regarded, and rightly so: even to this day it captivates gamers the world over (apart from many in Europe, where it was never released.) One gamer who loves it more than most is speed runner Chris Corsi, who just set the Twin Galaxies-approved World Record for the fastest...
Review Batman: The Video Game (Game Boy)
Holy platforming joy!
Gotham City is not a safe place to live. Goons and robotic drones roam the streets shooting anything in sight, gun turrets fire on people and heavy objects randomly fall from the sky. If the citizens of Gotham somehow manage to survive all that, they have to contend with the fact that the city was designed and built by prats,...
Low on originality, high on fun
Giana Sisters DS began life as a limited personal computer release called The Great Giana Sisters back in 1987. Due to the game's extremely close resemblances to Nintendo's NES release Super Mario Bros., the game was yanked from store shelves soon after its release, making it quite a rare find today. Now DTP...
News These Nintendo Demakes are Adorable or Awesome or Both
You decide
Remakes are big business these days – NBA Jam and GoldenEye 007 are just two on the way later this year – but demakes are growing in popularity. These old-school versions of modern franchises are often mocked up just to look awesome, and talented Way of the Pixel member junkboy has a skill to top most. Created for Swedish gaming...
Review Puffins: Let's Race! (DSiWare)
Watch out for that treeeeeeeeeeeeee
Parsing the retail release Puffins: Island Adventure and putting the bits on DSiWare has proven to be a mixed bag so far. The first time around brought the underwhelming and frustratingly controlled Let's Roll!, and follow-up Let's Fish! turned out to be slightly better. So is the third time the charm? In short,...
Review Retro Atari Classics (DS)
When classic compilations go wrong
Since retro compilations started to become a decent way for companies to earn money off their old IP, it's become the norm to see classics from some of the bigger names in the industry repackaged in each succeeding generation of consoles since the late 20th century. Unfortunately Atari has mis-stepped with its...
Review Absolute Brickbuster (DSiWare)
Bustin' used to make me feel good
Absolute Brickbuster is not an easy game to review. For starters, it gives a reviewer so little to work with: it snuggles itself into the cozy framework of other, better-known brick breakers, and falls asleep before it thinks to introduce anything new. That doesn't make it a bad game, but neither does it make it...
Review Girlfriends Forever: Magic Skate (WiiWare)
Thin ice
Let's get right to the point: Girlfriends Forever: Magic Skate is bad. Really, really bad. What seems like a perfect combination of ice skating and dressing-up on the surface reveals itself to be so cripplingly simplistic that not even children would want to play it. At the beginning you choose one of the bug-eyed girls to play throughout...
July2010
Review Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (Wii)
Take the case! ...I think.
If you're a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, job security should be the least of your worries – just as long as you don't mind your occupation's title changing a bit. In 2000, winged warrior Birdman saw a resurrection in the suit and tie of a third-rate attorney. Other characters from the low-budget animation house came along for...
Review Petz Hamsterz Family (DSiWare)
This time, you won't be so sad when your dad accidentally steps on it
The hamster is largely considered a cute and desirable pet, even in spite of its often curmudgeonly temperament and stinky, difficult to clean cage. They're a lot more fun to watch than they are to play with, which means that it shouldn't be difficult for Petz Hamsterz Family to...
Review Dive: The Medes Islands Secret (WiiWare)
As much relaxing as it is fun
Dive: The Medes Island Secret marks the second WiiWare release from developer Cosmonaut and a far more ambitious project than its first release 5 Spots Party was. This time around, players will get the opportunity to explore vast underwater depths in search of hidden treasures using the unique motion controls of the Wii...
Review Heavy Fire: Special Operations (WiiWare)
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-buyer's remorse
There’s certainly no lack of lightgun games on Wii; in fact, one of the more vocal complaints about Wii shooters is that too many of them are on-rails. It’s a silly thing to complain about given the dearth of them in previous console generations and the relatively high quality of the Wii’s...
Review Crazy Pinball (DSiWare)
The only thing crazy is that nothing about this game is crazy
There aren't many pinball games on DSiWare. We have no clue why: they're pretty much perfectly suited to digital distribution. dtp Entertainment has given us Crazy Pinball, the second pinball title available, and its name seems to imply that it is quite crazy indeed. Upon first booting it...
Review Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii)
A bit too typical for its own good
To say that the Wii has been a bit lacking in the role-playing game department would be a gross understatement. Not only have there been very few releases for the genre, the few we have seen haven't exactly offered much to get excited about. With Arc Rise Fantasia, Ignition Entertainment are looking to change all...
Review Aero the Acrobat (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
Will you go aerobatty for Aero?
Everybody into gaming at the time remembers the "cool mascot" craze during the early 90's; Sega was heavily in on it with Sonic and a whole bunch of other companies tried to cash in on it as well. Sunsoft's attempt came in the form of Aero the Acrobat – a bat with attitude who works as an acrobat in the...
Review Vortex (Super Nintendo)
Transform and tear your hair out
The magical mystery core has been stolen and taken away. The Aki-Do forces are the ones responsible and naturally they've split it in to five parts and scattered them across the galaxy. But forget that cobblers, the cool part about Vortex is that you take control of the Morphing Battle System which as the name...
Fouled by the W-word
Streamline Studios' HoopWorld has been a long time coming. Originally announced as an Xbox Live Arcade title back in 2005 and looking like an odd Power Stone/sports hybrid, it's finally seen release on WiiWare in slightly scaled-back form as a 3-on-3 arcade basketball game. There's a hokey backstory to do with primal energy or...
Review Hospital Havoc (DSiWare)
Dead on arrival or just what the doctor ordered?
Hospital Havoc is quite a simple, fun game that debuted as an iPhone application almost a year and a half ago and doesn't seem to have changed much since. This is apparent in both the gameplay and graphical simplicity, and while it is a lot of fun, the lack of variety and abundance of bugs add a touch...
Review Scrabble Tools (DSiWare)
Hey, a Scrabble dictionary! And some other junk, too.
After a solid vanilla version of the main game and a less-than-great spin-off, EA and Hasbro's third DSiWare outing of the popular board game comes in the form of Scrabble Tools. It's not so much about playing as it is about improving how you play. The application bundles two useful tools along...
News Get Immortalised in a Tetris Tournament Documentary
If you're good with blocks, that is
Tetris is as iconic and highly-regarded now as at any time during its twenty-year lifespan, and a new World Championship and related documentary is set to keep the classic lines-and-blocks title fresh in the mind. If you want to put your money where your blocks are, the Classic Tetris World Championship will take...
Impurrrfect
There once was a time when all that one could expect from a virtual pet was to feed it and play with it when it beeped. We've come a long way and should now expect a lot more, having moved on from imaginary digital creatures to real animals. Certainly a kitten simulator should simulate the behaviour of a kitten. It should be good enough...
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