Retro News
July2010
News Swedish Chiptune Organ Sounds as Awesome as Can Be
Even better thanks to awkward commentary
If you listen to our chip and game music podcast NLFM you've not only proven yourself to be a gamer of outstanding taste, you'll also appreciate how intricate and enjoyable chip music can be. Despite severe technical constraints, many gamers' favourite tunes stem from those 8-bit days, and one such dedicated...
Review Furry Legends (WiiWare)
More floaty than furry
We've seen the rolling platformer idea explored several times over the years to varying degrees of success, but with the release of Furry Legends, Gamelion is attempting to inject a whole new level of playability into the standard formula and make things more interesting through the use of creatively-designed levels and a host...
Review Happy Birthday Mart (DSiWare)
Not worth a shoplift
It’s probably safe to say that Happy Birthday Mart is a legitimate winner of the Most Childish Game on the DSiWare Store Right Now Award. From the simplistic gameplay to the mindless use of animals, it’s definitely not for anyone over the age of 6 or 7. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad game; actually,...
News Not Tetris Looks Like Tetris But is Not Tetris
Got it?
With its 90-degree turns and grid-based gameplay, Tetris takes a few liberties with the laws of physics (not to mention why these blocks are dropping and disappear once adjoined.) But what if its physics were a little more fluid; a little more unforgiving? That's what Not Tetris is all about. A free PC download, Not Tetris is all about...
Review 4 TRAVELLERS - Play French (DSiWare)
Liberté, Égalité, Médiocrité
Learning a foreign language is hard work. There are gendered nouns, verb conjugation, sentence structure, idiosyncratic phrasing, funky pronunciation and, of course, seemingly countless words to memorize. There are ways to facilitate the travail, but beyond the most basic education, playing a game isn't one. Maybe...
Review Balloon Pop Festival (WiiWare)
Good enough to pop open your wallet?
With the increasing number of puzzle games furiously leaping to Nintendo’s online stores, it makes for a pretty fascinating battle for supremacy. The latest to make the jump is Balloon Pop Festival, an interesting combination of Bejewled and Puyo Puyo with a family friendly presentation and enjoyable gameplay...
DSiWare sees one of its most rewarding puzzlers yet
Indie (like, really indie) developer Jason Rohrer's portfolio is filled to the brim with what may be best referred to as interactive art: works like Passage, Gravitation and Between operate on a whole different emotional and philosophical plane than a Mario. So it makes sense that his attempt at a...
Podcast NLFM Episode 7: User-Generated Content
Listener contributions, confusing homophones and Team Fortress 2 secrets revealed!
Oh hi, didn't see you come in there. Stay a while, and listen! Turns out we've got some fine musicians in the audience as we take a look to some listener-created tunes. We've also got a few select choices from The Megas, The World Ends With You, and the song that...
Review Hair Salon: Pocket Stylist (DSiWare)
Mane attraction or curl up and dye?
Just in case you've ever wondered what you'd look like with a head of luscious bright green hair, here's Hair Salon: Pocket Stylist to satiate your curiosity. To start, you snap a picture with your DSi camera and manoeuvre your face within the guide area, which then becomes the face of your character. In case you...
Review LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (DS)
Harry Potter gets the LEGO treatment
Some of the most successful movie series of all time have already received the LEGO treatment, so it's no real surprise to see the immensely popular Harry Potter series given a blocky makeover. While LEGO Harry Potter doesn't stray too far from the trademark gameplay mechanics the series has featured in previous...
Review PokéPark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure (Wii)
A substandard spin-off appears!
Let's face it, Nintendo's churned out filler titles before while we waited for the next main instalment in the Pokémon series, and that's exactly what PokéPark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure is. A spin-off from the more traditional Pokémon games, its focus is primarily on meeting and befriending others via mini-games...
Review 2Puzzle It: Fantasy (DSiWare)
This being worth your time is a mere fantasy
DSiWare's already got way too many Sudoku games, so it's a nice sight when a developer releases a puzzle game that isn't something done to death already. The service has yet to get one traditional sliding puzzle game, so we had at least some hope for this first effort. Likely to be the first in a series,...
Review Zenquaria: Virtual Aquarium (WiiWare)
Not too deep
With a rather good and successful aquarium simulator already available and a sequel underway, it seems rather futile of Nintendo to release a version themselves at a slightly higher price. Created by Paon of DK King of Swing, Jungle Climber and Barrel Blast fame, Zenquaria's primarily toted feature is the ability to swim around an...
Review Pop Island: Paperfield (DSiWare)
More capture the flag on wheels
When odenis studio released its first Pop Island title onto DSiWare last year, it brought a simple, yet wildly playable capture the flag experience complete with one of the most ambitious visual presentations yet seen on the service. Now it's returned with what you might call a semi-sequel, and once again the game has...
Review Runaway: A Twist of Fate (DS)
Potent point-and-click
The DS, initially thought of as the ideal format for point-and-click adventures and hidden object games, has seen a veritable deluge of such titles. It seems like for every few flops there's a classic awaiting discovery. Runaway: A Twist of Fate doesn't quite fit into the latter category, but it's more than decent enough for...
Worth a bash
Already freely available for PC, Toribash has landed on WiiWare with a 1,000 point price tag and a lot to live up to. A turn-based fighting game, this title is seemingly impenetrable at first despite a series of tutorials that teach you your first basic moves: how to jump, to kick and to decapitate your opponent and throw their head out...
Review Atari Anniversary Advance (Game Boy Advance)
A nice sampler of classic greatness
When you open the arcade gaming history books to the early years, they should feature the name "Atari" in big, bold letters. Though strongly associated with home consoles in later years, Nolan Bushnell started this gaming empire in the arcades with games like Pong and Breakout (the assembly of the latter...
Review 101 Shark Pets (DSiWare)
Shark weak
Part virtual pet, part mini-game compilation, 101 Shark Pets cobbles together enough halfway-decent features to create a slightly above average game that younger audiences ought to enjoy. While its individual parts could never hold up on their own, within their sometimes fun framework they just manage to make this a passable title. As...
News This Zelda Paper Animation is Awesome, Hilarious, Frightening
Run the gamut of emotions
A slice of Zelda humour that doesn't play on the well-trodden "it's dangerous to go alone" joke is worth a hundred Rupees, so this series of paper animations that portray Link as an unruly creep is worth about ten times that amount. From smashing up a man's house to exacting his revenge on Navi at last, Link's...
News Thirty Years of Nintendo Handhelds Stem from Make-Up Cases
Clamshell design inspired by compacts
The most recent Iwata Asks article is a fascinating insight into the development of the Game & Watch series, showing off unseen design documents and now revealing the origins of the system's iconic style that lives on through Nintendo's current and next-gen handhelds. But where did the folding feature...
News Steve Wiebe to Enter the Video Game Hall of Fame
DK master honoured
Former holder of the Donkey Kong World Record and Nathan Fillion lookalike Steve Wiebe is about to receive another accolade by being inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame. Mr Wiebe, who once held the score record that now rests with Hank Chien, is being recognised for his arcade accomplishments and will join 28...
Review Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS)
It's slime time!
You'd be hard-pressed to find a video game series more influential to the Japanese RPG genre than Dragon Quest. Although the constantly-evolving Final Fantasy titles have generally remained more popular over the years, the former has stayed a favourite among long-time fans for its uncanny ability to retain the old-school console RPG...
Review SteamWorld: Tower Defense (DSiWare)
Your head will be steaming
There’s no doubt that you'll know if SteamWorld: Tower Defense is for you upon asking yourself one simple question – do you like tower defence games? Not only is SteamWorld the essence of this sub-genre, it doesn’t try to pull anything crazy, either. If you’ve never played this type of game before, they’re quite...
News These Game & Watch Documents are All Kinds of Amazing
Black and white and oh so right
Currently enjoying a resurgence due to many rereleases on DSiWare, Nintendo's portable Game & Watch consoles are the subject of the latest Iwata Asks over at Nintendo Japan's site. Most of the development team, minus the late Gunpei Yokoi, dropped by on Mr Iwata to chat about these seminal titles and hardware and...
Review Pearl Harbor Trilogy - 1941: Red Sun Rising (WiiWare)
The dawn of a promising new WiiWare franchise
Pearl Harbor Trilogy - 1941: Red Sun Rising, one of the most anticipated WiiWare games of the year, wowed observers with screenshots that seemed far too impressive to be possible in a downloadable Wii title. In a field mostly populated by mini-game collections with simplistic graphics, Pearl Harbor...
News Hey Square Enix, Let Obsidian Develop a Chrono Trigger Sequel
Western developer up for a sequel
Square Enix's Super Nintendo RPG Chrono Trigger is a masterpiece of storytelling and revered by Nintendo fans around the world, and Western developer Obsidian Entertainment thinks it could do a good job of updating the series. The studio behind Neverwinter Nights 2 and the upcoming Fallout: New Vegas has recently...
Review Soul of Darkness (DSiWare)
Castlevania called - it wants its game back
No game publisher has released more games on the DSiWare service than Gameloft. And while the company has received a wide range of review scores among their various DSiWare releases, no one can argue that they've brought some quality games to the service in the short time it's existed. Soul of Darkness...
Review QuickPick Farmer (DSiWare)
A flocking good time
One of the most important aspects of a video game is fun gameplay, and that's what developer Dancing Dots delivers with their budget DSiWare debut QuickPick Farmer. It's a simple, accessible and original experience that will hook you and carry you away like so much wool. The goal is to drag set quantities of differently styled...
Party pooper
Enjoy Gaming’s Cruise Party is a collection of four gambling games: video poker, blackjack, roulette and slots. In Video Poker, each player’s five-card hand is visible to all, with the exception of the Bank’s hand, of which you are only privy to one card. Your one and only goal is to wager whether your hand will be better than the...
Review Ufouria: The Saga (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
Easy Mode Metroid
The original Metroid was a ground-breaking game for its time, but it feels incredibly dated to anyone playing it for the first time now. The lack of a map makes navigating the seemingly endless identical corridors way more annoying than it should be for newcomers, whereas those who know the game inside out can beat it within an...
Review Ancient Tribe (DSiWare)
Dino snore
Hot on the heels of T-Rex Rumble comes Ancient Tribe, another real-time strategy game in which you lead a prehistoric society as it grows, develops and fights the beasts with whom it shares the land. We at Nintendo Life try to judge a game for what it is instead of what it's not, but when two games that share the same basic concept hit...
Review Tournament of Legends (Wii)
Decent, but not quite legendary
We've seen quite a resurgence within the fighting game genre over the past few years, in terms of both 2D and 3D varieties. While flashy over-the-top special moves and an almost limitless arsenal of moves have become the staple of these titles, we are beginning to see a bit more innovation within the games, especially...
WiiWare gets pushed to the limit in this fun 3D platformer
It’s clear that Shin’en Multimedia knows their way around WiiWare. After delivering the lovely Art of Balance, the German studio’s follow-up is a platformer with unparallelled looks on the service. Jett Rocket looks excellent, yes, and we’re happy to say that it plays well too and...
Review Pong Toss Pro - Frat Party Games (WiiWare)
The drunker you are, the better.
Nothing compliments a good buzz like tossing tiny ping pong balls into a group of plastic cups. In fact, Beer Pong has become quite the popular party game over the years, so much so that JV Games released their own version of the game for the WiiWare service back in 2008. Despite receiving extremely low review scores...
Review Date or Ditch (DSiWare)
Ditchfest
Don't be fooled by the level of choice suggested by Date or Ditch: this is a strictly linear game with even less depth than its vapid title suggests. Another converted mobile game from Gameloft, Date or Ditch puts you in the shoes of a male or female protagonist who must decide which of three love interests to settle down with. Gameplay...
Review 24/7 Solitaire (DSiWare)
Solid solitaire
Relatively speaking, there's not too many solitaire picks available on DSiWare. Europe and North America each have two: one title created by Nintendo themselves is the only one shared, while North America has Digital Leisure's offering and Europe an Engine title. This new release has the most variety yet, not just offering about 30...
June2010
News Brace Yourself for the Best Super Famicom T-Shirt You'll See Today
Japanese Super NES shirt all kinds of cool
If you like your gaming t-shirts, there's no finer feeling than finding fancy new threads, and thanks to the ever-increasing popularity of Nintendo you're never likely to be short of choice, and here's another one to add to your shopping list. Based on the classic Super Famicom, the "Ultimate 16-Bit...
Review Maestro! Green Groove (DSiWare)
A medley of musical mayhem
We've already seen several companies break their past retail releases down into pieces and sell them off as individual DSiWare releases, so it really comes as no surprise to see Neko Entertainment following suit with their first DSiWare release Maestro! Green Groove. The good news is that this release comes from a game...
Review Hello Flowerz (DSiWare)
Hello averageness
There's a surprising lack of games on DSiWare that pretty much require you to play every day. Hello Flowerz seems to be the first, in fact. It does pretty much everything you'd expect from a flower-growing game: you have to take care of flowers by watering them, giving them fresh new soil every day and similar tasks. Each flower...
Review Puffins: Let's Fish! (DSiWare)
Hungry hungry birdies
After a dreary first outing on DSiWare in the form of Puffins: Let's Roll!, Other Ocean has brought back the birds for more fish-chomping. Like Roll, Fish is pulled from the 2009 retail minigame compilation Puffins: Island Adventure. Let's Fish! is a maze game where you have to steer your little birdie around the depths of the...
Review Legendary Wars: T-Rex Rumble (DSiWare)
An archaeopter-mixed bag
To play Legendary Wars: T-Rex Rumble is to take your emotions for a ride. When you first see its great graphics and hear the fantastic sound design accompanied by a lighthearted sense of humour; when you play the first level and realise that you've learnt its somewhat complicated framework in an easy and enjoyable fashion;...
Review Music On: Retro Keyboard (DSiWare)
A step up
We've already seen Abylight's Music On: Electronic Keyboard application for DSiWare, a decent but flawed attempt at putting a keyboard in your pocket. Now the company's back with Music On: Retro Keyboard, and although it shares the first game's finer features and faults it's a better buy overall. As with its predecessor, you're granted a...
Review The Tales of Bearsworth Manor: Puzzling Pages (WiiWare)
A beary good game
We've already seen the first Tales of Bearsworth Mansion release make use of a tower defence-style gameplay mechanic, but now Square-Enix is mixing things up a bit with Tales of Bearsworth Manor: Puzzling Pages, the second game in the series and a game that uses the same bear-tossing element of the first release but takes things...
Review Face Pilot: Fly With Your Nintendo DSi Camera! (DSiWare)
Soar spot
The 3DS will introduce a motion sensor to the machine's line-up of inputs, but the humble DSi has already been home to a few motion-detecting titles, with Face Pilot: Fly With Your Nintendo DSi Camera! the latest – and longest-named – of the lot. You've likely already surmised what to do, but here's a quick description. You play a...
Review Pocket Pack: Strategy Games (DSiWare)
Smart move
The previous entry in the Pocket Pack series, Words and Numbers, combined Sudoku, anagrams and more into a package that was perhaps too familiar to make much impact in the DSiWare ranks. Now the second compilation, titled Strategy Games, has arrived on DSiWare, and it's a far better combination than its predecessor. The five games on...
Review Combat of Giants: Mutant Insects - Revenge (DSiWare)
If only we could squish this game under our shoes
Ubisoft seems to love its Combat of Giants series. With three retail DS releases and two DSiWare adaptations based on two of those retail titles already available, it was quite obvious that they were going to go for the full set. The third and hopefully the last, Mutant Insects Revenge very...
Review Arcana (Super Nintendo)
Magic is on the cards
FTL's seminal RPG Dungeon Master kick-started an entire genre when it was released at the tail-end of the '80s; the gaming public fell in love with the concept of immersive, first-person adventures and developers fell over themselves to replicate the same atmospheric feel witnessed in the Atari ST classic. It wasn't just...
Review The Tales of Bearsworth Manor: Chaotic Conflicts (WiiWare)
A bear-knuckle ball
For anyone that's played video games for an extended span of time, the name Square-Enix has long been synonymous with epic role-playing adventures and in-depth strategy battles. So when you see the company release a rather offbeat spooky-themed storybook adventure on WiiWare, your first reaction is likely one of bewilderment. But...
Review The World Ends With You (DS)
Animazing
Tearing up many RPG conventions that its publisher Square Enix put into place, The World Ends With You is vibrant, energetic and an absolute blast to play. You play Neku Sakuraba, a young Japanese kid who wakes up with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. So far, so standard, right? It would be, except for the fact he wakes up...
News This Beatboxer Has Clearly Played A Lot of Mario Games
Japanese musician performs some impressive beat-coin-boxing
We've seen some interesting 8-bit musical adaptations before, but Japanese beatboxer Hikakin has done the reverse, emulating classic Mushroom Kingdom melodies with nothing more than his mouth / throat combination. It's Rahzel meets Miyamoto in this incredibly impressive display of vocal...
News Optimus Prime Talks About Being the First Voice of Mario
Peter Cullen reminisces about lending his vocal talents to the world's most famous plumber
Legendary voice actor Peter Cullen - who has recently lent his talents to Activision's upcoming Transformers title War for Cybertron (also known as the slightly less threatening Cybertron Adventures on Wii) was interviewed by Wired.com the other day and...
If by "mega" you mean "bland"
If it's simple word puzzles you want, then by golly, it's simple word puzzles you'll get with Mega Words. It'll put your vocabulary to the test across its three game types, sure, but in the most basic way possible. Anagrams plunks down a handful of tiles and asks you to create at least six words to advance, whereas in...
Spin Six will have you spending your five
Suckers for Bejeweled-style puzzle games are in for a treat with Nintendo’s Spin Six, a game based off that game's fundamental design with a numerical twist. Like other puzzles games in the past, it’s a simple design with lots of replayability but the addicting puzzle mechanics and the cheerful...
Bejewel 'til you drool
For almost ten years, computerised jewels have had it rough. Countless gamers, cell phone owners and bored white collar workers have made it their mission to line them up in rows of matching colour and destroy them. Now with Super Swap, even more jewels risk losing their lives to the technological menace that is man. Players...
News Cezkid Puts a New Spin on Retro Characters
Watch your favourite 8-bit sprites do the 360
It's always nice to see programmers recreate retro gaming in some way or another and Jay Pavlina's 'reinterpretation' of the iconic Super Mario Bros. was easily one of the coolest things we'd seen in a while. Cesar Enrriquez (cezkid) has taken a slightly different approach as he has steadily been...
News Iwata's 3D GameBoy Advance is in a Drawer Somewhere
Prototype console hidden amongst socks
Nintendo's interest in 3D graphics stretches far back in time, from the days of the Virtual Boy to the newly-unveiled 3DS. They may have been the only two 3D machines to reach consumers, but that doesn't mean they're the only ones Nintendo cooked up, as an interview with CEO Satoru Iwata reveals. During...
Swap 'til you drop
If you've gone anywhere near an electronic device capable of playing games in the past decade, odds are you've heard of PopCap's addictive puzzle series Bejeweled. This WiiWare release of the sequel marks the developer's first foray onto a Nintendo home console and is a worthy version, but it doesn't bring a lot new to the table...
Review Yard Sale Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville (WiiWare)
A good find
Hidden object puzzles are big money these days, drawing in unsuspecting players with tales of relaxing but addictive gameplay. WiiWare has already seen the disappointing "Aha! I Found It!" Hidden Object Game but now Konami is here with a new challenger, Yard Sale Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville, and it's got a few tricks up its...
News Turns Out Shigeru Miyamoto Does Like Donkey Kong Country
Miyamoto clears things up once and for all
Following on from the E3 announcement of Donkey Kong Country Returns, it seems that something Shigeru Miyamoto had said in the past about the SNES original has re-surfaced. In a recent interview with IGN, Miyamoto cleared up the situation surrounding claims that he didn't like Donkey Kong Country, despite...
Review Shadow of the Ninja (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
Ninja master or a shadow of glory?
Ninjas suddenly gained popularity during the 1980s, what with their cool moves, cool clothes and unashamed ability to kick ass. It's murky as to why exactly this happened but the legacy left within the fields of media was huge, ranging from the American Ninja films, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Last Ninja...
Review A Kappa's Trail (DSiWare)
A trail you may want to follow
A Kappa’s Trail is a bizarre game: you play as a little turtle/fish/sea creature and your objective is to escape the depths of the ocean to reach the land of the humans, but it’s a clever idea, and plays great in many areas where other DSiWare games seem to do the opposite. It’s a really neat and tidy game with...
Review Arcade Sports (WiiWare)
Jack-of-all-trades, master of none
Perhaps better named, “Bowling Alley Sports”, Arcade Sports is a collection featuring pool, air hockey, and of course bowling. All of these games are available elsewhere on your Wii, but here you can get all three for one download. We’ve seen plenty of minigame collections on the Wii before, but is this...
Review 16 Shot! Shooting Watch (DSiWare)
Rhymes with "tap"
In one of bumbling cartoon father Homer Simpson's humorously ineffective attempts to please his children, he hands his son Bart a pen to click as an alternative to annoying his sister Lisa by purposely squeaking his chair. Of course, the clicking only makes things worse, but the coup de grace is when Homer proclaims, "Hey,...
Review Mister Bumblebee Racing Champion (WiiWare)
Buzz kill
With a few exceptions – Excitebike: World Rally and Heracles: Chariot Racing chief among them – WiiWare is pretty thin on family-friendly, well-received racing titles, so the thinking behind Mister Bumblebee Racing Champion is clear. Sadly, the best thing about this game is likely to be its title. The key twist here is that all the...
Review Mischief Makers (Nintendo 64)
Go Go!! 2D Treasure Makers
With a US release in 1997 Mischief Makers, or Go Go!! Trouble Makers in Japan, was not only an early example of a N64 centric side-scrolling 2D platformer, it also successfully made its mark in gaming history by being the first Treasure game to land on a Nintendo platform. However, it would be shallow to describe Mischief...
Review Don't Cross the Line (DSiWare)
Simple fun when you're low on funds
If you've ever been a child, you've probably encountered your fair share of activity books. Within these collections of mazes, word searches and other such sources of momentary amusement, arguably the most forgettable of the bunch is the "don't cross the lines" puzzle. It's so underwhelming that if...
Review Illusion of Gaia (Super Nintendo)
This being a great game is no illusion
In the early days of the SNES, Enix made the beloved action RPG Soul Blazer. A strange but incredibly effective mixture of RPG and very light town-building elements resulted in one of the system's most underrated games. Although the game itself did not sell too well, Enix decided to try again, making a...
Review Reel Fishing Challenge II (WiiWare)
Hook, line and stinker
Reel Fishing Challenge II is, by definition, the follow-up to Reel Fishing Challenge that hit WiiWare last year and as such is basically just more of the same. Fans of staring at full-motion video backgrounds and boring, lame fishing mechanics, rejoice! Everything about it just feels lazy, and the fact that it's essentially a...
It is indeed crazy that we're still getting Sudoku games on DSiWare
Counting this new release, there are now nine Sudoku games available on DSiWare in Europe. Some offer a little more than others, but all in all it tends to come down to the price and amount of puzzles available. Crazy Sudoku does well in both areas, but with so many other choices...
A nice piece of tail
Flametail began life as the "Square" bit of the rather unique WiiWare release MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade. Instead of a straight port of the game, the developers chose to not only give the game a nice little visual facelift but also a host of new gameplay twists and options to add to its depth. Oh, and it's...
Review Zoo Disc Golf (WiiWare)
A discgrace
Let's get this out of the way immediately: Zoo Disc Golf is a game that should not be played by anyone under any circumstances. Zoo animals playing disc golf may sound like a pretty awesome idea, but Zoo Disc Golf is a mess from top to bottom. It takes your ten dollars, chews it up, regurgitates it and spits back at you one of the worst...
Review Music On: Electronic Keyboard (DSiWare)
Hits a few bum notes
The first in a new series of portable instruments from Abylight, Music On: Electronic Keyboard offers up a range of voices including pianos and clarinets, and accompanying styles, from reggae to polka, to create a simple musical keyboard you can access on the go. One of the first issues with a portable keyboard is space, and...
Feature Hyperkin Retron3 Console Review
The unholy three-in-one
Those of you with sharp memories will recall that we reviewed the Retro Duo console a few months back and were quite impressed with the system's power to grant new life to dusty old Nintendo cartridges. We've since been sent yet another of these "clone" systems to take a look at, but this time there's a twist -...
Review Flips: The Folk of the Faraway Tree (DSiWare)
A classic book revisited
Following the release of The Magic Faraway Tree, EA's Flips series continues with a digital version of The Folk of the Faraway Tree. As with other games in the Flips series, there are sound effects played when certain words are tapped and finding coloured mushrooms throughout the book unlocks some interesting projects,...
A demented good time
Dementium II, the sequel to 2007’s Dementium: The Ward, has many characteristics spawning from a mixture of the Resident Evil-style survivor horror sub-genre and a first-person shooter. You control your character in a first-person perspective through many creepy, unsettling locales, but it’s not your ordinary shooter: it has...
Review Ben 10 Alien Force: The Rise of Hex (WiiWare)
Even Steven
The idea of a boy capable of transforming into wildly different forms, each with special abilities, is ideal fodder for game design: Kid Chameleon did it nearly twenty years ago, but Ben 10 Alien Force: Rise of Hex revives the template with a few welcome tweaks. In case you're unfamiliar with the titular hero, Ben Tennyson possesses a...
Feature The Making of Jet Force Gemini - Part Two
In the second and final part of our N64-themed making of, we look at the critical and commercial impact of one of Rare's best action titles
One of the most refreshing aspects of Jet Force Gemini was the way in which the player’s progression throughout the various levels was handled; initially, the only character available is Juno, but eventually...
Review Flips: The Magic Faraway Tree (DSiWare)
Faraway but not over the hill
The latest in EA's Flips series of digital children's books, The Magic Faraway Tree is part of Enid Blyton's well-known Faraway Tree Stories, with other stories from the collection due to arrive in the coming weeks. As with other games in the Flips series, there are some interactive features to maintain your interest:...
Review Wild Guns (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
Wild West or limp at best?
Whether the game had any influence over the film Wild Wild West is debatable, but what can't be denied is that the two have a similar, inextricable link between cowboys and steampunk. While the traditional steampunk time period might still be Victorian England in the late 19th Century, the setting for both is somewhat...
News Gawp at these First Ever Screenshots of Sonic the Hedgehog
All the way from 1990
Twenty years ago, Sega showed off its bold new mascot for the first time at the Tokyo Toy Show. He may only have been two months old, but Sonic the Hedgehog was already walking and wagging his finger as these scans from 1990's EGM 13 show. Even with twelve months of its development cycle left, it's remarkable how much of the...
Review Robocalypse: Beaver Defense (WiiWare)
Dam good
Robocalypse: Beaver Defense has all the red flags of a stinker: a "crude humour" warning right when you boot up, a cartoony theme possibly chosen to draw in unsuspecting youths and a genre in which it's easy to cut corners. You might want to think twice before passing this one up, however, as this dam's actually quite sturdy. The...
News Rare Confirms It is Not Working on Activision's Rumoured GoldenEye Game
Not what fans want to hear
Rare was undoubtedly one of the brightest stars back in the Nintendo 64 era and with two top-quality first-person shooters alone tucked under its belt, a selection of compelling 3D platformers and of course, the much-loved Donkey Kong 64; it must have been difficult for Nintendo to let go and eventually sell its stake in...
Review Hero of Sparta (DSiWare)
God of War for cheapskates
Gameloft is often panned for making games that look, play and feel similar to other titles, and its latest is no exception. Taking obvious inspiration from Sony's God of War series, this is a fairly linear 3D beat 'em up with a Greek mythology theme. As King Argos, who has washed up on a beach somewhere and lost his entire...
Review Animal Color Cross (DSiWare)
Picross with a twist
Despite there being so many different number-based puzzle games, some publishers seem to love putting nothing but Sudoku games on DSiWare. Nintendo has sadly not delivered a download for "A Little Bit of Picross DS" yet, so for now, this is the only game of its sort available on the service. Based on a fairly recent DS...
Review Samurai Warriors 3 (Wii)
Learn some history and have some fun with real-life Japanese super-heroes
Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu: these are the names of some of the greatest figures of the Sengoku, or "Warring States," period in Japanese history, a time of civil war in which rival daimyo struggled for positions of dominance as they attempted to...
Review A Topsy Turvy Life: The Turvys Strike Back (DSiWare)
The Turvys strike out
Have you ever played a shoot 'em up title and wished that you could finally have a chance to be the bad guys, attacking with a constant barrage of swarming fighters and cannon fire onto the ship below? If so, Tecmo has just the unique shooter twist to scratch your itch. Now you can flip that DSi system upside down and command...
One of DSiWare's best and most ambitious adventures yet
If X-Scape is any indication, Nintendo should encourage more developers to revisit the deepest depths of their back catalogue and make sequels to their obscurest of games. This here is the follow-up to the 1992 Japan-only Game Boy release X. The original was developed by Dylan Cuthbert's former...
Feature The Making of Jet Force Gemini - Part One
In the first of a two-part feature, we go behind the scenes on what is regarded by many as the N64's finest action title
Back in the late ‘90s being an N64 owner was a testing experience. Having to listen to your Playstation-owning chums constantly droning on about Lara Croft and Solid Snake was enough to put any Nintendo devotee in a bad mood,...
Review Just Sing! National Anthems (DSiWare)
Off-key
How many national anthems can you sing? We're guessing you can comfortably sing your own country's anthem most of the way through, but you would probably struggle with any other country's. That's why the premise of Just Sing! National Anthems is so puzzling: a collection of five European anthems, you're unlikely to be able to – or even...
Review Telegraph Sudoku & Kakuro (DSiWare)
Quality sudok... hey, where are you going?
Sudoku and DSiWare are seemingly inseparable at this point, so forgive our lack of shock when another incarnation of the numeric puzzle game peeks its head out from behind the bush of Nintendo's weekly downloads. What did surprise us, and pleasantly so, was just how nice of a package Telegraph Sudoku &...
Review Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (Wii)
Sand trapped
Ignoring the free-running, rather mouthy Prince from 2008’s HD Prince of Persia, The Forgotten Sands is set between Sands of Time and Warrior Within, playing as the expected combination of platforming showpieces, close combat and simplistic lever and button puzzles. As the Prince’s first original adventure on Wii, it has to be...
Review Art Style: Penta Tentacles (WiiWare)
Tentacular spectacular
The Art Style series certainly stands out as one of the safer bets in Nintendo's stable of downloadable software. These are puzzle games with a minimalist aesthetic and focus on simple gameplay; it's like the Tate Modern of gaming only with content and a price point that's accessible by everyone. Though given an unfortunate...
May2010
Bad mojo
Developed by Exkee, the guys behind the rather average ColorZ, Voodoo Dice is a puzzle game in which you control a large yellow die, attempting to reach the end of every stage in order to earn gemstones used to proceed further into the game. Of course, it's not a matter of simply rolling over to the exit: each level has various dice-related...
Review Viral Survival (WiiWare)
Fun with viruses that doesn't involve Mario or vomiting
Viral Survival is a compilation of five single-player arcade games with a loose petri dish theme tying them together. In each game you control a little chunk of DNA (that looks an awful lot like a magnifying glass) as you zip, wind, shoot and jump your way to a top score, which is then...
Review Lead the Meerkats (WiiWare)
The meerkat sim you've been waiting for?
Meerkats have long suffered the reputation of being lazy sods who just lay around in the jungles of Africa eating bugs all day thanks to a certain film from a certain company with a certain round-eared mascot. Of course people who actually have an interest in wildlife (and form their impressions of the world...
Review World Poker Tour: Texas Hold 'Em (DSiWare)
Nice try
For a portable poker game, World Poker Tour: Texas Hold 'Em could've been great. It uses probably the biggest licence in the game in a faithful way to how the tournaments are shown on TV along with a pretty meaty single-player component and a few nice touches. Unfortunately, it also makes some really dumb mistakes that drag it down. Like,...
Review Telegraph Crosswords (DSiWare)
Box clever
Last year Nintendo took a stab at the handheld crosswords market with Nintendo Presents Crossword Collection, and it did a decent job, with plenty of variation and a decent interface drawing in gamers who like to dabble in the occasional crossword. If Crossword Collection was the tutorial, Telegraph Crosswords is the final boss; every...
News Mario Jumps Over Flag, Ends Arguments Forever
It's real: see it with your own eyes
Yes he can; no he can't. Yes he can; no he can't. Anyone who grew up with the NES will know this as the sound of the playground's "is it possible to jump over the flag?" argument that ran all over the world. Now those who were on the "yes he can" side should pick up their phones and ring old...
Review The Beatles: Rock Band (Wii)
Here comes the fun
We've seen the market quite saturated with numerous Rock Bands and Guitar Heroes, and at this point we’d need something extra special to pique our interest in the genre. The Beatles are happily just the right thing. They’re the perfect band for a music emulation game to take as its focus, their repertoire being one of the most...
Review Robin Hood: The Return of Richard (WiiWare)
Another porting disaster
WiiWare has already seen a few ports of iPhone games, but this one in particular has to take the cake as the laziest of all. A shooting gallery game based around the legend of Robin Hood, you must protect the people of Nottingham from the seemingly endless hordes of knights running around. As this is a Wii game we're talking...
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