Wii U, 3DS, Wii, DS, DSi, WiiWare, DSiWare, Virtual Console Reviews

Bring fresh underwear

There’s a school of thought which argues that modern gamers have it too easy, and that this generation of players has grown soft thanks to the fact that developers are all too happy to provide helpful tutorials and short-cuts intended to reduce frustration. You only need to spend a few painful minutes in the company of Super...

Super fighting robot

Capcom has been very fast with releasing the original Mega Man series on 3DS Virtual Console, and now we're already up to the fifth entry. As you might expect, Mega Man 5 is quite similar to the four games before it; eight new Robot Masters have appeared, and it's up to Mega Man to stop them and their leader, who appears to be...

Not quite as revelatory

Resident Evil Revelations on 3DS was, and still is, one of the most impressive and well-crafted demonstrations of the handheld's capabilities. With accomplished visuals — combined with outstanding stereoscopic 3D — it delivered a return to form for the franchise, with large sections reverting back to older, and better,...

Cream of the crop

It may come as a surprise to some that a series of farming simulation games could become so popular and beloved by such a large audience, yet here we are, more than 15 years after the launch of the maiden game, with the release of Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. In celebration of this milestone anniversary, Marvelous AQL has decided...

Finally facing its Waterloo

Four years ago, Swords & Soldiers made its debut. WiiWare has always been a mix of titles ranging from brilliant to terrible — with a thick middle section of "mediocre" — but Swords & Soldiers immediately established itself as a must-have. We awarded it a much deserved 9, taken as we were by its charm, its...

A short story adventure

There's a reason that some gamers get excited at the news of Guild01 and Guild02 localisations in the West, as Level-5's collections gather some of the Japanese development community's finest names to produce small titles of, well, whatever genre they feel like trying out. The Starship Damrey is the first of the second...

Superior Metroid

It’s undeniable that 1994 was an extremely memorable year of videogame releases. Sonic 3, Earthworm Jim, Doom II, and the original Donkey Kong Country were just a few of the critically acclaimed games that had us chatting profusely on the playground. However, there was one game in particular that terrified and mesmerized us so...

Mix and match-three

Late last year, Coder Child's Dress to Play: Cute Witches! flew onto the 3DS eShop with a unique blend of dress-up and side-scrolling soaring, a promising premise that we felt it didn't quite live up to. Dress to Play: Magic Bubbles! follows the same format of combining character customisation with simple gameplay, this time...

Watto way to go

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace may have been panned by film critics and audiences alike when it released back in 1999, but not everything borne out of it was as big a disaster as Jar Jar Binks. One of these truly rare exceptions was Star Wars Episode I: Racer, a sci-fi racing game developed by by LucasArts. The game was a...

A bad sport

To understand what California Super Sports is, start with Wii Sports. Do you have the handful of mini-games fixed in your mind, complete with simple rules and bobble-headed athletes? Good; now trade in your Wii Remote for a DS stylus. Next, systemically break every intuitive gameplay system and control scheme in sight. Then sabotage the...

An early vertical scrolling classic

When Xevious hit arcades in 1982 it represented one of the first vertical shoot 'em ups of its kind. Not only that, but the game introduced a second bombing mechanic to give it a little more flare. After seeing a handful of home releases, it sprang upon the NES system with a vengeance and once again showed that...

The stuff dreams are made of

By now we all know the story of Super Mario Bros. 2: concerns about the Japanese sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. kept it from release in North America and Europe. Different reasons have been given over time, from the game being too difficult to it simply not demonstrating enough creativity to keep gamers...

No more monkeying around

It's easy to forget, as Nintendo has seemingly decided that it's no longer a definitive unique selling point, but the 3DS has a fantastic stereoscopic 3D screen. It's tempting to be blase about it, but it's still the only mainstream piece of hardware — certainly in gaming terms — that uses it so effectively. The...

One door closes, another one opens

In Solomon’s Key – an action / puzzler from Tecmo – you take command of a wizard named Dana as he searches for a magical formula that’s said to banish all evil from the world. The game began life in arcades back in 1986, finding its way to NES a year later, and now it’s resurfaced on Wii U Virtual...

Pac is back!

When Pac-Man hit arcades in 1981, it was a phenomenal success. Spawning clothing, cereals and even a hit song, the game took the world by storm. It saw a rash of home console and personal computer releases during the 80s — some better than others — but it wasn't until the NES release in 1985 that the game finally saw a replica close...

Lightspeed Lite

Last year's SpeedX 3D brought Gamelion's endless tunnel racer from the mobile phone market to the 3DS, adding a third dimension and physical controls and proving that mobile games can make excellent eShop experiences. Now the race returns with SpeedX 3D Hyper Edition, and while it's still a whole lot of fun, it's neither the sequel...

This game development biz is confusing...

CIRCLE Entertainment has published a good variety of games on DSiWare, covering almost any genre that can feasibly work on the ageing service. Its own take on the sim style began with Bookstore Dream, which while owing much to similar smartphone games was a solid effort. Unlike that book publishing title,...

Don't Panic

At times it feels like Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move is designed as a time trial to measure the shortest amount of time in which players will fling a 3DS across the room. Once the game is afoot, every trick in the book is deployed to trigger urgency: Constant unstoppable motion, ticking clocks, shaking tiles and frenetic music...

Balloons don't float forever

In Balloon Fight you manipulate a little fellow who can flutter through the skies thanks to a pair of balloons strapped to his back and vigorous arm flapping. The world is a dangerous place for the intrepid defier of gravity, particularly when it comes to jealous birds — also illogically equipped with balloons — who...