Wii Game Reviews
Review Michael Jackson: The Experience (Wii)
It's good to be the King
Ubisoft struck gold last year with Just Dance, a light-hearted game that didn't really care about hardcore talent as much as it did good times and booty shakin'. Its runaway success explains the improved sequel, Broadway number and kid-centric titles we've seen only one year into the franchise, so it was really only a matter...
See the light
Even a cursory look at Hudson's A Shadow's Tale (known as Lost in Shadow in North America) should be enough to convince you it's not just another 2D platformer. Whilst New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Donkey Kong Country Returns hark back to those series' 2D glory days, A Shadow's Tale is more forward-thinking, combining platforming and...
Review Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (Wii)
Crash and burn
Until last year, the Need For Speed series on Wii was synonymous with crap from day one. And while Need For Speed: Nitro had its issues, it at least showed that EA’s heart was in the right place: instead of trying to shoehorn a game developed for HD platforms onto the Wii’s lesser hardware to the benefit of no one, it went out and...
Review Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
Retro Studios resurrects a classic
When Rare created the original Donkey Kong Country titles for the Super Nintendo console, the games basically took the system's visuals capabilities to new heights and also offered up one of the best platforming experiences the console had to offer. Now, having spent the past few years resurrecting the Metroid...
All things wise and wonderful
One lament accompanied 2008’s lacklustre Sonic Unleashed more loudly than others – "why can’t Sega ditch the werehog and make the daytime stages into a complete game?" A few years later and in rushes Sonic Colours with all the usual fanfare and expectation around a new 3D Sonic game, except this time –...
Review Call of Duty: Black Ops (Wii)
Back in black
The Call of Duty series has come a long way from its humble origins as a Medal of Honor competitor, now standing as a world-conquering video game superpower able to clear release calendars with the mere threat of its presence in a month. On HD platforms, that is, with Nintendo's little white box relegated to answering the call in a...
Review Oops! Prank Party (Wii)
Is the joke on us?
We should all cherish the moments we have with our families. Life is short, and it can get so hectic that we can neglect spending time with the ones we love in favour of work or sleep. Not to mention that some of the greatest Nintendo games are only single player! Thank goodness for the party game craze, right? Problem solved...
Does it pass Go or should it go directly to jail?
Ah, Monopoly, the classic board game we all know and love, where you attempt to become the dominant force across the market and can become a rich tycoon living the high life in Mayfair or end up in the dumps of Old Kent Road. Starting back in 1903, it has since become one of the most successful board...
Review Disney Guilty Party (Wii)
Crime and funishment
The ideal Wii experience, as advertised, is that of friends and family members gathering around their sets and swinging their Remotes, no matter how old or young, and doing so together. It's unfortunate then that some developers seem content to target the desirable non-traditional players not as a legitimate, equally deserving...
Online modes headline the evening's event
Activision might be an easy target for gamers who feel certain franchises have been milked beyond recognition (Tony Hawk: SHRED, we're looking at you) and with DJ Hero's first annual sequel out now, you'd be forgiven in wondering if this will be another franchise we'll get sick of seeing. Thankfully, the...
Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube764k Watch on YouTube The N64 is not enough
Ah, GoldenEye 007. A remarkable game on the ol’ Nintendo 64, no doubt about it. Countless hours of planting proximity mines in Basement and Facility for your friends to run into, scream and punch you on the arm is enough to earn a hall of fame spot in any player’s heart. So when Activision and Eurocom — who first became...
Review Family Party: Fitness Fun (Wii)
Witness fun, but not much fitness
Hang around any Nintendo-themed internet forum, and you're bound to find similar posts over and over, all declaring the same thing: The Wii needs more party games! Alright, obviously that's not the case. The poor little Wii has more party games than it knows what to do with, making it difficult for new entries in...
You can't stop the beat
Ubisoft's Just Dance came out of nowhere last year and was promptly the target of filth and excrement flung by the core gamer contingent, decrying it as yet another casual suck-fest as they put their controllers down between rounds of the Call of Duty. And that crowd wasn't entirely off base; to them, Just Dance seemed to...
Review Sengoku BASARA Samurai Heroes (Wii)
So many bad guys, so little fun
It's easy to think all hack & slash games are mindless and repetative in nature, but it doesn't have to be that way, as fans of the genre will know. Unfortunately, "mindless" and "repetitive" are the very words that spring to mind when writing this review, not because it's a hack & slash...
Review Kidz Bop Dance Party! The Video Game (Wii)
Your children would prefer a spanking
As a franchise, Kidz Bop is a strange one. While compilations of popular dance songs are nothing new, Kidz Bop releases are actually compilations of covers of dance songs, all performed by a troupe of prepubescent moppets whose voices are auto-tuned and otherwise processed until they arrive, indistinguishable...
Spectrackular
Mention the name TrackMania to any console gamer and barely anyone will know what you're talking about. Mention it to hardcore PC gamers, however, and there's a good chance they'll regale you with stories of what is perhaps the best racing series out there. For those unfamiliar with the series, it's not really a pure "racing"...
Review Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)
A game that truly lives up to its name
Kirby has enjoyed success on Nintendo's various portable systems in recent years, but he hasn't shown up in a game of his own on a home console since his Nintendo 64 adventure Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards back in 2000. Nintendo obviously took notice of this when it put Good Feel Games on the task of creating a...
Come on and slam, and welcome to the Jam
You’d be forgiven for looking at this fall’s Wii release calendar and thinking you had stumbled out of a time machine set for 1997. Between all of the new 2D revivals starring some of gaming’s all-time classics and a new, old Bond movie adaptation, there's almost no time to see whether the Fresh Prince...
Finishes mid-table
Gamers that like playing video game adaptations of football (or soccer) will likely fall under one of two categories: the ones that prefer Pro Evolution and the ones that think FIFA games are better. The former has always strived to be as realistic as possible whilst the latter offers more arcade-style action as opposed to ultra...
Wii like to party
If there's anything that the Wii's software catalogue arguably doesn't really need more of, it's minigame compilations and party games. From Wii Sports to Rabbids to numerous others, "drought" is not the word. But lo and behold, along comes Nintendo and their Mii army with Wii Party, including 80+ minis presented in...
Review Goosebumps HorrorLand (Wii)
Horribleland
In 1996, Dreamworks released a computer game called Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland, a fun point-and-click adventure that revolved around story elements and puzzle solving. Perhaps you can excuse us then for hoping that Goosebumps HorrorLand would be something similar, or anything more intriguing than the collection of carnival-style...
Review Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Wii)
Cartoon crime never sleeps in Gotham City. Good thing bats are nocturnal.
As far as pop culture is concerned, there are two types of Batman. Batmen, if you will. One is the gritty, serious Dark Knight that’s been Chris Nolan’s Hollywood blockbuster success of late and the star of Rocksteady’s excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum. Then there’s the...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
