Wii Game Reviews
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 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 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...
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 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 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 Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
Absolutely spectacular!
Where do you begin when talking about the Super Mario franchise and what it's brought to video gaming over the years? The series has single-handedly defined Nintendo and its consoles over the past 25 years and is showing no signs of slowing down at this point. The original Super Mario Galaxy introduced so many new gameplay...
Review Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (Wii)
Treasure's cult classic returns for a second helping of laser death
When the original Sin and Punishment was passed over for Western release back in 2000 it marked one of the cruellest injustices video gaming has ever experienced. Thankfully this crime has now been partially rectified by the release of Treasure's gloriously chaotic cult classic on...
Review 2010 FIFA World Cup (Wii)
A semi-final runner-up
FIFA used to be the console equivalent of a 0-0 draw, but the past few years have seen it emerge again as the dominant football game on the market. Last year's FIFA 10 was an enjoyable arcade-style take on the sport, and 2010 FIFA World Cup is a very similar game but featuring all the teams, arenas and pageantry of the...
Definitely worthy of a rewind
Whether you like them or not, the Guitar Hero series has done a lot to popularise the rhythm genre in contemporary gaming, and although the premise of hitting buttons to the beat isn't exactly new, you have to give them credit for the success they have garnished. However, after years of seeing essentially the same game...
Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube764k Watch on YouTube Review Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love (Wii)
Genre-mashing cinematic robot-girly goodness
It might seem surprising that one of Sega's longest-running and most successful franchises would never have seen the light of day outside of Japan, possibly a result of it being perceived as "too Japanese". namely due to a strong adventure game component which is commonly referred to as a...
Review Monster Hunter 3 (Tri~) (Wii)
A tri-umph
Monster Hunter Tri has a lot resting on its broad warrior’s shoulders. An online-enabled, unashamedly hardcore title for Wii with huge amounts of advertising and hype behind it, anything less than a critical and commercial success would be a huge blow to Capcom, as well as Nintendo’s never-ending crusade to market the Wii as a great...
Review Rune Factory: Frontier (Wii)
Everyone could use a good plough
If there’s one thing guaranteed to liven up a good hack-and-slash dungeon crawler, it’s a bit of farming. There’s many a Zelda game that could have been saved with a bit of ploughing, yet the combination has been mostly ignored by cultivators of digital goods, with only the snack-sized Rune Factory on DS...
Review Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces (Wii)
A sky full of aces
Air combat games are a rarity on the Wii, which is quite surprising considering the tilt sensors on the Remote and Nunchuk have been demonstrated to be the most reliable form of motion control available on the Wii. Thankfully Namco Bandai have decided to step into the breach with Project Aces' excellent movie tie-in Sky Crawlers:...
Time to shoot and slice some bros
Ubisoft promised the sky for their Wii launch game Red Steel; since nobody had used the Remote before, plenty of gamers drank the kool-aid and had high hopes for its swordplay potential. The concept was interesting, but the execution left a gross aftertaste. It's telling that the idea was never emulated in the way...
Review Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (Wii)
Diamond in the rough
There’s a sincerity to Fragile Dreams that’s very appealing, but that weighs heavily on the game over time. After burying his grandfather in his front garden, main character Seto explores the post-apocalyptic world with a heaviness of step that should make clear this isn’t a game full of sunshine and rainbows. If you like...
Do the "Katamari Twist"
Tornado Outbreak is another example of a game being hung out to dry by a major publisher. Released at a budget price in the last quarter of 2009, it wouldn't be surprising if you had no clue it existed – despite being published by Konami – because it had little to no launch promotion and wasn't even stocked by major...
Let the machine get it
Boo! Did we scare you? No? Well then, there's a pretty good chance Hudson's horror game Calling won't either. Try as it might, the game never really goes beyond that three-letter interjection in its mysterious tale of ghosts and the supernatural. It's not horrible, but there are only so many times you can be snuck up on until...
Review Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing (Wii)
Constellation prize
The first hour or so you spend with Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, your brain rejects it, telling you it isn’t Mario Kart enough, or it isn’t Sega enough. You’ll wrestle with the wheel and tell yourself you could be playing Mario Kart Wii instead, but once you learn to go with it you find yourself having a blast...
Review Data East Arcade Classics (Wii)
Some golden oldies from an arcade pioneer
Data East Corp. was one of the original wave of Japanese video game developers that had their wares appear in American arcades at the beginning of the 1980s. They didn't have as big a string of hits as contemporaries like Namco, Konami, Taito or Sega, but they did release a few titles that gamers above a...
Review Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll (Wii)
Rollin' rollin' rollin', get those monkeys rollin'
One of Sega's first games for a home console of former rival Nintendo was Super Monkey Ball on the Gamecube. It quickly became a favourite among many with its simple arcade gameplay and irrepressibly cute characters. Reception for the first Wii installment, Banana Blitz, was a bit mixed due to a...
Review Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep (Wii)
What lurks beneath?
2007’s Endless Ocean was a true original: a diving game that made little attempt to be a game, basing most of its gameplay around just touching fish. As part of the Touch Generations range it clearly appealed to enough aspiring divers to merit a sequel, but it’s certainly changed from the inviting warm waters of the Manaurai...
Review Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars (Wii)
Crossover chaos at its very finest
When Capcom’s Versus series burst into arcades in 1996 it was a refreshing change of pace after the seemingly endless stream of copycat brawlers and tired sequels. X-Men vs. Street Fighter also marked a significant new attitude for the veteran developer; it was willing to let its most famous characters duke it...
Review No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Wii)
Travis Touchdown is back with a vengeance and better than ever
The mirrors don’t work. It’s a minor detail and completely inconsequential to gameplay, but when Travis Touchdown meanders into a public restroom to do his deeds and save the game in No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle, he might as well be a vampire. Despite his bloodlust, Travis is...
¡Viva la revolución!
Chroma City has been subjugated by the diabolical INKT Corporation! Can anyone free the formerly colourful Raydians from their grey prison? Enter the members of the Colour Revolution led by legendary Chroma City graffiti artist Blob, whom players control in their quest for colour, funk and freedom! Based upon a game created by...
The sum of its parts
There's no doubt that James Cameron's Avatar in all its 3D blue-and-green beauty is a worldwide phenomenon, grossing millions upon millions of dollars and becoming a word of mouth sensation. With such a wave of success comes James Cameron's Avatar: The Game from Ubisoft, with its oft-heard promises of being an interactive...
Review Puzzle Series 2: Illust Logic + Colourful Logic (Wii)
We just died and went to picross heaven...
Nonograms (you may recognise them by the Nintendo trademark "Picross") are relatively recent to the puzzle world, first appearing in Japanese puzzle magazines in the late 1980s. Nintendo quickly popularised them by publishing titles for Game Boy and the Super Famicom and have continued to do so...
Review Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii)
Hill hath frozen over
Harry Mason is not having a good day. After crashing his car in a freak snowstorm, he wakes up to find his daughter missing with nary a trace. Determined to find her, Harry sets out into the night with a flashlight to explore the town of Silent Hill in this reimagining of the series’ original entry. Yes, reimagining, not...
Review Ultimate Shooting Collection (Wii)
A 3-in-1 tour of Milestone's vision of Bullet Hell
Milestone is a pretty rare beast: a company completely focused on arcade shooters (well, other than that hula game) at a time when arcades and the old shoot 'em up game genre are both practically extinct. They were putting out Dreamcast games after that system died, so perhaps they just have a...
Join the space race!
Planet 51 is based on the animated film of the same name. It’s produced by Pyro Studios, the team behind the Commandos series, and published by none other than Sega, so it should be pretty good. The problem is of course that most film to game translations are cheap and badly designed. Does Planet 51 join them? Planet 51 is a...
