WiiWare Game Reviews
Review Adventure Island: The Beginning (WiiWare)
Higgins is back after a 15-year break. Is he still the master?
As you might know, Adventure Island is a bit of an odd series. The main character Master Higgins is actually a real person, although he's only well known in Japan. Ask anybody there about Takahashi Meijin (Master Takahashi) though and they'll know him for sure - he's a legend over there,...
Review Crystal Defenders R1 (WiiWare)
Break out the safe box.
Trailing off the coattails of Final Fantasy Tactics comes Crystal Defenders, Square's take on the incredibly popular 'Tower Defense' genre. Instead of methodically leveling units, using items, and strategizing your way through battle, you’ll be tasked with defending a set of crystals by means of brute force. Some may be...
Review Bubble Bobble Plus! (WiiWare)
Space Invaders Get Even proved that drastically changing a classic Taito franchise works very well. Bubble Bobble Plus, however, is more of a flat-out remake - is it a good one?
Bubble Bobble's one of the most well-known arcade games - If you so much as hum the theme song to someone it's very likely they'll recognize it. As such it's really a...
Equiibrio might not have the flash of a Kororinpa, but you're still getting an enjoyable game at a much cheaper price.
While we've already seen several 3D ball-rolling titles like Sega's Super Monkey Ball and Hudson's Kororinpa put the tilt function of the Wii Remote to good use, Equilibrio marks the first time this unique gameplay experience has...
Review Bonsai Barber (WiiWare)
Has Zoonami assembled the perfect hairstyle for all ages?
If you were randomly asked which developer had the most well-known franchises under its belt, you’d likely respond by saying Nintendo. With series such as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon, it isn’t difficult to see why. It should also be noted that they’re the...
Review Texas Hold'em Tournament (WiiWare)
Does Digital Leisure’s latest WiiWare offering fold or make a clean sweep of the table?
It’s no lie that video game conversions of popular poker card games are few and far between nowadays as online poker has become increasingly more popular and widely regarded. WiiWare developer Digital Leisure has decided to try its luck with an adaption of...
Review BIT.TRIP BEAT (WiiWare)
Feel the beat!
It seems nowadays if you want to revive a classic videogame idea, you only need add in some pulsing musical beats and some flashy background visuals in order to do so. The creators of Lumines managed to revive the stale "falling blocks" puzzler of the 80's with this formula, so what's to stop someone from doing the same...
Review Gradius ReBirth (WiiWare)
Does Konami's old-school Gradius formula still hold up all these years later?
The original Gradius arcade release was one of the first truly great side-scrolling shooters and, along with R-Type, spawned a legion of copycat video games back in the 80s and 90s. The Gradius titles have been copied and cloned more times than can be counted and, much...
Review Family & Friends Party (WiiWare)
Will WiiWare newcomer Gammick Entertainment get this party started?
The Wii is no stranger to party games or mini-game compilations; in fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that the machine’s success is largely due to the brilliance of multiplayer titles like Wii Sports and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. However, familiarity breeds...
Review Evasive Space (WiiWare)
Will Akinai Games’ WiiWare debut live up to expectations, or is it better off being lost in space?
Let’s face it, when we first saw Evasive Space, we all thought it was going to be something quite special. Developed by High Voltage for Akinai Games, many gamers were expecting this WiiWare release to be nothing less than fantastic, and for good...
Can Hudson really pull off an FPS game on WiiWare?
Japanese developers are not known for creating first person shooters. After all it is far from being a popular genre in the land of the rising sun. The few Japanese FPS games that spring to mind failed to compete with their Western counterparts. Considering the limitations of the WiiWare service,...
Review Pop-Up Pirate! (WiiWare)
Pop-Up Pirate! - a barrel of fun or a total wash-out?
Many of us will remember Tomy’s successful ‘board’ game, Pop-Up Pirate, from our childhoods. Cautiously inserting mini-daggers into the pirate’s unsuspecting torso in an attempt to avoid murdering the poor one-eyed soul – that’s what being a kid is all about! Well, perhaps not, but it...
Is LIT a light in the dark or just running up the electricity bill?
Turn off the lights and grab your controller because it’s up to you to - erm - turn them back on. That’s the basic premise behind WayForward’s spooky puzzle game LIT. LIT puts you in the shoes of Jake, your regular pale-faced emo teenager, whose girlfriend is missing in a...
Review Snowboard Riot (WiiWare)
Is Hudson's Snowboard Riot a riot to play, or just a wipe-out?
There's no denying that Hudson is one of the more talented developers on WiiWare. All of their games to date have done much to impress and show other devs how it’s done. In Snowboard Riot they have turned their hand to creating a racing game with the added bonus that you can use items...
Review Pop Them, Drop Them SameGame (WiiWare)
Is Hudson’s puzzler a worthy purchase or just more of the same?
SameGame is a bit of an unusual one. It was first created way back in 1985, but was never really all that popular. Nevertheless, it went on to spawn a large number of clones and remakes over the years, with Hudson’s effort being the latest. The basic concept of SameGame is quite...
Review High Voltage Hot Rod Show (WiiWare)
Will this highly anticipated WiiWare racer take pole position, or will it merely drive us to distraction?
High Voltage Hot Rod Show is all about taking control of large trucks and racing them against each other, which is all well and good. However, because of certain game design choices, the trucks themselves handle more like a cross between an R/C...
Review Family Glide Hockey (WiiWare)
Does Family Glide Hockey capture the fun and excitement of a real air hockey game?
Let's face it, there are some recreational games that lend themselves perfectly to the Wii Remote's motion controls. We've already seen such games as billiards, miniature golf, and even a table tennis release make use of these motion sensing capabilities with varying...
Does this WiiWare puzzler have what it takes to stand out from the crowd?
Having been available since WiiWare launched in Japan, Lonpos' Western release has been a long time coming. The game itself has been adapted from a popular logic puzzle game of the same name. The question, of course, is how well does it fare against the many puzzle titles...
How does this unique card game of quick thinking and reflexes translate to WiiWare?
For those of you out there who aren't familiar with it, Jungle Speed is a unique card game that's recently become quite popular among card game fans. It’s essentially one of the "first one to get rid of all their cards" style and not only requires the...
Review Planet Pachinko (WiiWare)
Can you really ever have too much of a good thing?
You have to admit, a shooting/platforming game that takes place inside of a Japanese pachinko machine is indeed an original concept. Not only do you get all of the chaotic action of the pachinko balls dropping down through the various pegs in each level, but you find yourself smack dab in the middle...
Hopefully that’s just sand in your pants and not crabs…
Konami is well known in the gaming world and is a much larger game company than the typical WiiWare studio. With their resources, a simple budget title should be something they could throw together in a weekend. Unfortunately, Sandy Beach (developed by Frozen Codebase and published by...
Will Tiki Towers build Wiiware to new heights or crash under its own weight?
Some might see this jungle themed construction game as a bit of a cash in on the success of World of Goo. After all, both games command you to get from point A to point B by building a structure. However, this is where the similarities end. For starters, the structures...
Review Fun! Fun! Minigolf (WiiWare)
So much fun they named it twice, but it is really up to par?
Wii Sports golf - which, lest we forget, comes bundled for free with the Wii console - offers a taste of what playing golf with a Wii Remote can be like. However, with only nine holes and a clunky putting mechanism that can often feel inaccurate, the game is just not satisfying enough to...
Review Niki - Rock 'n' Ball (WiiWare)
Not completely on the ball
This second WiiWare release from Bplus is a bit of a departure from their "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink" debut outing Plättchen, attempting to recapture some arcade magic via simple goals and score attacking. Whilst the presentation and controls do the job, odd choices in level design and lacklustre gameplay...
Review Big Kahuna Party (WiiWare)
Is WiiWare puzzler Big Kahuna Party a beach party or a shipwreck?
Big Kahuna Party is a "match-three" game in the style of Bejeweled. This style of play has been around for a while now and there is not much left to add to the genre, though this doesn’t mean there isn’t room in your collection for a fun variation on the theme. So is...
Review Strong Bad Episode 5 - 8-Bit is Enough (WiiWare)
Strong Bad goes 8-bit in the final installment of the SBCG4AP series
Dry those tears, folks - it’s finally time for the last episode of Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People! Surely they’ve saved the best for last? At the very least, they do tie up some loose ends. For example, we’ve seen a broken Trogdor arcade cabinet in the last...
Review Bruiser & Scratch (WiiWare)
Does Steel Penny Games debut WiiWare puzzler have that Naughty Dog magic?
It seems only natural that a game being developed by former members of such an accomplished developer as Naughty Dog would garner some serious hype when it's announced. While it's always nice for a developer to get some type of recognition ahead of time, it can also prove to...
Review Hockey Allstar Shootout (WiiWare)
Nevermind hitting the post, this "allstar" barely makes it onto the rink
It's easy to see why hockey fans will feverishly download Hockey Allstar Shootout. The only alternatives for Wii-toting rink rats are a half-baked port and a few crude NES classics that you had to play back in the day to appreciate now (Blades of Steel and Ice Hockey, in case...
Will Engine Software’s WiiWare debut give you much bang for your buck?
Bang Attack is a puzzle game involving hammers, fruit and other random objects. The concept is very simple. Your screen is loaded with refilling objects: fruit on the first level, seaside objects on the second level, etc. To clear the objects from the screen you must “hammer...
Review Pit Crew Panic! (WiiWare)
Is Hudson's crazy pit crew game a hit or is it the just the pits?
Pit Crew Panic! marks the sixth WiiWare release from Hudson and easily their most unique release to date. While the title of the game would lead you to believe that you're in for a little auto racing pit crew action, you'll quickly find that you're in for a very different pit crew...
