Game Reviews
Latest Reviews
Browse our collection of reviews.
Latest Reviews
Review: Family Tennis (WiiWare)
By downloading this game, you agree to get served
One of the very first Wiiware games was also the first in Aksys’ “Family” series: Family Table Tennis. We gave it a fairly generous 5/10 score considering we labeled it “outclassed,” “hard to recommend” and even “un-loseable.” Well, it seems that someone at Aksys was paying attention as nearly all of our criticisms have been..
Review: Scribblenauts (DS)
Write your way to victory!
You don’t have to solve - or even begin - the included challenges to fully appreciate what Scribblenauts is trying to do. Right after the opening credits slide show, you are greeted by Maxwell standing in a field with nothing to do but smile as he always does. So you give him something to do. Anything. Type “pterodactyl” and he’ll have a prehistoric beast to ride..
Review: Rayman DS (DS)
Any port in a storm?
For those of you who missed out on the PS1/N64 generation of the late 1990s, Rayman was actually quite a big deal. Viewed by many well recognized gaming institutions as one of the ‘Greatest games of all time’, Rayman 2: The Great Escape received many plaudits for its innovative level design and gameplay features. Though a good few years have passed since those heady days of..
Review: MySims Camera (DSiWare)
Ever wanted to share a photo with a My Sim? No, we haven't either...
My Sims Camera is a simple program that requires an equally simple explanation; essentially, it takes animations from the My Sims series and allows you to edit photos taken with the DSi camera by placing characters and stamps into your photos in various poses and styles. The game is in essence a very basic photo editing program;..
Review: Learning with the PooYoos - Episode 1 (WiiWare)
Who said gaming was just for big kids?
Children’s games and WiiWare – a coupling that hasn’t really been explored. Well, that was the case until Lexis Numérique released Learning With the PooYoos Episode 1 on the WiiWare service. Designed for children between the ages of 3-6, this game set out to captivate the minds of the youngest gamers, but did it succeed? The first thing that struck us..
Review: Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)
Gorgeous, engrossing, flawed.
A lot of Muramasa: The Demon Blade's pre-release hype hinged on its art; while you could get a good impression of the beauty of the game, it isn’t until you have it in motion on your own screen that it hits you. Vanillaware has delivered a visual and aural feast in its portrayal of feudal Japan; Muramasa is truly a painting in motion. Sun beams glistening through the..
Review: Star Fox (Super Nintendo)
Pretty Foxy stuff...
In 1993 the Mega Drive / Genesis was selling well and 2D was the bread and butter of console gaming. "Emergency, emergency… emergency, emergency! Incoming fighters prepare for launch", hailed the 16-bit Nintendo counter attack. For Sega and NEC it was too late. The swooping Nintendo Arwing squadron hammered the early ‘90s into its most notable 3D submission. SNES..
Review: Magnetis (WiiWare)
A magnetic arcade experience with plenty of attraction.
Whilst it seems that there is a surfeit of puzzle games on Nintendo's WiiWare service it has to be said that their overall quality goes a long way to making their numeracy forgivable. Magnetis is developer Yullaby's first offering on WiiWare and definitely deserves a place in the list of worthwhile puzzlers for the Wii. Falling block games..
Review: Soul Blazer (Super Nintendo)
Still one of the greatest action RPGs ever created.
At a time when action RPGs were truly beginning to catch on with gamers, Soul Blazer came along and offered up an adventure that was as charming and engaging as any role-playing game fans had experienced. Taking many of the unique gameplay elements found in the Actraiser title that came before it, Soul Blazer carefully crafted the gameplay..
Review: Golden Axe (Virtual Console / Virtual Console Arcade)
Sega's classic fantasy side-scroller hits the Virtual Console in its original arcade form - but is it any good?
It would be fair to say that the expansion of the Wii Virtual Console to incorporate arcade releases has been extremely welcome, but it has resulted in one rather unusual side-effect: we’re seeing rampant duplication of titles already available. We’ve already had the likes of..
Review: Mart Racer (WiiWare)
Will you have the patience to shop till you drop?
Kart racing has a long and illustrious history on Nintendo consoles. Now replace “Karts” with “shopping carts” and “racing” with “be the first to complete a tedious task” and you have Mart Racer, arguably the most unsatisfying racing game on WiiWare. Mixing the usual suspects of clumsy controls and ugly graphics with a classic..
Review: Art Academy: First Semester (DSiWare)
Paint Misbehavin'
Much moreso than WiiWare, DSiWare has seen a significant number of non-game releases. Applications, utilities, programs...call them what you will, but they're not games, and they've not been exactly welcomed universally, either. Art Academy may well be poised to change that, not least because they've selected as their focus something that people can get more passionate about..
Review: Crash 'n the Boys: Street Challenge (Virtual Console / NES)
It's River City Ransom with a side order of Track & Field.
What do you get when you combine the River City Ransom theme with Track and Field-style gameplay? You get Crash 'n the Boys: Street Challenge. The game takes the street gang theme and creates some fitting Olympic-style events to go along with it. Sounds like a mouth-watering proposition, but sadly while the unique urban competitions have a..
Review: Solomon's Key (Virtual Console / Virtual Console Arcade)
A near-identical version of a game already available on the Virtual Console
Way back when the Wii came out in late 2006, one of the initial games available on Virtual Console was the NES version of Solomon's Key. Now that arcade games have been added to the service's catalogue, Tecmo has chosen to release the original arcade version. But is it really worth another 500 Wii Points? The gameplay in..
Review: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)
Is the third time the charm for the Mario & Luigi series?
After years of hearing Super Mario RPG fans clamor for a sequel, Nintendo put developer AlphaDream to work creating a new Mario-themed RPG for their Game Boy Advance system back in 2003. But instead of copying the same ideas used in the original Super Mario RPG, AlphaDream came up with the idea of making the player use the two Mario Bros. as..
Review: Castlevania: The Adventure (Game Boy)
With the new WiiWare entry on the way, we take a look back at the original Game Boy Belmont adventure
When the Game Boy hit store shelves in 1989 it didn’t take long for a vast swathe of third-party publishers – many of which had grown fat on the profits generated by Nintendo’s astonishingly popular NES – to sign up to produce software for the device. Konami was one of the first to pledge..
Review: Cursed Mountain (Wii)
Have your prayers been answered?
Cursed Mountain, like its ghostly enemies, came out of nowhere to surprise us: a bona fide adult game, where the phrase doesn't equate to gratuitous swearing, gore and nudity, designed exclusively for Wii. With a story heavy on Buddhist philosophies, a combat system that requires prayer gestures and plenty of other oddities, it's certainly unlike anything on this or..
Review: Spaceball: Revolution (WiiWare)
Balls in Spaaaaaace!
The primary attraction of the arcade puzzle game is the immediacy of the arcade experience. Unlike a game like sudoku or a crossword, there's no taking time to figure out what to do next, you simply play out the game reacting to events and aim for the highest score possible. Of course the key to a good arcade puzzle game is having a solid play mechanic and good controls;..
Review: Rygar (Virtual Console / Virtual Console Arcade)
Lesser-known than its NES counterpart, but is it still worth picking up?
When you utter the name "Rygar", many people will instantly think of the NES game with the same name. In it, you played as the bare-chested warrior Rygar, making his way through both side-scrolling and overhead stages using his unique weapon, the Diskarmor, to take out hordes of enemies and defeat evil. Like most NES..
Review: 2-in-1 Solitaire (DSiWare)
Like a deck of cards, only smaller...
As you'd expect from a 200 point version of Solitaire, you're not exactly going to be blown away by all the options on offer here. You've got Spider and Klondike versions of the card game, and they both have two initial difficulty settings to choose from, so once you've made your selections on both screens you're on your way to Solitaire heaven. Both games here..
