First Impressions News, First Impressions Features - Page 9 of 12

Pipe Mania plus Apollo Space Progam plus Sky TV?

Whilst Nintendo's Intelligent Systems development team might be better known for the Fire Emblem series, on the download front they seem to be cutting loose with a lightgun shooter on WiiWare and now a puzzle game for the DSi. At first glance it looks like the classic puzzler Pipe Mania, but that's only because you've got some kind of fluid going..

Pinball and shooters: two tastes that go great together

ArtePiazza is better recognised for its work on RPGs like Enix's Dragon Quest series and more recently Koei's Wii RPG Opoona, so it's interesting that their freshman effort on DSiWare is a marriage of video pinball and shooter called Pinball Attack! There are currently no other pinball games on the Japanese DSiWare service, but even taking..

Space Invaders Extreme 2 comes to DSiWare

Space Invaders is a video game icon: even people who don't play video games are likely to recognise the bitmap images of the Invaders thanks to Taito's persistence in keeping the brand name alive via product licensing, video game sequels and home console ports. The celebration of the 30th anniversary of Space Invaders saw the release of a new WiiWare game..

Nintendo let us get to grips with Capcom's monster offering

Yesterday we were cordially invited to a guest lecture at the Science Museum in London. The subject? Monster Hunter of course; in fact, it was the very first session of 'Monster Hunter University'. In a lecture led by long-time series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, the assembled masses were educated on topics ranging from monster ecology to..

Plus first impressions and news too

Yes, it was but one month ago we all gathered around the soft glow of our audio devices to discover who won the Nintendo Life Game of the Year Awards. This month we look forward, with audio recaps of our recent previews of Art of Balance, Rage of the Gladiator and Calling, as well as a podcast exclusive preview as I talk about my time with Fragile Dream

One-third of MaBoShi reborn on DSiWare

If you've played 3-in-1 WiiWare game MaBoShi, then you'll recognise Moyasu Puzzle Flametail as the "Square" game -- you know, the one that wasn't played with a single button press? The gameplay in Flametail is largely the same as MaBoShi's Square, but there have been some graphical enhancements and the addition of power-ups and a new play mode..

Unleash Hell!

Rage of the Gladiator may not be ready to step into the WiiWare ring just yet, but when Ghostfire Games invited us to a little sparring session with their first-person fighter we accepted immediately. We came away battered and bruised, but still very impressed with how Rage is shaping up. Each of the game’s three control methods feels completely different. Holding the Wii Remote..

One call you might want to take.

For those of you who love a good scare or just enjoy a playful romp through the latest survival horror title, Hudson's got just the game for you. In fact, they were even kind enough to send us over a preview build of their upcoming horror release Calling to check out and we have to say, this is easily one of the spookiest titles to hit the Wii console to date. As..

We get to grips with this blocky beauty

Puzzle games are ten-a-penny on WiiWare, varying from the boring to the brilliant. Attempting to nestle nicely into this overcrowded genre comes Art of Balance, a physics-based block-stacker from the developers of DS shooter Nanostray. Having had chance to sit down with Art of Balance for a few hours it’s clear this is a classy puzzle game that should make..

No robots, but plenty of rock-em, sock-em action!

You might remember a plastic toy called "Rock'em Sock'em Robots" ("Raving Bonkers Fighting Robots" in the UK) in which two robots were fixed on either side of a platform and pressing buttons caused them to punch each other senseless until one of their heads popped up, only to be reset for another go. That's pretty much the same..

Another great old-school shooter for WiiWare

Most of you will probably remember Phalanx as a SNES game, however that was just a port of a game that was developed for the Sharp X68000, a home computer sold exclusively in Japan from 1987-1993. The Sharp X68k (as it was commonly known) used hardware similar to arcade systems of the time; as a result it was capable of running some quite impressive..

Clean pants recommended

Renegade Kid are responsible for some of the more innovative and undeniably horrific first-person experiences on DS, having already given us Dementium: The Ward as well as the excellent Moon. Dementium II was recently announced for release in 2010, hitting North America on February 16th and reaching Europe a few weeks later on March 5th. We recently got chance to have a sit..

Recycling - with a vengeance!

Intelligent Systems has a reputation of being one of Nintendo's better first-party development teams, with an impressive resume including the Fire Emblem games, Tetris Attack, the Paper Mario series, the WarioWare games and Super Metroid. Seeing a WiiWare title from them naturally raised our curiosity, and that curiosity was rewarded by a challenging lightgun shooter..

We take Team Meat's upcoming platformer for a spin.

The guys over at Team Meat were kind enough to send over a preview build of their upcoming PC/WiiWare title Super Meat Boy yesterday and we've spent the past few hours putting it through its paces and snapping a few screenshots in the process. The guys at Team Meat did want us to make sure and remind readers that this is a beta version of the game..

Plumbing new heights

Now we've had chance to play the final version of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, it's time to tell you the hard truth about Nintendo's latest plumbing escapades. Well, the hard truth is, it's a lot of fun and impossible to play without a smile on your face. Although a lot of emphasis has been put on the series-first multiplayer, solo play is still possible and feels exactly like..

Unconventional puzzling for the kiddies.

This game kind of came out of nowhere, but there does seem to be few WiiWare games concerning shadows on the horizon: Nicalis' Night Game and Hudson's Tower of Shadow being the ones that spring immediately to mind. Shadow Walker's story isn't completely clear seeing as it's relayed storybook-style with a lot of Japanese text. There's a boy with yellow hair..

Could the third time be yet another charm?

Gaijin Games has really earned a place in many a retro-gaming fan's heart with their old, old-school Bit.Trip series on WiiWare. It's one of the shining examples of how good download games can really be: updated Atari 8-bit graphics with jazzed-up special effects and a soundtrack that's enhanced by the gameplay. The appeal of these games is cross-border,..

Worth getting your teeth into?

The Castlevania series of action platformers is widely regarded as containing some of the best games on the Famicom, and indeed home consoles full-stop, with top-notch instalments on Super Famicom, PC Engine, Playstation and handheld platforms to name a few. Needless to say the news that the first GameBoy game was being given the WiiWare ReBirth treatment by Konami..

Leader of the pack?

There are very few serious driving games of note on Wii - the machine is undoubtedly missing its Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo or Race Driver: Grid - and EA's latest in the Need for Speed franchise does little to address this problem. Whilst 360 and PS3 owners can play the generally well-received NFS: Shift, Nintendo gamers are being given a very different racer in the form of..