WiiWare Reviews - Page 13

Less party, more pooper.

Mini-game collections are becoming a dime-a-dozen on the Wii console as of late, and with Halloween coming up, it comes as no surprise to see an aptly-themed release that's packed to the gills with yet another round of fairly standard mini-game fare. But at a lofty 1000 Wii Points, is this haunted board game release good enough to scare up some good times? While Ghost..

An evolutionary step for light gun shooters?

In the grand tradition of so-called “light gun” games, Shootanto uses the pointer function of the Wii remote to task the player with shooting targets onscreen as quickly as possible. Given the strengths of the Wii remote in this regard, the Wii should provide fertile ground for this genre. But is Shootanto the right fertilizer, or is it just..

It can stay over yonder for all we care!

The strategy genre is not a very popular one on WiiWare - aside from the RTS game Swords & Soldiers, there's no real "traditional" offerings available. Little Tournament Over Yonder finally gives us a turn-based strategy game, although it has some action genre elements as well. A match in Little Tournament consists of two "modes",..

WiiWare: the home of arcade puzzling goodness

Many people ask "don't we have enough puzzle games on the Wii already?" Triangle Studios answers "no!" and it's hard to disagree with them - especially given the quality of recent releases including their own Heron: Steam Machine. A little animated introduction tells the game's back story of a rubber duck factory taken over by the..

One of the first titles announced for WiiWare finally sees the light of day.

Among the very first games announced for WiiWare, we might have expected to review Gravitronix around two years ago. But, as they say, life gets in the way. Plans change, things don't work out the way we expect them to, and release dates slip further and further away. It happens, and it's not infrequently to the benefit..

Is this Winter warmer as good as Toku’s first adventure?

LostWinds was one of WiiWare's launch titles, and is still one of the best games on the service. Now, almost a year and a half later, it has finally gotten its long-awaited sequel. For the uninitiated, in LostWinds you took control of Toku, a young boy who found a magical crystal containing the spirit of wind, Enril. Using Enril, Toku could..

Take your holiday elsewhere!

The idea of sending greeting cards to your Wii friends isn't a bad one - after all you can already send messages with photos - so as a concept a cheap and cheerful greeting card program could easily have a place on your Wii, but a Halloween-focused one? Creating an application that will only be used once a year seems...

Words fail to impress

Digital Leisure and Aksys seem locked in a fight to the death to see which company can release more generic, public domain games on the WiiWare service. Following up on their release of Sudoku Challenge earlier this year, which we found to be about as barebones a presentation of that game as you could get, DL now brings us ‘Word Searcher’. That’s the genre and the..

Will you want to escape from this game as fast as possible?

"Escape the room" games have been quite popular on the internet for a while — a quick Google search will yield a number of creative flash-based puzzlers in which the aim is to solve a number of puzzles within a single room in order to escape. With "Aha! I Got It!" Escape Game, developer Ateam has attempted to bring..

Are these cubes worthy of Rubik, or just rubes?

Anticipation for this title has been somewhat high 'round these parts, thanks to some excellent first impressions by our own Sean Aaron. The only question was whether or not we would ever get our hands on it, but as of this week, we have. And so should you. Brainchild of the mad genius Kenji Eno, You, Me, and the Cubes is a game of balance and..

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..

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..

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..

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...

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;..

Still separating the men from the boys.

The Contra series has always been one of gaming's greats: incredibly simple yet fun gameplay, top-notch design, and of course, what the games are most known for, a hard-as-nails difficulty level. After multiple failed attempts to create a good 3D Contra game, the DS recently got a brilliant new 2D entry that, surprisingly, wasn't developed by series creator..

Guybrush continues his piratey misadventures

It's almost pointless reviewing this second chapter in the Tales of Monkey Island story - you should absolutely not play it unless you've played the first, because it continues where that left off, meaning you will be missing potentially vital plot information. If you've already played the first and liked...

Can't read my, can't read my poker face, p-p-poker face!

Apologies to Lady Gaga (well, actually to everyone reading this who may have heard that song and will now have it stuck in their heads), but you will be wondering exactly that after playing any amount of the latest Texas Hold 'em game from Gameloft. Before going further it's important to emphasise that Texas Hold'em Poker is a one trick pony:..

Drill, baby, drill!

That Mr. Driller W would be among the better puzzle games on the WiiWare service was somewhat of a given. It's a close relation to Dig Dug - a classic arcade series if there ever was one - and its own line of releases spans more consoles than you might have known existed. Mr. Driller has a long, rich and well-established history, and if you haven't been a part of it yet, there's..