Author Profile
- Username
- JonWahlgren
- Articles
- 591 (178 reviews)
- First Article
- Mon 4th, May 2009
- Avg. Review Score
- 6.3
- Find Them On
- Twitter/X • Instagram
News The Wii U RUNNER 2 Hotline is Now Open
Gaijin Games soliciting rad ideas for sprint-'em-up sequel
When we spoke to Alex Neuse of Gaijin Games at PAX East about the prospect of BIT.TRIP Presents RUNNER 2 making its way to Nintendo's shiny new HD console, the answer was optimistic but cagey: yes, they have a Wii U development kit, no, they have no set plans. It appears that Gaijin is...
First Impressions Mario Tennis Open
Nintendo serves up another winner
The mustachioed plumber’s handheld tennis and golf outings have an RPG history able to trigger warm and fuzzy feelings of nostalgia in all who earned hand cramps from them at one point or another. Those feelings won’t be triggered by Mario Tennis Open on 3DS as it eschews levelling up solo in favour of...
Review Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D (3DS)
Not for honor, but for 3DS
Every so often a game comes along that makes you appreciate just how clever it is, a feat that creator Hideo Kojima pulls off every time he steps up to direct an entry in his Metal Gear Solid series. From fourth-wall-shattering boss battles to hiding key information in plain sight, they tend to raise the question of why...
Review Metal Gear Solid (Game Boy Color)
Snake sneaks onto Game Boy Color in his first portable op
Metal Gear is a series born from limitations. Originally intended as a military shooter game for the MSX2 computer system, creator Hideo Kojima found the hardware unable to handle the large amount of on-screen action required for such an adventure. Instead of loud and overt blasting, the...
Review Rhythm Heaven Fever (Wii)
Fever pitch
Rhythm Heaven games are the kind whose sole purpose is to make you smile. You might even say that it's a lot like a not-terrifying clown at a kid's party, actually: colourful and light, uncomplicated and wacky yet determined in its mission to entertain the masses. With Rhythm Heaven Fever marking the series' home console debut, Rhythm...
Review Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword (3DSWare)
Patience, young grasshopper
We're only a month into 2012 and the eShop's offerings this year are already weighted heavily with samurai-themed games. In truth, the two couldn't be more different: whereas UFO Interactive's Samurai Sword Destiny favours the straightforward button-mashing approach, Nintendo's own Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword puts...
Review Samurai Sword Destiny (3DSWare)
No ninja, no ninja, no
There's been a lot of ballyhoo about the death of the dedicated handheld at the hands of smartphones and tablets, and given the amount of doom-and-gloom headlines penned about portables in the past year it can be easy to think that the chair has been kicked so forcefully out from under them that it's shattered against the...
Review Bionic Commando (3DS eShop / GB)
Don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing
If there’s one sacred cow in the entire platforming genre, it’s jumping. According to our highly scientific calculations, there are one hojillion sidescrollers that rely on hopping all about to climb, collect and kill. Capcom’s Bionic Commando series has plenty of climbing, collecting and...
Review F-Zero Maximum Velocity (3DS eShop / GBA)
Gotta go fast
F-Zero has always been Nintendo’s way of flaunting how on the cutting-edge of technology it can be when it so chooses. Like a bat out of Hell, the original F-Zero launched alongside the Super NES to draw a clear distinction between where 16-bit Nintendid and SEGagged. Later on N64, F-Zero X boasted 30 on-screen polygonal racers and...
News Miyamoto Not Stepping Down Into Smaller Role
Update: Nintendo clarifies
Update: Nintendo has issued a clarifying statement that says Miyamoto has not left his position: Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto's role at Nintendo is not changing. He will continue to be a driving force in Nintendo's development efforts. In discussing his priorities at Nintendo in a media interview, Mr. Miyamoto...
Review Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Wii)
Tried and true
By the time you read this, Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has already sold millions upon millions of copies to a worldwide fanbase and been touted as the biggest entertainment launch of all time. To keep its unprecedented growth up, the franchise has continued to top itself year after year with increasingly elaborate...
Review Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure (3DS)
The great gig in the sky
There's something magical about a good toy. Be it an action figure, doll, transforming truck, projectile-spitting dragon or a wooden block, it doesn't matter how many removable parts or points of articulation they have once burrowed into your imagination and destined for Great Adventure along with the rest of the toy chest...
Review Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure (Wii)
Gotta buy 'em all
There's something magical about a good toy. Be it an action figure, doll, transforming truck, projectile-spitting dragon or a wooden block, it doesn't matter how many removable parts or points of articulation they have once burrowed into your imagination and destined for Great Adventure along with the rest of the toy chest. Your...
Podcast NLFM Episode 22: Mascots and Mixes
New digs for old friends
Our chip and game music podcast rears its lovely head this month with a collection of Nintendo mascot sounds new and old, from that new Kirby game to Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Metroid remixes. Jun Ishikawa, Hirokazu Ando — Cookie Country (Kirby’s Return to Dreamland)The Greatest Bits — Fear Factory (Donkey K
News Kid Icarus, Kirby Getting 3D Classics Makeovers
And PictoChat lives on, sort of
Following the illustrious lead of Excitebike, Xevious, Twinbee and, uh, Urban Champion, Nintendos of Japan and Europe announced that NES gems Kid Icarus and Kirby's Adventure are next i
News Nintendo Direct October 2011 - 3DS Gets Official Plans for Hulu Plus and 3D Video Recording
Streaming service also Wii-bound
Much of the hullabaloo surrounding the upcoming 3DS system update and its will-they-won't-they feature set can be put to rest, as Nintendo has now stepped in to reveal exactly what it will entail for the device's multimedia capabilities. At the end of November the 3DS will get the ability to record 3D video for up...
It's evolution, baby
The world is not lacking in Just Dance games. Since that original perfect storm of pop style, goofy fun and lack of inhibition crashed the Wii party near the tail end of 2009, Ubisoft's dance factory has put out an additional eight releases of varying quality in a short two years. It would thus be easy to dismiss Just Dance 3...
Review Spider-Man: Edge of Time (3DS)
It ain't easy being radioactive
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions had a lot going for it last year with its snappy presentation of four incarnations of the webhead powered by a scrappy developer. While not quite in swinging distance of comic game king Batman: Arkham Asylum, Shattered Dimensions brought a massive jolt to a franchise on life support...
Review Spider-Man: Edge of Time (Wii)
Here come the Spider-Men
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions had a lot going for it last year with its snappy presentation of four incarnations of the webhead powered by a scrappy developer. While not quite in swinging distance of comic game king Batman: Arkham Asylum, Shattered Dimensions brought a massive jolt to a franchise on life support — and...
Podcast NLFM Episode 21: Curse of the Halloween Hootenanny
Fear the reaper!
Since it's not only the single best month of the year and because we had so much fun last time [citation needed], the NLFM Halloween Hootenanny has returned! More spooky, more sinister and more deathly, this episode is best listened to in a dark castle dungeon while eating raw pumpkins. Failing that, anywhere else will do. 1. Hip...
Review Side Pocket (3DS eShop / GB)
Dead ball
The great thing about the Virtual Console is that it allows people to experience games that they somehow missed out on the first go around and encourages discovery of forgotten and overlooked gems. The flip side is that not everything dug up has aged particularly well, like Data East's portable version of once-esteemed billiards game Side...
Egads! Tetrominos!
Tetris and handhelds go together like apples and cinnamon, and no more clear has this symbiotic relationship been than on Nintendo hardware, from the time Tetris first dropped like a well-placed I-block into Game Boys everywhere. Tetris DX followed with a splash of colour and tighter play on Game Boy Color, and the...
Feature A Peek Behind the BIT.TRIP Curtain
Concept art and inspirational materials pulled straight from the Gaijin Games archives
Gaijin Games' BIT.TRIP series hits all the right notes for retro game enthusiasts over the course of its six games: Clever and varied design, formidable challenge, pregnant storytelling and an audio/visual style that quotes the days of the Atari 2600 without the...
Review Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (3DS)
Top of the high score table or tilt?
When was the last time you played a really great pinball table? Not a digital approximation but an actual whiz-bangin', light-flashin', chaos table? Sadly, the agonising death of the arcade has put a damper on the availability of pinball tables, and unless you're one of the lucky few who live nearby a...
