Author Profile
- Username
- Ron_DelVillano
- Articles
- 228 (182 reviews)
- First Article
- Fri 13th, August 2010
- Avg. Review Score
- 5.9
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Review Comic Workshop (3DS eShop)
A work of art
Nintendo platforms have never been strangers to art and drawing applications. From Mario Paint on the SNES to 2013's Art Academy: SketchPad for Wii U, there has always been room for artistic pursuits with Nintendo. It should also come as no surprise that the 3DS is already hosting yet another creation tool after the success of Art...
Review Internal Invasion (Wii U eShop)
Terminal
Imagine a future in which all disease is cured through the aid of tiny nano-bots flowing through your bloodstream. There would be no need for medicine or doctor visits, as all illness would be taken care of internally. It's an incredible proposition that makes for an interesting sci-fi storyline that can be taken in so many directions,...
Review Hidden Expedition: Titanic (3DS eShop / 3DS)
An exposition on the commodification of human tragedy
On April 15, 1912, a passenger liner carrying no less than 2,000 travelers struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. Not properly equipped with the necessary amount of lifeboats and other safety equipment, when the ship sank the vast majority of passengers did not...
Review My Aquarium: Seven Oceans (DSiWare)
Fishing for something more
Back in the heyday of the WiiWare service, an application titled My Aquarium was made available to all Wii owners through the digital distribution platform. It was so well received — as is evidenced by our review — that a second version was soon developed, appropriately and unsurprisingly titled My Aquarium 2. Now,...
Review ZaciSa's Last Stand (Wii U eShop)
Can hardly stand it
Last year's reveal of the Nintendo Web Framework was a welcome announcement to independent game developers interested in releasing their work on Wii U. The new platform was quiet at first, but in recent months we've seen an increasing number of games releasing on the eShop that were born of this development environment. Opening a...
Feature Braving the Queue At Nintendo's Best Buy Smash-Fest
An account of Nintendo’s second foray into digital demonstrations
Not one to keep its ideas safely inside of the metaphorical box, Nintendo decided once again to forgo the standard E3 press conference this year and instead broadcast its own "Digital Event" directly to the consumers. While this caught many off guard last year during the first...
The trouble with nostalgia
In 2008, Matrix Software and Red Entertainment teamed up to develop a turn-based Role-playing game for the Nintendo DS appropriately titled Nostalgia. Incorporating classic JRPG gameplay and mechanics with modern visuals, this game was designed to tug at the heart strings of ageing gamers while still managing to provide an...
Barrel full of mediocrity
It doesn’t take an analyst to know that the entertainment industry loves a good trend, and one current example is to find a hugely popular work of fiction, turn it into a big-budget film, then let Warner Bros. make a LEGO video game out of it. The works of beloved fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, of Lord of the Rings and...
Review Atlantic Quest (3DS eShop)
Aquatic amusements
All prefaces about there being too many match-three puzzle games available on the 3DS eShop have been exhausted. While it still rings true that there is an overabundance of them on the digital marketplace, there's no use beating the dead horse that this genre and joke have become. The fact is that people love tile matching games,...
Review Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate - Deluxe Edition (Wii U eShop)
The broken Bat
For as long as portable games have existed, the trend of developing handheld versions of popular console titles has been present and correct. These games tend to be inferior versions of the originals, taking a substantial hit graphically and often limiting gameplay, depending on what the portable console is capable of. In some cases,...
Review Disney Magical World (3DS)
A magical world indeed
To anyone familiar with the handheld’s lineup, it may seem like a bad business decision to make a life simulation game for the 3DS at this point. Three years into the console's life we've seen two Harvest Moon titles, a Rune Factory game, and The Sims 3. All that, and we haven't even mentioned
Review I Am In The Movie (DSiWare)
I am in disbelief
Have you ever wanted to be a film director? Have you ever wanted to capture life through the lens of a camera and use it to craft your own cinematic masterpiece? Do you have even a fleeting interest in special effects? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, now’s the time to leave all of your hopes and dreams on the...
Review Volleyball (Wii U eShop / NES)
Flat ball
What’s your favourite major sport? If you answered “volleyball,” there’s a good chance that you’re among a minority of sports fans. That’s not to say that volleyball is a lesser game than the titanic football – European or American, your choice – or any other major sport, but it does make one wonder why Nintendo would...
Review Renegade (Wii U eShop / NES)
GET LOST, PUNK!
What's the expiration date for nostalgia? Is there a certain amount of time that has to pass before we start looking fondly back at the old, often inferior, games of our youth? It's undeniable that some games have aged gracefully and are still just as good today as they were at their initial launch, but that's far from a steadfast...
Review Weapon Shop De Omasse (3DS eShop)
Well-crafted
Remember the Guild01 series from all the way back in late 2012? Of course you do. It’s the little eShop series that could. Defying all expectations, the Guild games jumped the pond from Japan and landed securely on the Western 3DS eShop stores, providing three indie games that span a variety of genres. The success of the original...
Review The LEGO Movie Videogame (3DS)
Movie Mildness
Video game tie-ins have been haunting films since the inception of the interactive medium, especially when those films are deemed "kid friendly." Essentially used as a marketing ploy, video games based on motion pictures are usually ill-fated projects that never stood a chance from the very beginning. From Disney cartoons to sci-fi...
Review The LEGO Movie Videogame (Wii U)
Almost everything is awesome
Unless you’ve been living under a rock or have been otherwise indisposed from newspapers, radio, television, the Internet, or any of the other countless forms of communicative devices that the news media uses to infiltrate our lives in 2014, you’re probably well aware that a new movie based on your favourite...
Review Castle Clout 3D (3DS eShop)
Regal rebellion
Long before the modern age of mobile gaming and pocket-handy computers that we refer to as "smartphones," poor, lowly players would flock to the Internet in order to get their cheap gaming fix. In this era that time has forgotten, those seeking digital entertainment would subject themselves to monstrosities known as "Flash games,"...
Review Barbie Dreamhouse Party (Wii U)
Problems with plasticity
It's easy to dismiss licensed games like Barbie Dreamhouse Party as cheap cash-ins on popular franchises because, in all honesty, that's usually what they are. Creating a video game based on a classic line of dolls may seem like a step in the right direction towards our increasingly digital future, but it comes with the...
Review Hot Wheels: World's Best Driver (Wii U)
Lead it Away
It’s wonderful to think about the toys of our childhood and how they’re being brought back to life as video games. Through gaming, new generations of youngsters can enjoy the same things that older gamers did in their youth, but in a completely different way. It’s safe to assume that many of you reading this grew up building with...
Review Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure (Wii U)
Well-written heroes
There’s an oddly profound moment at the beginning of Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure in which Batman tells Maxwell, the series protagonist, that “no one respects a hero who takes the easy way out.” That one line, though innocuous as it may be, actually sets the tone for the rest of the game. It’s a reminder...
Review Cubit The Hardcore Platformer Robot (3DS eShop)
What’s in a name?
We're often told that it’s not safe to judge a book by its cover. The adventures and perils that lie within those pages can often be very different than what is offered up by the image imprinted on a book's front, but we all do it anyway. Marketers and publishers know that we're drawn to book covers; it's the first thing that...
Review LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: Universe in Peril (3DS)
Another bag of bricks
With a great franchise comes a great number of releases. In the case of the LEGO video games series, their multi-platform games have hit just about every major gaming console of the past 10 years. Having no desire to be left out of the series’ success, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: Universe in Peril brings an original adventure...
