Review Despicable Me: The Game - Minion Mayhem (DS)
Forgettable game
Like its home console counterpart, Despicable Me: The Game – Minion Mayhem refreshingly constructs an original experience around elements from a film rather than rigidly attempting to follow the source material and fit it to a game framework for which it was never intended. Unfortunately, beyond that it shares the status of subpar...
News Contents of 3DS Box Revealed
Charging cradle and 2GB SD card included
Everyone loves packaging, and Gizmodo has just revealed what's inside that of the 3DS. As well as the system, the box will hold a charging cradle, AC adaptor, 10cm touch pen, 2GB SD card, six augmented reality cards and instruction booklets, screen shots of which were earlier posted by Famitsu. They also...
News QubicGames Serving Up My Little Restaurant: All Welcome on DSiWare
AiRace publisher getting into the culinary business [UPDATED, including new screens]
QubicGames, known to DSiWare players for AiRace and AiRace: Tunnel as well as the upcoming Remote Racers, just had a title of a different sort rated by the ESRB: My Little Restaurant: All Welcome. Already available for iPhone and iPod Touch, the game lets you run...
Rumour The D in DSi May Soon Stand for "Discontinued"
From two screens to zero
Nintendo has already announced plans to continue to support the DS once the 3DS is released. Some disquieting information from a Japanese retailer, however, suggests that the Big N is already discontinuing one popular incarnation, the DSi, which hit store shelves there in fall of 2008. The source states that the Nintendo DSi...
News Steve Wiebe Attempting to Reclaim Toppled Donkey Kong Record This Saturday
Join us as we bring you live coverage
Round and round the high score wheel goes, and yesterday it stopped once more on New York plastic surgeon Dr. Hank Chien with a barrel-blasting 1,068,000 points, besting Wiebe's September record by a cool 4,000. However, this Saturday Wiebe will attempt to take it back again, and you can tune in to Nintendo Life...
Review Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy (DS)
Hint: The heart is beneath the floorboards
What we know about the death of Edgar Allan Poe is as cryptic and tragic as some of his written tales. After a more than imperfect romantic life, he was reunited with his love of long before, Elmira Royster Shelton, and the two were engaged to be married. On a trip that took place soon thereafter, Poe fell...
Ubisoft's old mascot is making a comeback
While the Raving Rabbids spin-off series has seemingly surpassed him in popularity, the berserk bunnies got their start tagging along with the limbless Rayman, once considered Ubisoft's mascot. It looks like one title on Nintendo's new handheld will see them take a backseat once more, however, as Rayman 3D...
News Four More G.G Series Titles Headed to North America
Localised Japanese budget fun to continue in the new year
If you've enjoyed Genterprise's G.G Series of low-priced localised Japanese titles, you'll be happy to hear that four more have recently received ratings from the ESRB and thus will be heading to the North American DSiWare Shop soon. Three of the games have already hit Europe as part of the...
Nintendo Download 31st December 2010 (Europe)
Catch-up titles, art and astrology, plus a BIT.TRIP demo
If you plan on ringing in the new year with downloadable titles, you've got more than your fair share of options in this Nintendo Download update. Whether you want to adventure through the stars or read them to predict your future, play a sequel to Bejeweled or Nintendo's own take on the...
News BIT.TRIP FLUX Gameplay Revealed, More or Less
ESRB description is less cryptic than Alex Neuse's clues
Until now, we've only had a set of screenshots and a mysterious statement from Gaijin Games's Alex Neuse to help us figure out what BIT.TRIP FLUX, the sixth and final title in the musical WiiWare series, is all about. The game has just received an ESRB rating, however, and the board describes...
Review I SPY Spooky Mansion (Wii)
A mansion any youngster would enjoy haunting
Seek-and-find video games have become commonplace these days, arriving in every form from the kid-focused Adventure on Lost Island: Hidden Object Game to the dark but educational Real Crimes: Jack the Ripper. These probably got their start, however, when an unknown group of bored friends decided to pass...
Review Around the World (WiiWare)
Tourist trap
Modern education generally reduces geography to simple memorisation, divorcing the subject from a sense of physicality and instead having students label countries along political boundaries and identify their capitals. Around the World takes a step in an alternative direction by challenging players to locate different things on an...
News Next March, North American Pokémon Fans Can Catch 'Em All in Black & White
Do you plan on capturing Oshawott and co. next year?
Nintendo has just announced that they're releasing the next entry in the Pokémon series, Pokémon Black and White, on March 6, 2011 in North America. Many have criticised the previous releases for sticking too closely to formula, but this upcoming title seeks to change things up a bit with a new...
Nintendo Download 27th December 2010 (North America)
Catch-up titles and more
There are plenty of ways to ring in the new year in this Nintendo Download update, including a quality WiiWare demo, a couple of NeoGeo titles for virtual console, a portable slot machine and the newest entry in the G.G Series. Will you spend your holiday cash on any of these titles? Virtual Console: Fighter's History...
Review Scooby-Doo! and the Spooky Swamp (DS)
Decent but a bit murky
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! premiered over 40 years ago, introducing television audiences to the lovable Mystery Inc. team and its unique line-up of distinct characters, each charming in their own way. It followed them as they took on spooky yet ridiculous case after case, and over time the show firmly embedded the phrase...
Review Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp (DSiWare)
A trip back to the days of the LaserDisc
Few series divide players – including our own writers – as sharply as Dragon's Lair. Originally intended for the LaserDisc format, its titles are more interactive movies than traditional video games, tasking you with pressing the correct button quickly enough every few seconds. If our hero, Dirk, has to...
Review Family Feud Decades (Wii)
Middling child
Family Feud's been on the air since 1976, and it's especially unique from other trivia shows as it challenges contestants not to give the correct answer but what they believe others would guess is the correct answer, ranking the choices by how many out of a surveyed group picked them. Both this and its longevity make it uniquely...
Review Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (DS)
Ga'Hoo would torture themselves with this?
TV and movie tie-in games are relatively synonymous with tedious, uninspired titles rushed to release to fool the poorly informed. Rather than clever game design, effort goes toward getting the game onto store shelves in time for box office hype to drive sales. Still, some of us try to remain optimistic,...
News Heavy Fire: Black Arms Invades with New Trailer
Pow pow pow
Teyon has just released a new trailer for its upcoming WiiWare title Heavy Fire: Black Arms, a light-gun shooter that puts you in the jungles of South America where you'll take on the illegal arms trade. It follows the previous release Heavy Fire: Special Operations, which debuted in North America last July. You can rock out to the...
Review Jam Space: PocketStudio (DSiWare)
Dance club calibre headaches without the fun
Among the applications that have made it to DSiWare so far is a handful of music mixing and writing programs, none of which are particularly bad. From the mighty Rytmik and its rockin' follow-up to the slightly more basic but still solid Rhythm Core Alpha, DJs on the go have had their fair share of...
Interviews Two Tribes - Frenzic
Promising puzzler gets it in the Q&A
DSiWare puzzler Frenzic is nearly upon us – released this Friday in Europe and Monday for North America at 200 Points, in fact. Publisher Two Tribes graciously granted us time for an interview to find out more about the process of bringing Frenzic to DSiWare. Nintendo Life: Can you tell us a bit about Frenzic?...
Review Super Scribblenauts (DS)
Word
We've always had to accept that in video games, there will always be more objects we want to play with than those we're allowed to use. The original Scribblenauts changed all of that, allowing the virtual world to become a malleable, ever-changing playground. You solved simple objectives in search of a Starite, manifesting any object that its...
Review Disney Guilty Party (Wii)
Crime and funishment
The ideal Wii experience, as advertised, is that of friends and family members gathering around their sets and swinging their Remotes, no matter how old or young, and doing so together. It's unfortunate then that some developers seem content to target the desirable non-traditional players not as a legitimate, equally deserving...
Competition Winners Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary
Is it a-you?
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of Super Mario Bros. and the North American debut of the NES, we ran a competition to give away a free 500-point NES title for Virtual Console to each of twenty-five winners, the selection of the game being their choice. Almost a thousand users entered, so we'd like to congratulate the 25...
