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- andyrob_24_7
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- 113 (5 reviews)
- First Article
- Mon 4th, February 2013
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- 8.2
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Talking Point Nintendo Rewrote the E3 Rulebook With a Focus on Children
Sharing the experience
With their online press conferences and fan events Nintendo has been doing E3 differently for a couple of years now. This year, though, it broke one of the golden rules of show business — never work with children. A Kid’s Corner initiative brought some hand-picked children into E3 to try out the new games and experience...
Parent Trap Rewriting The Family Gaming Script With Pokémon Art Academy
Family Gamer's Andy Robertson gets his crayons out
What most parents think when you say the words “video game” and what gaming families enjoy are two very different things. Far from the shooting and high impact action many mums and dads assume are the driving force behind the hobby, video games actually offer experiences as creative, imaginative...
Parent Trap Amiibo Charts A Fresh Course In The Toys To Life Sector
Wallets are going to suffer this Christmas
Seen one toy-video-game craze and you’ve seen them all, right? Counter to first impressions Skylanders, Disney Infinity and Angry Birds Telepods each offer a distinct experience. Nintendo’s amiibo characters offer another new way to combine toys and video-games, but how different is it to these other...
News iPad Title Castaway Paradise Does A Pretty Convincing Impression Of Animal Crossing
Tom Nook won't be pleased
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so Nintendo must be feeling pretty flattered right now because we've just spotted an iPad game which looks an awful lot like Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Castaway Paradise is currently available on the Canadian, New Zealand and Vietnamese iPad App Stores, and it's fairly...
Video We Go Hands-On With Skylanders Trap Team At E3 2014
Caught in a trap
Before E3 doors opened we had exclusive access to direct capture let's play with Skylanders Trap Team. At the expo the game shows off an array of new characters both trap-able villains and Trap Masters, as well as clarifying how multi-player modes will work. What really stands out past any of this novelty is the work of Toys For...
News Here's A First Look At Skylanders Trap Team Villain Buzzer Beak
Pecking order
If you're interested in all things Skylanders, then you'll be pleased to know that our friends over at Family Gamer TV have an exclusive reveal of a new Skylanders Trap Team villain Buzzer Beak and his related Air Trap. As you can see, he appears to be inspired from a variety of different animals, with the beak of a toucan and the...
News Spider-Man's Sworn Enemy Venom Revealed In Wii U Disney Infinity 2.0 Pack
Another Marvel favourite
As we approach E3, news of all things Nintendo comes thick and fast — in fact, you never quite know where it’s going to pop up next. Today we had news of a Wii U Disney Infinity 2.0 pack including Venom. Venom is one of Spider-Man's arch-enemies and is a slightly unusual character – not least as the name has belonged...
Video Family Gamer TV's Mario Kart 8 Championship Plays The Motorsport Card
The search for the UK's best Mario Kart 8 family is under way
As we reported previously, the search for the UK’s top Mario Kart 8 family is now under way. The first two round results have just gone live today, with the top member of the Hunt and the Sharp family going forward to the finals. This is the first time these families have played the...
News Become The UK's Best Mario Kart Family, Win Real And Impressively Proportioned Trophies
Thanks to our friends at Family Gamer TV
There’s an argument in many households all around the world over who is really better at Mario Kart. With the upcoming release of Mario Kart 8, this domestic contest is only going to get hotter. To help settle the debate once and for all, Family Gamer TV has set-up its own Mario Kart 8 Family Championships...
Video Check Out This Mario Kart 8 And Mario Kart Wii Moo Moo Meadows Comparison
Ahead of the pack?
With Mario Kart 8 getting rave reviews all over the interwebs, Family Gamer TV has dialled in for some close up comparison of the Moo Moo Meadows level on both the Wii and Wii U. While it is of course expected that the Wii U version looks better, quite how much better is kind of mind-blowing. Certainly this night and day...
First Impressions Does Mugen's 2DS XL Battery Make Or Break The Handheld?
With great power comes increased girth
Whether you love or hate the Fisher Price-style design of the robust 2DS, we can all agree on the need for longer battery life in our handheld devices. With that in mind, Mugen is just about to release a battery upgrade for the 2DS that doubles the capacity of the internal power cell and costs a princely $89.99...
Coming to the new game, too?
As we all know, Disney Infinity 2.0 will feature a large helping of Marvel characters. However, families with children who aren't as excited by the idea of a game based all around superheroes can take solace in the glimpses of a few non-Marvel characters we see in the trailer, along with the promise made from the...
News Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes Comes To Wii U But Not Wii
All the details inside
Disney Infinity has done impressively this year. From a standing start it sliced a sizeable portion of the toy-meets-video-game market for itself. While some would suggest this was predictable with such a rich array of household favourite characters to draw on, Avalanche Software still needed to execute an enjoyable game that...
Video Behold The Difference Between Skylanders Trap Team On Wii And Wii U
Compare and contrast
With Skylanders Trap Team being developed by lead developer Toys for Bob on the Wii and Beenox on the Wii U, choosing the best platform to play it on just got a little harder. Stepping into the breach with more Skylanders Trap Team videos are Family Gamer TV. Here, they compare the visual fidelity of different generations of...
News Skylanders Trap Team Is Coming To Wii, Wii U And 3DS This Year
Series creator Toys for Bob is handling the Wii and Wii U versions
Skylanders has had a strong relationship with Nintendo platforms from the word go. In many ways its success was in part from capitalising from the high Wii install base in its target demographic. With both Giants and Swap Force selling well on Wii, Wii U and 3DS, all eyes were on...
Apple shames unethical mineral suppliers, but will Nintendo do the same?
Progress isn't always a good thing. New consoles, gadgets and services can hold a hidden price which goes way beyond what we pay at retail. The minerals that are used to create much of our technology are often obtained from conflict-ridden parts of the world — such as the...
Parent Trap Wii Fit U Accepts Our Varied Bodies
Family Gamer's Andy Robertson has another look at Nintendo's fitness title
Video games reflect wider society’s desire for the perfect body. Having children only presses this issue home and means I’m pickier about the shape of our video-game protagonists. However, I have been happily surprised then to see how Wii Fit U handles this. Rather than...
Video Family Gamer TV Is Putting Wii Fit U Through Its Paces This Christmas
Fight the flab
With Christmas approaching and the excess that goes with celebrating the season appropriately, our thoughts will soon be turning to reclaiming our former vigour. Don’t worry though — Wii Fit U is at hand, and what’s more you can try it for free for a month (up to January 31st). If you like it you can then get the full game by...
Parent Trap StreetPass Makes Social Networks Social Again
StreetPass is social networking without the junk, says Andy Robertson
We all have peculiar reasons to like particular videogame hardware. Whether it’s the diminutive form factor of the Game Boy Micro, the wonderful ergonomics of the GameCube controller or the ingenious speaker on the Wii Remote, these designs trigger something inside us that...
Parent Trap Children Are Our Future, So Let Them Play
Family Gamer's Andy Robertson on the topic of game length
The perfect game length is a personal thing. Those with oodles of time will want maximum value from their purchases and demand at least 30 hours of gameplay, but those with less time — such as myself and the many other games-playing parents out there — may prefer games to be shorter. I...
Parent Trap Super Mario 3D World Is Another Family Classic From Nintendo
Family Gamer's Andy Robertson is feline groovy
It’s been a while since I first stepped into the world of 3D with Mario. Super Mario 64 seems like an age ago, and my whole family of five has been created in the meantime. However, like any worthwhile creation, a multiplayer version of this three dimensional play-space was important to get right...
Parent Trap Forging A Link Between Worlds
Andy Robertson reveals how Zelda has inspired his son's artistic side
The biggest challenge in a family is the different perception of video games. While the gamers understand these experiences to be some of the most endearing, creative and life-giving encounters they experience, non-gamers consider them dry, solitary and mechanical affairs. Over...
Parent Trap Helping Newcomers Start Playing Pokémon, Zelda and Metroid
Andy Robertson on bringing new players to the Nintendo banner
One of the difficulties of big video game series for any newcomer (never mind families) is when and how to jump in. Franchises like Skylanders, Zelda and Metroid offer lots of different games on lots of different formats that a family could buy to get started. However, the problem is that...
Video This Is The Effect Wii Party U Has On Excitable Children
Ain't no party like a Wii U party, y'all
Perhaps the best way to assess the impact of Wii Party U — along with our in-depth review, of course — is to see it in action. This new release is designed for families to play together in the same room so to test this out, we eavesdropped on one family as they played — with permission, of course...
