Review Super Adventure Island II (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
Adventure Island: Wonder Boy Edition
Most people are aware that the original Adventure Island was in fact a slightly modified NES port of Wonder Boy for the Master System. Immediately after this, Wonder Boy became more of an action RPG-like series, while Adventure Island stayed a platforming series. That is, until the release of Adventure Island IV,...
Puzzles rock
Cinemax has seen both highs and lows on DSiWare — its Rytmik games have proven to be excellent composition tools, but games like Snakenoid, a bizarre mix of Snake and Arkanoid have missed the mark. Puzzle Rocks is a puzzle game, but we're not quite sure it's really similar to anything else, except maybe Connect Four. It's one of very...
Nintendo Download 10th June 2011 (Europe)
Master Higgins is all alone
There's just one single new game on the trilogy of Wii Virtual Console, WiiWare and DSiWare this week, but that's no reason to be upset - It's an oft overlooked classic from the SNES. Virtual Console: Super Adventure Island II (Super NES, Hudson, 800pts) — The last Adventure Island game created before the franchise went...
Review Alleyway (3DS eShop / GB)
The poor man's Arkanoid
The most well-known block-breaking game, Arkanoid, became quite popular after its release in arcades in 1986. Many companies have created clones, and even to this day new low-budget ones show up all the time. Even Nintendo tried their hand at a clone with Alleyway for the Game Boy. Alleyway keeps things to the bare basics. No...
Nintendo Download 3rd June 2011 (Europe)
Yard sales, restaurants and rocks
Not many surprises today, with just one new WiiWare game two DSiWare titles. There's no Virtual Console game, perhaps because we got one two weeks in a row a while back? Here's what you can grab this week. WiiWare: Yard Sale Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville (Konami, 500pts) — Another hidden object puzzle game, it's...
Review FAST - Racing League (WiiWare)
FAST and furious
It's been a long time since the last F-Zero game. The last one to make its way to the West, F-Zero GP Legend, was released outside Japan in 2003, and we haven't heard a word from the series since, other than its character inclusions in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. While we wait for Nintendo to finally announce something, we're more...
News La-Mulana Hits Japan On 21st June
Western release dates to be revealed soon!
It's been a while since we had any news related to Nicalis and Nigoro's La-Mulana, but the silence is broken today with the first release date for the game, and it's sooner than you might think. Japan will be getting the game on the 21st of June, which is in just a few weeks. The developers also state that...
Review GO Series: Picdun (DSiWare)
First person picture puzzler
In the 8- and 16-bit eras, there were quite a few games that featured first-person dungeon crawling. Looking through your character's eyes, you had to navigate a maze by moving forward one square at a time, possibly also having to collect treasures and fight monsters along the way. Games like The Legend of the Mystical...
News Japanese Virtual Console list - June 2011
Two games each for the Super Famicom, Neo Geo and Arcade
Japan's seeing a bit of a resurgence in Virtual Console releases, as recently it's been receiving five or six games per month. This month is no different, with six games divided equally across three systems. It includes another Square Enix game, but sadly, it's one of Square's lesser known...
Review Super Adventure Island (Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
Back to basics
The Adventure Island series started out with an almost exact clone of Wonder Boy, but as Wonder Boy became more of an action RPG rather than an action platformer, Adventure Island sequels stuck with the same formula as the first game and built upon it slightly with each release. In Adventure Island II and the later Adventure Island...
Review Ice Hockey Slovakia 2011 (DSiWare)
Wayne not-so-greatzky
Many people are familiar with table football – sometimes referred to as "foosball" — that consists of a table containing little miniature football/soccer players on rods with handles sticking through the case that you can pull, push and twist. A ball is dropped in the centre of the table, which the opponents must...
Review The Ignition Factor (SNES)
It burns, but it doesn't crash
Ask anybody to name some firefighting games and you'll be lucky if they name one. Despite the games about the profession generally being quite good, there's not many of them, and they're not very widely known either. The Ignition Factor is one of only two on the SNES, the other one being the more well-known The...
Review GO Series: Tower of Deus (DSiWare)
Prince of Persia Lite
With the absence of any Prince of Persia titles on Virtual Console, there's not really anything available for download in the way of acrobatic platformers in which the objective is to nimbly climb up ledges and perform almost pixel-perfect leaps. DSiWare's GO Series Tower of Deus somewhat fills this empty space, but mostly...
News Japanese Virtual Console list - May 2011
Five games for this year's fifth month
Normally, Nintendo reveals its Japanese Virtual Console plans for the upcoming month on the last Friday of the month, but this time we have it a day early. Next month sees a bit of a Neo Geo resurrection, with three new games being released for the system. Japan will also get the fifth NES outing of the Blue...
Review Hellokids - Vol. 1: Coloring and Painting (DSiWare)
A decent artist's toolbox
With the free title Flipnote Studio available on DSiWare, it's kind of hard to really create anything that would be able to top it. Hellokids - Vol. 1: Coloring and Painting, however, does offer some decent options and might be fun for younger kids. The main draw for the young ones is probably the colouring mode, in which...
Review Adventure Island II (Wii Virtual Console / NES)
Higgins returns
The first Adventure Island was nothing more than a copy of Wonder Boy with some redone graphics. While Wonder Boy quickly became more of an Action RPG series, Adventure Island stuck to the platformer formula for a while before eventually following the same path. The general mechanics are still the same. Higgins' girlfriend has been...
Review 3D Twist & Match (DSiWare)
Not a perfect match
There are quite a few games on DSiWare which started off as part of another title but have been released seperately. However, there's also quite a few games that seem like they really should've been part of something else, and 3D Twist & Match undoubtedly falls into the latter category. The sole objective here is to rotate...
Review Brawl Brothers (Wii Virtual Console / Super Nintendo)
A marked improvement
Jaleco released several beat 'em ups on the SNES, although you may not know that three of them are actually related. Exclusively in Japan, the games Rival Turf!, Brawl Brothers and The Peace Keepers were all part of one series called Rushing Beat, but for their North American releases they were retitled, and the story and...
Domo arigato, DodoGo! Robo
With two games already available on DSiWare — DodoGo! and DodoGo! Challenge — you'd be forgiven for thinking that each DodoGo! game is simply a level pack expansion to the previous game. This was true for the second title, Challenge, but things are a bit different here, as while the first two titles were very similar...
Review Simply Minesweeper (DSiWare)
Simply, Minesweeper
Engine Software doesn't exactly have a track record of making amazing games for DSiWare, all of its output has at the very least always been mediocre at worst and average at best. The studio has previously released Simply games for Mahjong, Sudoku and Solitaire, all of which were quite functional, but ultimately all very basic...
News Japanese Virtual Console list - April 2011
Square and Capcom battle for supremacy
You've already heard that a Chrono Trigger is coming to Virtual Console in Japan next month, but that's not the only thing to get excited over. Capcom is also releasing a big title next month, which happens to be the first of another series many have requested to make an appearance on the service. Here's a...
Three in one
With so many puzzle games on DSiWare already, it's kind of hard to invent a completely new concept for your game. So why not combine the concept of several other games into one? Shapo is pretty much a combination of Lonpos, Tetris and Art of Balance, with key elements from each coming into play during the game. There's a classic and...
Review Puzzle to Go Sightseeing (DSiWare)
Still no new sights to see here
We originally only got two Puzzle to Go games before the series took a break for about a year, but since its return we've now already very quickly gotten three more of them, including this newest release, Sightseeing. It should now come as absolutely no surprise that this instalment is once again pretty much exactly...
Nintendo Download 11th March 2011 (Europe)
Here comes the Lilt man... LILT!
It's Friday again, and as usual there is a veritable smorgasborg of downloadable goodies for you to consider including Gaijin Games' lilt line on WiiWare. There are no Virtual Console games this week, but you can look forward to Final Fantasy III next week. Oh yus! WiiWare: lilt line (Gaijin Games, 500pts) —...
