July2014

  • Review My Arctic Farm (Wii U eShop)

    Feeling frigid

    If you read our recent review of BiP Media's pet management sim My Jurassic Farm, you'll know what to expect with its sister release, My Arctic Farm: the exact same experience, but instead of T-rexes and triceratops (triceratopses?) you'll be raising penguins and polar bears. The long-running "My ____ Farm" series began humbly enough...

  • Review My Jurassic Farm (Wii U eShop)

    Different skin, exact same game

    My Jurassic Farm is an exciting concept. Everyone loved Jurassic Park back in the day, right?! It would make a great video game! Sadly, the dino-management genre has been left relatively barren since the wondrous days of DinoPark Tycoon back in 1993. Is BiP Media's My Jurassic Farm the answer? No. No it's not. My...

April2014

  • Review My Exotic Farm (Wii U eShop)

    Not a roaring success

    Farm management sims are hard to get right; farming is work, after all. Successful farming games either add substantial non-farming elements like Harvest Moon's social elements, or they take the work so seriously that it becomes comically overbearing, à la Farming Simulator. French studio BiP Media's My Exotic Farm ultimately...

February2014

  • Review My Farm (Wii U eShop)

    Bad harvest

    The idea of packing up, escaping the crowded, polluted confines of the city and setting up a farm out in the sticks is something that has often been romanticised in various media. The thought of kicking back and raising some chickens in the peace and quiet of the countryside sounds nothing short of blissful to some people. The reality,...

August2011

  • Review My Asian Farm (DSiWare)

    Enter Old McDonald-San

    Farming comes in many forms. Sometimes it's exotic. Sometimes it's Australian. And sometimes it's just regular, old-fashioned farming. But nothing you've seen in this DSiWare series, consisting of split-up portions of 2009's retail release My Farm Around the World, could have prepared you for this: My Asian Farm, featuring

  • Review My Australian Farm (DSiWare)

    You call that a farm? THIS is a farm

    Ahh, life on the farm. The sweet taste of buffalo milk, sheep and crocodiles playing together... OK, perhaps My Australian Farm isn't the most realistic agricultural simulator, but at least it makes for a decent money-management time-waster. This, along with My Farm, My Exotic Farm and the upcoming My Asian Farm,...

April2011

  • 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...

September2010

  • Review My Exotic Farm (DSiWare)

    Cleaning up animal excrement just got a whole lot more exotic

    If My Exotic Farm teaches us anything, it's that picking up animal poop isn't any more fun in Africa than it is in America. And yet, it isn't any less fun either. So while it may simply be My Farm with a new lick of paint, My Exotic Farm still may be worth a look for those who missed out...

August2010

  • Review My Farm (DSiWare)

    Prize poultry or pig's ear?

    Life is a long road, and My Farm knows it. It began as a PC game called My Farm Around the World and was then ported to the Nintendo DS. The European release in November 2008 was largely unnoticed by the media, but generated respectable sales, and it made its way to North America in May 2009. Now a slice of the original...

May2010

  • Review Advanced Circuits (DSiWare)

    A puzzler that keeps chugging along

    There's certainly no denying that, a year in, the DSiWare service has quickly filled up with puzzlers, maybe even more than we originally expected, so the sight of yet another making an appearance isn't too surprising. The developers at BiP Media have taken a familiar formula and woven a very challenging puzzle...

October2009

  • Review Viking Invasion (DSiWare)

    Pillage the village!

    Viking Invasion by BiF is a tower defence game that puts the player in charge of protecting various castles and forts from hordes of Viking invaders. The game takes a slightly different approach to the standard tower defence set up, with foes pouring in through various waterways and rivers. Set over three difficulty levels and...