August2010
Review My Aquarium 2 (WiiWare)
Go fish
When Hudson released the original My Aquarium on WiiWare two years ago, it not only quickly made it to the highest reaches of the WiiWare charts but managed to hang around the top three for well over a year. Now, Hudson is trying to capture lightning in a bottle again with the release of My Aquarium 2. While there are a few new additions to...
June2010
Review 16 Shot! Shooting Watch (DSiWare)
Rhymes with "tap"
In one of bumbling cartoon father Homer Simpson's humorously ineffective attempts to please his children, he hands his son Bart a pen to click as an alternative to annoying his sister Lisa by purposely squeaking his chair. Of course, the clicking only makes things worse, but the coup de grace is when Homer proclaims, "Hey,...
March2010
Warmed-up leftovers
From the description you might think Diner Dash is a throwaway mini-game: guide office block refugee Flo through her dream job of running her own chain of restaurants with gameplay centred around seating customers, keeping them happy and getting big tips. It's best not to write it off as it's actually quite a fun game (think...
Review Military Madness: Nectaris (WiiWare)
Tactical Mutually Assured Destruction
They say the moon is a harsh mistress — especially when it's home to prisoners building a super weapon to destroy Earth! This is the setting of Military Madness: Nectaris, a tactical strategy game which originally appeared on the Turbo-Graphx-16 as Military Madness (and in its native Japan as Nectaris). This...
Jack of all trades, master of none
Having met considerable success on Wii with their sports game compilation series Deca Sports, Hudson has seen fit to bring their hit to the small screens with all new games and even more players. Living up to its name, the game sports ten games of varying quality: golf, ping pong, rugby, sepak takraw (sort of like...
Let the machine get it
Boo! Did we scare you? No? Well then, there's a pretty good chance Hudson's horror game Calling won't either. Try as it might, the game never really goes beyond that three-letter interjection in its mysterious tale of ghosts and the supernatural. It's not horrible, but there are only so many times you can be snuck up on until...
February2010
Review Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (Virtual Console / NES)
A Virtual Console vegetable medley
After making several appearances on various Japanese personal computers and then being ported to the Famicom system, Hudson decided to bring the unique vegetable-themed text adventure Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom over to American NES gamers. The game was obviously quite a change of pace from the majority of...
December2009
Review Sudoku Sensei (DSiWare)
Beginners beware
This past summer, sudoku-holics were blessed with Hudson's Sudoku Student and Sudoku Master, which brought hand-crafted puzzles straight from Nikoli to the DSi Shop. However, where Student was for beginners and Master had a little bit of something for everyone, Sensei brings the pain with 100 of Nikoli's hardest puzzles to tantalize...
Review Puzzle Series 2: Illust Logic + Colourful Logic (Wii)
We just died and went to picross heaven...
Nonograms (you may recognise them by the Nintendo trademark "Picross") are relatively recent to the puzzle world, first appearing in Japanese puzzle magazines in the late 1980s. Nintendo quickly popularised them by publishing titles for Game Boy and the Super Famicom and have continued to do so...
Review High Stakes Texas Hold'em (DSiWare)
No more, no less
With the influx of card and parlor game adaptations hitting DSiWare, it’s odd to see that poker, arguably the most popular competitive card game in town, is so underrepresented. Seeing this gap, Hudson has leaped in with High Stakes Texas Hold ‘Em, doing exactly what it says on the tin. The whole package couldn’t be more...
November2009
Bigger animals, bigger features.
We thought quite highly of Hudson's last WiiWare game based on keeping animals, but we also warned potential buyers that it was not so much a game as an interactive screensaver. My Zoo is meant to expand on the previous game in many ways. Aside from the animals being bigger, there are many new features and things to...
Review Bomberman Blitz (DSiWare)
A cut down, portable Bomberman Blast.
Pretty much every platform in this gaming generation has had a downloadable Bomberman title. The DSi hadn't yet, so Hudson must've figured "Why the heck not?" and made yet another one. As with all other downloadable (non-Virtual Console) Bomberman titles, this is strictly a multiplayer affair — there...
October2009
Review Shootanto: Evolutionary Mayhem (WiiWare)
An evolutionary step for light gun shooters?
In the grand tradition of so-called “light gun” games, Shootanto uses the pointer function of the Wii remote to task the player with shooting targets onscreen as quickly as possible. Given the strengths of the Wii remote in this regard, the Wii should provide fertile ground for this genre. But is...
August2009
Review Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise (Game Boy)
Easily one of the Game Boy's best pure platformers.
With the success of their Adventure Island series on the NES console and their first release on the Game Boy platform, Hudson was obviously looking to continue that success with the release of their second Game Boy release. While the game is based on the third NES release, it actually eclipses it...
June2009
Review Water Warfare (WiiWare)
Fill up your super soakers and prepare for a drenching in Hudson’s second WiiWare FPS game.
Earlier this year, Hudson released Onslaught, WiiWare's first FPS which proved that Japanese developers can actually make good FPS games! One of the only complaints with Onslaught was that it only featured online co-op and versus modes; there was no...
Review Sudoku 50! For Beginners (DSiWare)
Less points, less puzzles, same difference?
Sudoku 50! For Beginners is, in essence, a scaled down, dramatically easier version of the recently released Sudoku 150! For Challengers. It seems a little odd that Hudson decided to release the more difficult game first and not release both titles together, but nevertheless Sudoku 50! For Beginners offers...
Review SimEarth: The Living Planet (Virtual Console / TurboGrafx-16)
Put the weight of the world in your hands...
The simulation genre has come a long way - maybe not so much in the area of depth, as that's always been there. Where it has really progressed is in presentation: nowadays it’s no longer up to the player to have enough imagination to fill in the gaps left by technical limitations. Unfortunately, those...
Review Sudoku 150! For Challengers (DSiWare)
Does this add up to the 500 points asking price?
The Sudoku craze began a few years ago and since then the quaint Japanese number puzzle has become cool, whether on the train, chilling at home or simply in need of something to occupy your time, Sudoku offers a relaxing alternative to the crossword puzzle and a break from hardcore gaming. With its...
May2009
Review Vertical Force (Virtual Boy)
Old school fun blasting fun from the experts at Hudson
Out of all the games available for the much-maligned Virtual Boy, Vertical Force is possibly the most conventional in terms of game design. It's a vertically scrolling shooter (clue was in the title really) where you fight your way through swarms of enemies before facing a boss character to...
Review Panic Bomber (Virtual Boy)
Boom blocks!
With any new hardware release people look forward to new games, but are also excited to see what will be done with an existing game series. Due to the short amount of time the Virtual Boy was around before Nintendo gave up on it, very few series received an entry on the system, although Tetris managed two. This is a shame, as its unique...
Go on, be a sport!
Following quickly after Hudson's Job Island is the sequel to last year’s Deca Sports imaginatively titled Deca Sports 2 (Sports Island 2 in Europe). The follow up is instantly recognisable and extremely similar to the original game with the same visual style but with ten new sports to play. If you haven't heard much of the first...
Ten sports in one - too good to be true?
Wii Sports has become a huge success for Nintendo: chances are if you’ve played a Wii, you’ve played Wii Sports, and it even wins our coveted Wii Game Most Likely to be Played at Parties Award. The easy-to-play multiplayer title is enjoyed by all demographics, and after a few quick matches, gamers and...
April2009
Review Job Island: Hard Working People (Wii)
In the words of Sir Alan, You're hired!
After Hudson’s relative success with Sports Island, last June, comes the first of two new titles; Job Island: Hard Working People and Sports Island 2. Job Island (aka Help Wanted) has to be one of the most bizarre ideas for a mini-games title yet, working! Job Island has 3 main game modes: Employment office,...
Review Adventure Island: The Beginning (WiiWare)
Higgins is back after a 15-year break. Is he still the master?
As you might know, Adventure Island is a bit of an odd series. The main character Master Higgins is actually a real person, although he's only well known in Japan. Ask anybody there about Takahashi Meijin (Master Takahashi) though and they'll know him for sure - he's a legend over there,...
March2009
Review Marble Saga: Kororinpa (Wii)
Marble Saga proves that messing with a successful formula can sometimes end up doing more harm than good
The original Marble Mania took the simple idea of rolling a marble around a maze-like level and combined it with the innovative control of the Wii Remote to form one of the most unique and charming third-party Wii releases. The game had this...
